Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 63

Chicago Tribune, Thursday, April 10, 1986 Section 5 3 Tempo Movie's message still as relevant as it was in '40s JH Spin Photo by Jame Actor Victor Love, who portrays chauffeur Bigger Thomas, prepares to film a scene in Chicago The point of the movie is that 'as frightened as white people are of black people, black people are as frightened of white people Diane Silver, producer Continued from first Tempo page watch this movie is that it is so true today. Things have not changed. "This film and the book threaten people because it makes you ask questions. It makes you see yourself. It makes you see others, too." Then with his forefinger emphatically stabbing the cover oi his paperback copy of "Native Son" over and over again, Love adds, "This man lives.

This man exists. This is what could happen to a lot of our black youth if conditions are not changed." In fact, it is and has long been happening to many poor black youths in the ghettos of Chicago and other US. cities, as imore and more social scientists -have been noting. These experts warn of an emerging underclass of urban blacks who, uneducated, unskilled, unmotivated, have been left behind by society. Bigger Thomas was an early member of that underclass.

He is an inarticulate, rage-filled, violent youth from a fatherless home who, despite his lack of education, realizes he is caught in a dead-end life of poverty, bereft of opportunities and tightly circumscribed by racism and economic oppression. "Bigger was as fearful of whites as whites were of him. Even his inarticulateness angers Bigger," says Richard Wesley, who adapted Wright's novel for the screen. "The Bigger Thomases today are second third, fourth, even fifth generation youth. They are the children and grandchildren of Bigger Thomas." The civil rights movement knocked away the foundations of legal discrimination and opened the door of opportunity for blacks.

Many took advantage. of this, and the black middle class continues to grow today. There are black airline pilots', television History, 740 E. 56th has lived nearly all her life in Chicago and knows that fear well, dating to the 1920s, when she transferred to a heavily white South Side school. "We got our first knowledge of, what, racism really was," she recalls.

"We weren't welcome in the school. We were afraid to stay around and play in the playground because they'd jump us. We traveled together. "They had a shortage of housing for black people. They were hemmed into what they called the Black Belt.

You could work in Hyde Park, but you couldn't live there. If you were on the street after dark, you could be stopped by the police. "As long as you stayed in your area, you didn run into any problems. You always knew it was there, this racism. It's still there." In 1940, Chicago had 277,731 blacks, just over 8 percent of the city's population, and most lived in the Black Belt, a long rectangular section from 31st Street to 65th Street between State Street and Cottage Grove Avenue.

Today, Chicago has 1.2 million blacks, make up 40 percent of the city's population, and there is no area called the Black Belt. But, unnamed, a huge Black Belt exists, covering vast stretches of the South and West Sides. Blacks, in particular those in the, middle class, are not limited to this area, but most black Chicagoans, especially those who are poor, are stuck in this modern Black Belt, unwanted elsewhere and unable to afford to move in' any case. And the fear of whites remains. "You always have to be alert going through an all-white area," says Burroughs.

"Some of the southwest area, if you're driving down the street, they think you're trying to find an apartment, to move into the neighborhood. "I stopped in a gas station somewhere down there, and, as I was pulling out, a car with a couple of white men in it drove by and yelled, 'Nigger! so you never can tell." Also remaining is the threat of violence. Screen writer Wesley recalls the murder of 17-year-old Ben Wilson, the nationally known high school basketball star who was fatally shot in 1984 after bumping into a street gang member on a South Side sidewalk. "Who pulled the trigger but a 1984 version of Bigger Thomas?" Wesley asks. "Everyone was trying to make sense out of that: Why? Why? Why? 'Native Son' is why.

We have to confront that As black people specifically, as Americans in general, we have to confront this reality. "What happens to black people today happens to white people tomorrow. Tribune photo by Val Maizsnga of getting that job." The area around 63d Street and Greenwood Avenue was one of the locations used to film exteriors for Bigger's neighborhood for the movie. "I've been struck by the many things that have not changed," Wesley says. "Even though we're doing a picture set in 1939, when people come around, many of the people, men in particular, relate to the story.

"There's a certain resentment in people's eyes. They knew we were filming 'Native Son. They were proud of Richard Wright. Many had read the book. "But they also knew that the South Side had changed so little that we were able to come there and hang up a few signs and other period touches and shoot the picture without changing anything else." In creating Bigger Thomas, Richard Wright consciously set out to make him as shocking and unsympathetic as possible.

"I had written a book of short stories. When the reviews of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awfully naive mistake," Wright later said. "I found. that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about, I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would iweep over if, that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears." Not only does Bigger Ml the young heiress, but in an attempt to cover the crime and save himself, he carries her body to the basement of the family mansion and tries to stuff it into the coal-burning furnace. But to make it fit, he must cut off her head and throw it in separately.

Bigger then makes an amateurish attempt to extort a $10,000 ransom from the woman's parents and to throw suspicion on her communist boyfriend. When he fears his girlfriend, Bessie, might inform oh him, he kills her by crushing her skull with a brick as she sleeps. White society reacts with a firestorm of anger, -fear and hate to the horror of Bigger's crimes and the horror of his character, sentencing him to death. Yet, to the end, Bigger has no remorse for what he has done. "1 ain't worried none about "Native Son" producer Diane Silver, a Chicago native, became involved in the project 2V2 years ago.

MGM, for example, wanted to buy the rights to "Native Son," change the title and substitute white characters for black ones, according to Fabre. Another firoducer wanted to make Bigger talian or Polish. Finally, in 1949, Wright took matters into his own hands and started production himself of a Wright starred as Bigger, though he was more than twice Bigger's age, and much of the rest of the cast was similarly amateurish. When the film finally played Chicago in February, 1952, it was dismissed as "an uneven mixture of earnestness and awkwardness." Eight years later, Wright died in Paris. Today's more professional attempt to film "Native Son" is being produced by Diane Silver, a Chicago native who became involved in the project 2Vi years ago.

However, Silver's movie is likely to face criticism from the same segments of the black community that objected to "The Color Purple because of its portrayal of black men. "The question we would raise," sajs Conrad Worrill, chairman of the National Black United Front, "is why, on the heels of 'The Color why 'Native Son'? What kind of messages are being put out here?" Worrill, who is also chairman of the inner-city studies department of Northeastern Illinois University, contends that such movies are part of "a media war against the black community" to perpetuate the image of blacks as "beasts." But Silver says the point of the movie is that "as frightened as white people are of black people, black people are as frightened of white people." Margaret Burroughs, poet, artist, and founder of the Du Sable Museum of African American them women I killed," Bigger tells his lawyer, Boris Max, in the novel. "For a little while I was free. I was doing something. It was wrong, but I was feeling all right.

I killed 'em 'cause I was scared and mad. But I been scared and mad all my life, and after I killed that first woman, I wasn't scared no more for a little while." Wesley says the film will retain Wright's dark portrait of Bigger. "Bigger is not repentant," Wesley says. "Bigger has reached an understanding with himself. He's not sorry.

We want to keep that. "It's very important that the audience feels Max's shock. I want the audience to be totally involved so that, when they come out of there, they'll come out with a thousand questions." "Native Son" was published in March, 1940, to wide critical acclaim and great commercial success. The Tribune, for example, called it "brilliant," and the novel was made a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, the first by a black novelist. Nonetheless, as Michel Fabre notes in "The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright," the reactions of blacks were mixed.

"Black readers," Fabre writes, "were often torn between the legitimate pride in the literary fame of one of their own people and regret that he should nave destroyed their protective shield of respectability. The choice of such an antisocial black protagonist, so near the bottom of the social ladder, was bound to confirm the racists' prejudice that the black man was a beast lusting after white women." A year later, on March 24, 1941, the legendary Mercury Theater in New York presented a stage version of "Native Son," produced by John Houseman and directed by Orson Welles, again to rave reviews. A preview of the play was picketed by the Urban League, which, Houseman says, "was always' very concerned with propriety and the Negro being shown in a favorable light." That protest was mild, however, compared with the tensions that arose when the production was taken on the road by stage manager Jack Berry. "In cities like Chicago and St. Louis, there was a very tense atmosphere," Houseman says.

"It reflected the situation. It was the focus of something that already existed." There were offers to turn the book into a' movie, but only by gutting it. executives and even a black mayor of Chicago. But such opportunities hopes of any job at all arc often out of reach of members of the underclass. "In 1986, Bigger Thomas III or Bigger Thomas IV is on the street at 63d and Greenwood," says Wesley.

"He can stand under the El and maybe see a black motorman driving the train, but he knows he has no opportunity To a rejected Love go the spoils: a starring role in 'Native Son' Contjnued from first Tempo page dramatically from that of Wright's fictional Bigger Thomas. "The major difference between me and Bigger," Love said recently, after a day of filming scenes on the South Side, where the book is set, "is that I have hope. I have proof in my parents, in my friends that anything is possible. Bigger's father had been lynched. Everyone around him lives the same way a nickel here, a dime there.

If anything, I was spoiled." Until his involvement with "Native Son," a solid career as a classical actor took Love from his New York City home to regional theaters, such as the Cleveland Playhouse, to act the lead in "Othello," or to Lenox, to play Don Pedro in "Much Ado About Nothing." Love was, and continues to be, an unknown in the film world. The casting director of "Native Son" saw Love for the first time when the actor was portraying an amputee on an Aetna life insurance commercial. "Last year I was the new young black face," he said. "I was on the national poster? for the United Jegro Colege Fund. 'I did a Levi 501 commercial.

Big Brother of America. I i play this guy that everyone wants their kid to grow up like one of those guys who could live next door and it would be okay." The role in the commercial is a lot closer to the way Love grew up than his role in "Native Son." He describes his childhood as ail-American. "I was class president in high school," he explained. "I ran track and played basketball. I wanted to belong' And for the most part, he did.

He lived with his family in a comfortable house. His parents were professionals. His father, once an electrician, returned to school for a degree in psychology, taught, and then went into real estate. And his mother, once a high-ranking Los Angeles health official, now teaches at Los Angeles Harbor College. Racial prejudice in Los Angeles where Love grew up was an abstraction to him more of a historical item than an everyday threat, he recalls.

"I only realized I was black when I left high school," he said. "All of a sudden I wasn't class president and I didn't have the cutest girl in the class, who was also a cheerleader. As I became older, as my voice deepened, I became more threatening. I'd walk into a store and people would look at me like I smelled bad." In Los-Angeles City College, Love turned his attention to political science but gave it up for acting when Watergate changed his mind about wanting to govern. In 1978 he enrolled in the Professional Actors Training' Program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he received his classical training.

After finishing the program, he was offered a series of classical roles and his success with them set the tone for his acting career. When film agents in Los Angeles informed Love that his physical features were too elegant for the "street black" parts that were available, he set off for New York vowing never to return to Los Angeles except to visit his family unless he had acting work. Once in New York, Love unexpectedly found himself renting an apartment on 143d Street in Harlem and his exploration of his black cultural roots took on new fervor. "I didn't want to live in Harlem. I went to visit," he said.

"It was my first experience living among black people. In some way I had found a home. I was amazed at the beauty and strength we had." Love hopes that his portrayal of Bigger will help educate the public about the special frustrations of being black in this country. "If 'Native Son' works," he said, "it will show us what it means to want, to desire and then not be able to touch it. It's never being able to be just a man.

It's the same thing that drove every European to this country the search for dignity. We blacks have been slaves in this country and now we're not. We are looking for our place." Although his own life was full of ambition and reward, Love said it is not difficult to find the inspiration required to project the. pain and anger of a man who feels he is being crushed by society. "I can go to Watts, the South Side, any major city, and it becomes available," he said.

"Yesterday I went to get some Spanish food in a restaurant. I left my: costume on a poor man's clothing) old shoes, an old sweater, and an old hat. "I walk into the restaurant like' myself prepared to get what I want and the waiter says, 'That gonna cost I said I don't care what it costs. I'd like to have what I want to have, in fact make it three of that item. Then I paid in cash.

With a big bill. That's what Bigger goes Jhrough in life only he wouldn't have had the courage to walk into thekplace at all. "It's hot an easy story to film," Love added. "The book is dangerous. It tells a truth that America doesn want to hear.

Nobody wants to hear that they're treating their children poorly. But the fact that it's being made means it's time to be made. Something is right." Adopting parents cringe at others' natural comments S'PE I 1086 Unlvtnll Prau Syndlcan Dear Abby oil Dear Mrs. I think it's shame this method of discouraging shoplifting is used, but look at it this way: Although it is an invasion of privacy, stores that use this method are able to offer their merchandise at a lower cost because they will have fewer shoplifters. And shoplifters cost you and me money! THE LOCKHORN3 By Abigail Van Buren Pear Abby: My wife and I are about to adopt a baby in the near future.

When we tell friends and family this, the response is invariably the same: "Oh, that is wonderful! But I am sure you will have your own baby right after you receive the adopted one." This comment is absolutely devastating to prospective adoptive parents. We understand that people mean well and are trying to say something supportive, but there are two reasons why this particular statement should never be made: 1. The subtle implication is that adopted babies are not as good as "your own," meaning one you bore yourself. My wife and I have many fears and apprehensions about adoption, the raising of an adopted child, and how that child will be viewed by others. This insensitive comment brings all of our fears to the surface.

2. Second, and even more important, friends and family often do not consider that the mother in question may not ever be able to bear a child of her own. My wife has been through many miscarriages, a tubal pregnancy, multiple surgeries, and she may never be able to bear our own child. We have many friends with similar tragic infertility problems and where the woman has no tubes, ovaries or uterus. Imagine the effef of this comment, on them! Please tell your readers that adoptive parents need to be reassured that their child is just as valued as the one they had hoped to bear themselves.

Also, please avoid thoughtless and insensitive comments about "having your own" or "getting pregnant soon." They are brutal. I am a surgeon at a prominent medical school, but sign me Expectant Father Dear Abby: I dread going into public places any more because almost everywhere I go, video cameras are trained on me. I walked into a store the other day and was immediately confronted with myself on TV, and a' large message that said, "Smile, You're on video camera. Shoplifters will be prosecuted with videotaped evidence." Abby, I will never set foot in that store again! Am I abnormal for feeling uncomfortable for having every move I make recorded and shown on a TV screen? Do other people feel as I do, and what do you think of this idea? Mrs. L.M.S., Mcchanicsville, Md.

"Margaret! The only thing that can make her look good Is, distance. i He's doing it! He's doing It!".