Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 20, 1993 TAG: 9303200104
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: C10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARRY KOLTNOW KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: HOLLYWOOD LENGTH: Medium
BLACK ACTOR HAS ARRIVED, THANKS TO MORGAN FREEMAN
As long as Morgan Freeman's acting career is doing well, Samuel L. Jackson is happy.No, Jackson is not Freeman's agent. He has no financial stake in the actor's career. But Freeman is the standard against which Jackson measures his own success.
"I've always used Morgan as a yardstick of how my career is moving along," said Jackson, 43, who has appeared in two recent comedies, "National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon I" and "Amos & Andrew."
"Whenever I felt stuck in certain ethnic roles, I'd think of Morgan and feel encouraged again. I knew I would only have to bide my time and pay my dues and things would happen for me."
Jackson met Freeman when both were struggling stage actors in New York. When Freeman moved west to pursue a movie career, he was cast in the usual assortment of small-time criminal roles often doled to ethnic actors.
But in the 1987 film "Street Smart," Freeman took the role of a pimp and turned it into a tour de force, turning himself into a major Hollywood player in the process.
Like his mentor, Jackson has played his fair share of pimps, crooks and losers. And in Spike Lee's 1991 film "Jungle Fever," Jackson took a page from Freeman's book and turned in a bravura performance as the crack addict Gator.
The Cannes Film Festival jury was so moved by the performance that it gave Jackson the competition's first-ever award for best supporting actor.
Jackson, born in Washington, D.C., but raised in Chattanooga, Tenn., appeared in his first film while studying theater arts at Morehouse College in Atlanta. The movie, "Together for Days," starred Clifton Davis and Lois Chiles and was filmed in Atlanta.
After graduating in 1972, Jackson stayed in Atlanta and worked in local theater and television. Four years later, he moved to New York and tried to make it in theater.
With some strong notices behind him, he left for Hollywood and a string of small movie roles followed, including "Ragtime," "Sea of Love," "Coming to America" and "Do the Right Thing."
If you watch those films, don't blink or you might miss him. But that is changing in 1993. Later this year come roles in Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" and "True Romance."
"I guess I've arrived," Jackson said with no small measure of pride. "I guess people in this town finally think of me as an actor.
"More important, they don't think of me as just someone who can play ethnic roles. In this town, that's the most important thing of all. And I guess I owe it all to Morgan."