Lloyd Richards Interview (page: 4 / 6) Tony Award-Winning Director	Print Interview

You left Detroit and came to New York. What were you looking for?

Lloyd Richards: I came to New York after the Second World War. I was in the Army during the Second World War. First I came back to Detroit because I hadn't finished my masters. I re-enrolled in school, but I had to get a job. I looked around for what jobs would be available, and I saw there was a need for social workers. I wasn't really interested in a job, I applied for that job because I knew I was not qualified. They accepted me. They said, "Can you start tomorrow?" I said, "No, I couldn't possibly start tomorrow." And they said, "Well, when can you start?" I said, "Well, maybe in two weeks," thinking that they would reject me if I said that. They said, "Fine." So I became a social worker, and went to the office every morning. At that time, in school...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lloyd Richards: In school, I had become involved with other people who were interested in making the theater their life, and we began a theater in Detroit. We got together one summer and formed a company called These Twenty People. There were twenty of us, that's obvious, isn't it? We got the city of Detroit let us use a large home in River Rouge Park that had a large living room. We decided to perform in that living room with chairs around it. We could seat, I forget how many people, not a lot. And we put a couple shows into repertory there, we did Hedda Gabler, and I forget what the second show was. But after the summer, we thought we ought to stay together and we formed a group called, the Actors Company. There was Harry Goldstein, who had been a few years ahead of me in college and graduated, and he headed up the company. Then there was a young man who had graduated in law a few years before, and he gave us, I think, a thousand dollars to start a theater. We went to the Michigan Showmans' Association, who had a large room, an auditorium with no stage. They rented that to us and we built a stage. We put five shows into repertory that year. At the same time, I was doing my job as a social worker. I had gotten a job as a disk jockey on a radio station. I had a program from, I think it was 11:00 to 12:30 at night. What I did at that time, I went to work at 8:00 in the morning, arrived at the office, did my work at the office, went out into the field and did my visitations, then late in the afternoon I'd go to the theater where we rehearsed. I began directing, too at that time as well as acting. We would stay there and perform that evening, [then] I would leave there, go to the radio station, do my disk jockey job, and then either come back to the theater and help build or what not, or come back to the theatre and rehearse. Then I would bring a group of kids over to my place, which my mother loved, and raid the refrigerator. And that was my life for a while... a lot of wonderful people who we were involved with.

So I began doing theater that way, in Detroit.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lloyd Richards: We were all aspiring to New York. New York was the place to go. There was no regional theaters such as exist now, where you had choices. It was: go to New York and start making the rounds. Start receiving the rejections, all for yourself, and accept the rejections. And everybody was leaving one by one. I determined that I would go to New York and I told everybody I was going. Nobody believed me; things were going too well. I knew I had to make that break then, or I would begin to feel very comfortable in Detroit. So I got a room at the "Y," bought myself a foot locker and a suitcase. Nobody still believed it. And I packed up, and I went to New York. Now, everybody thought I'd be back in two weeks. Well, that was forty-some years ago, and I have been back to visit, but never moved back. I got a room at the YMCA, in New York. I knew it was going to be tough. I had been in the Army so I had 20 dollars for 52 weeks. The 52-20 club, if you remember, where all veterans got 20 dollars a week for 52. I thought that would be my base, that would give me a start, that would sustain me. I didn't pay a lot of rent at the Y, and I could live frugally, which I did. There were a number of people from Detroit who had gone to New York, to try and make it, so there was a kind of Detroit club. There were three of my friends who had gotten an apartment, so we would all gather there, most days of the week for dinner and chip in and make dinner together, and make the rounds together, support one another, emotionally, artistically, however we could.

And you pounded the pavement.

Lloyd Richards: Oh, yes.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lloyd Richards: You pounded the pavement. You went around to offices, you tried to get past secretaries, you offered your picture, you offered yourself. You went to the third floor at NBC -- that was a hang-out then for out-of-work actors. The third floor of NBC was the place where you could sit around, and the directors passed through. You tried to buttonhole somebody. Working actors also passed through, and you envied them. But it was the place that I learned what New York was about. I was the one looking over your shoulder. By that I mean, you'd be engaged in a conversation with someone on the third floor, and you'd always find that people I was talking to were looking past me, over my shoulder in some respect. They were trying to spot the directors who were passing through, who they might approach about a job. But yes, you pounded the pavement. That was the way you did it.

And what was the first job you got in the theater?

Lloyd Richards: Well, I got some work off-Broadway, in Equity Library Theater.

And do you remember that first role, that first chance?

Lloyd Richards: No, I don't remember the first chance,

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lloyd Richards: I remember the first Broadway role. There were various things that I did off-Broadway. I was in a project, played Peewee in Plant in the Sun, at Equity Library Theater, played Stevedore with some wonderful people at Equity Library Theatre. I know I have a picture and I look at sometimes, and in that picture there was Ossie Davis, George Roy Hill, Jack Warden, Jack Klugman, myself, and others who have gone on to do other things. That was the place where people with some drive, some desire and, I guess, some talent, would function. Agents would come to see it; you were trying to get agents to see you. You were trying to get somebody to see you and change your life. So you did all kinds of things off-Broadway for very little money. I was involved in a theater called the Greenwich News that I helped to organize. I acted there, and I guess I was for a while a managing director there, because I handled the money and tried to make the little that we made work. The production was in the basement of a church. You worked for anything. I also got some shots in radio. That was a hard place to work in because, as a black actor, there were very few roles.

I was going to ask about that--the obstacles you had to overcome as a black actor.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Lloyd Richards: You tried to get auditions and when you finally got an audition, they said, "Fine, good, hey, I love your talent, but we don't have anything for you." The fact was with there being so few roles, and the fact was, I did not necessarily in radio come over as a black actor. But they would say, "There are things you can play, but I can't cast you." Why? "Well, you know there are such things as sponsors, and our programs go into the South, and if it was ever known that you as a black actor were playing something else, then..." So, you ran into that all the time. You weren't generally told that, but you knew that was behind it.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

You knew it because there would be exceptions, the people who said, "I want you to do this, you are a talented young person, and you should work." So, you'd end up with a shot on a show like Helen Trent, or Jungle Jim, or The Greatest Story Ever Told by Henry Denker -- wonderful writer, human being. He used to cast me on that for a while. Then I had a running part on a show called Mr. Jolly's Hotel for Pets. I was one of the major characters. I did play a role that was considered to be a black role, which was the assistant to Mr. Jolly. But I was on that for a while.

Lloyd Richards Interview, Page: 1   2   3   4   5   6