Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 3, 1993 TAG: 9307030390
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ESTHER IVEREM NEWSDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
The Naughty by Nature recording booms at the sold-out BAM's Majestic Theater in Brooklyn, where the crowd, sitting stadium-style on risers, erupts in "Heyyy," "Ho" and patting feet. Then as a lone, slight man walks stage front, a young coiffed woman, then two, then several, jump up from their seats, cheering. The "Hey" and "Ho" explode into theater bedlam.
"Oh, I'm fine now," says Martin Lawrence to the shrieking females, as he stops center stage and cuts a few dance steps under the spotlight.
Best known as the star of "Martin," Fox's Thursday-night comedy in which he plays Detroit DJ Insane Martin Paine, Lawrence is the latest comic to make the leap from stand-up to sitcom success, a route traveled by the likes of Roseanne Arnold, Tim Allen and Jerry Seinfeld. The TV exposure has also jump-started his stand-up act, which features material that's definitely not for prime-time.
Lawrence now routinely sells out venues across the country, and his fans range from grade-schoolers who have installed Martin Paine's expressions - "Whazzup?!" and "You go, girl" - into their vocabulary, to adults who crack up at his blue stand-up routine.
No doubt about it, the man is hot. A veteran of several small-film roles ("Do the Right Thing," both "House Party" flicks and "Boomerang"), Lawrence will soon star in his own movie.
"Martin is dumb large (extremely powerful and popular)," said music/TV/comedy impresario Russell Simmons. (Lawrence hosts the Simmons-produced "Def Comedy Jam," which kicks off its new season Friday at midnight on HBO.) "He is so large. He's like the first in a new wave of comics behind Robin Harris. He's part of a whole new generation that is a little freer. The energy is different. It's not shock humor. The language is so natural. It was a shock 30 years ago, but not today."
Lawrence's appeal is easy to understand: His fans sense that they know him, that he is one of the trash-talking, posturing, but good-hearted "around-the-way" guys they grew up with. This "brother from the corner" persona puts Lawrence closer stylistically to that of his idol, Pryor, or his mentor, the late Robin Harris, than it does to Murphy (it's tough to envision Murphy playing basketball, for one).
"I'm that kid in the neighborhood, I haven't changed," Lawrence says in a penthouse suite at an Upper East Side hotel. "I'm that little beady-haired, snotty-nosed kid that ran around, but I'm also that kid that believed in something, who always believed that I could be something.
"When the fans say, `We feel like we know him,' feel like I'm that brother next door, it's because I am," he says lounging in loose-fitting clothes, sneakers and a baseball cap that reads, "You So Crazy," the name of his stand-up tour.
"When I act the way I act, I'm just doing what I know," he says. "It's where I'm from."
It is clear that this 28-year-old - struggling to stay focused in a sea of cash, easy women and temptation - sees himself as a teacher. He finds humorous ways to make points about topics as varied as racism, using condoms, or his favorite, male-female relationships.
His focus on how men and women relate to each other offers parallels between Martin Lawrence, the television performer and Martin Lawrence, the stand-up comic, who is single. Much of the action on the sitcom that he helped develop revolves around the relationship between Insane Martin Paine, and his girlfriend Gina (played by Tisha Campbell).
Lawrence's focus on relationships stems from his own childhood. He was born in Germany where his father, John Lawrence, was stationed in the military. When the family moved back to the United States, they lived in a variety of places including Queens. His parents' marriage dissolved. As a result, Lawrence jokes that one moment he was running around a house with a private back yard and the next he was `'ducking cars in the projects."
If you ask him, he'll tell you that he loves his father, that they get together periodically for drinks. But you walk away knowing that he still feels bitter because he and his five brothers and sisters grew up with little or no support from his father. His mother, Chlora Lawrence, struggled with a series of cashier jobs in Landover, Md., where the family eventually settled.
Lawrence was a bad, hyperactive little boy, so bad that his mother tried to leave him with his father. But when he was in the third grade, he joined the family in Landover, where he is remembered as the boy who stood against the wall cracking on everybody who walked by. The teen-ager who was such a class clown that some of his teachers gave him time to tell jokes at the end of class if, in turn, he would not disrupt while they taught. The boy who fought and was a Golden Gloves boxer at 15 years and 90 pounds.
After high school, Lawrence tried the local comedy scene and even came to New York for a short while, working outdoors in Washington Square Park, passing his jacket for donations. Returning home, his first break came when he was a contestant on "Star Search." He won once and then lost, returning to Landover, where he worked on a maintenance crew buffing floors, trying in vain to impress his friends with his small success.
In 1987 executives at Columbia Pictures saw his "Star Search" tape, which landed him a role in "What's Happenin' Now," a syndicated update of the '70s sitcom. That lasted for a season then Lawrence found himself looking for work. Meanwhile, his savings dwindled.
In 1989, he landed a supporting role in Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing." Though it was a small part, he made an impact.
Lawrence credits such African-American directors as Lee and Reginald Hudlin for allowing him to express and develop his true comic potential.
"But one thing about Martin Lawrence, I can always go home," he says. "I know where I come from. So if you edit me on TV you can't edit me live. You can't stop the people who come to see me in my personal appearances."
by CNB