The Journal Herald from Dayton, Ohio • 21

TGW: April 22, 1982 THE JOURNAL HERALD Dayton, Ohio 2 1 He really lights up her life It neVer really bothered me that we didn't have a lamppost in our front yard. I always figured that if the neighborhood dogs wanted to visit our yard at night, they'd just have to carry their own flashlights. The woman who promised to love, honor and dim my bulb sees it in a different light. "Do you realize that we have the only house on the block that doesn't have a lamppost in front?" she demands. "How are people who have never been here before supposed to find our place at night?" "Simple.

Tell them to look for the only house on the street that's dark." "What about burglars? What's going to happen if a crook comes along some night when we're not home and finds the place all dark?" "I know exactly what's going to nap- 4V He's going to pen. 4 1C 1 '1881 to mm mi take three steps into the yard, fall over a Big Wheel, land in a pile of bikes, get up, twist his ankle on a soccer ball and catch it right in the throat from a badminton net that hasn't been put away since Lyndon Johnson." "OK. I really D.L. Stewart Off the Beat ISr-cpinJISlp WfnHln) IT 'mwMJsjmp urn (yjsywsji" "1 i are not easily satisfied. The cast and crew of Strike Force are "terrific." he says.

"The writing needs a lot of work but there have been some good moments; and if these good moments are expanded, we can have a very good show, because we do have a nucleus and good guest stars. And if they're not, we'll just be another garbage television show." When Strike Force premiered, many critics did dismiss it as violent mediocrity. "Most of the reviews are of the pilot episode," explains Harewood. "And our pilot did have some gratuitous violence. It's not representative of the series." He swivels in his chair.

"In fact, some of the episodes have no violence at ail. So because of the pilot, we've been labeled one of the most violent shows on television." Judging the entire series on the pilot, he says, bordered on irresponsible journalism. And he says that on-the-street response has been 99 percent positive. "They say it's good to finally see the bad guys get what they deserve," says Harewood, "instead of being sympathized with or being protected more than the victims. I feel our show basically tells it the way it is.

Almost all of the cases are taken right from the headlines." Of his own roots, Dorian Harewood says. "My whole life has been affected by my beginnings, my environment when was growing up in Dayton. I grew up around all kinds of people, from the snobbiest snobs to the lowest drug addicts. But because I had the guidance from my father and mother, I didn't fall into some of the negative things I could've. I don't preach about drugs, but I certainly don't think people need them." 1 i I ft-- think we need a lamppost in our front yard, but if you don't want one I won't press it.

It's entirely up to you. I'll go along with whatever you decide. You are, after all, the lord of the house and the king of the castle." "It's nice of you to be so understanding. I guess I could think about putting one in." "Good. It's in the garage." "What is?" "The lamppost.

I bought it three days ago." I adjust my robe, pick up my crown and walk to the garage, where the lamppost is waiting to be installed. I Basically, all I know about installing a lamppost is that you need a lamppost, a bulb, some wire and a hole in the ground. I open the box and examine the contents. It contains a lamppost, a bulb and some wire. Just as I feared.

The hole in the ground is not included. I point this out to the woman who promised to love, honor and help me shovel it. "Of course there's no hole. You have to i dig that yourself." "Do you have any idea what it's like trying to dig a hole in our yard. The ground is like granite." I "I have seen softer ground," she admits.

"I've seen softer diamonds." jj "Well, I'm sure you can do it, dear," she says, getting into her car and driving off to the store. Four hours, three shovels, two post hole diggers and a permanently twisted back later, there is an 18-inch hole in our front yard near the end of the driveway. The next step is to mix cement to put in the hole. I pick up the 60-pound bag of ready-mix cement. It weighs 400 pounds.

I pour 30 pounds into a wheelbarrow, 20 pounds onto my shoe and 10 pounds onto a patch of grass that will never be green again. Next I hook up a garden hose that has pent the entire winter in the garage tangling itself. I squirt water into the wheelbarrow and stir with a shovel for several minutes. Eventually I have a mixture that reminds me of her pancake batter. Only not so heavy.

Time is important now, because the cement mixture sets quickly. I put the post Into the hole. I stick the shovel into the wheelbarrow full of cement. The phone rings. The only ones home are me and the dog.

I look at the dog. She is busy eyeing the post. I race into the house and pick up the phone. A voice congratulates me and says that I have been selected as a very special family to preview a new concept in encyclopedia. I tell the voice what it can do with volumes I through IX.

I slam down the phone and race back to the wheelbarrow. The shovel still is In it. Sticking straight up. I pry the shovel loose and scoop enough cement into the hole to support the lamppost. By the time I have finished, it is too dark to do any more work.

I clean out the wheelbarrow, hang up my tools, re-tangle the garden hose and go into the house to wash up. I am standing at the sink, cleaning cement from underneath my fingernails, when I hear a familiar sounding car coming up the street. The car slows down In front of our house. It pulls Into the driveway. Then there Is another sound.

It Is the sound of metal on metal. The impulse to run outside to see what has happened passes quickly. There Is only one possibility. revises: "Or maybe not even stature, but certain renown. Unfortunately, it's true that if you're a household name, there are more opportunities for you.

And I'm doing this to connect my name with my face. And I feel if a product which lam is a good and well-known product, the public will demand it." Dorian Harewood didn't always view himself in the same bin as bran flakes. When he was working with the sequel to Roots "my manager gave me very poor advice. He said not to do any publicity on Roots, that it would all kind of fall into place. Things don't fall into place like that." It was Bette Davis who encouraged him to explore dramatic acting, he says.

Now they'll co-star in The Nat King Cole Story, with filming scheduled to start this summer. Before cameras roll, Harewood will experiment with assuming the "beautiful velvet quality" of Cole's voice. "I love the Nat King Cole thing," says Harewood. "He had a very smo-o-oth quality, you know." And he slips into, "There was a boy A very strange enchanted boy. And when I get time, I'll work on it.

I just want to capture his essence. No one can sound exactly like another person. But just as in The Buddy Holly Story and Lady Sings the Blues and Coal Miner's Daughter, you have actors who were able to capture the essence of an artist. And that makes a much more effective film." When a phone call interrupts the interview and Dorian Harewood heads for the next room to give a message to his mother, he sings as he strolls through the door. Singing, he says, is his first love, and "I want to sing in the worst way." He's negotiating with Elektro-Asylum now but has turned down other recording offers because "I don't want to get tied up in a record company that's going to stifle my creativity and try to pigeonhole me." Harewood says he has an "innate abhorrence of any kind of categorization." Believability is the true measure of talent, he says, and he evaluates acting performances like gymnastic events: in terms of degree of difficulty.

When asked to contrast Foots with Strike Force he says, "Oh, only based on the first season of Strike Force there's absolutely no comparison. I had absolutely no dramatic challenges to speak of. I had a show they said was basically my show, but there really wasn't much to do." That was his personal experience, he clarifies, because of all the acting challenges he's encountered since 1975 not the least of which, he says, was playing Simon Haley. It was the major role in the 14-hour mini series, involving 10 hours of acting. "To age from 17 to 70 and to try to do it believably; to go through all the changes he went through, from a totally naive virginal character to a guy who became very bitter, to a guy who was a staunch backer of education as a key to any kind of improvement to the point of being a little off base with his son he laughs really ott base." A lot of subtleties were Involved, says Harewood, and the production was Iced with lighting, casting and direction that were "brilliant." As Dorian Harewood talks about Roots, affection and pride warm hii voice.

After the fulfillment of that special series, it's understandable that his standards By Janet Filips Journal Herald Soft Wrlitr Dorian Harewood is making a good-natured stab at an impromptu Nat King Cole impersonation. He swivels in a magenta tub chair in his room at The Daytonian, gazes out the window toward the top of Arcade Square as he assumes the proper mindset, then sings, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fireJack Frost nipping at your nose. Etcetera, etcetera," he adds, and begins to laugh. But before Harewood can really enjoy his chuckle, his automatic edit comes in. "Maybe he'd be a little higher, wouldn't he?" he asks and sings the lines again, a key up.

He finishes with "ba-dab-a-dab-a-lib-a-dib" and another laugh. Dorian Harewood was back home recently as one of the four actors flown into Dayton by the United 1 States Air Force to Judge its Worldwide Talent Contest at the Convention Center. The judges Chad Everett, Gordon Jump, Greg Morris and Harewood donated their time to the cause of evaluating performers. But the draw was double for Dorian. "I'm interested in talent, period," he said at a news conference then sheepishly added, "It's a good way to see my family." On the elevator ride up to his suite, 31-year-old Harewood sings a line from Theeader of the Band, notes that Dan Fogelberg wrote it for his father and talks a bit about how hard his own dad worked for the family while he was living.

As Harewood walks down the hallway, he's suddenly pursued by two braided-haired little girls, shy adoration in their brown eyes for Uncle Dorian. He stoops to envelop them with bearhugs. then puts a wrestler's hold around the neck of their mother. "This is my sister," he explains over his shoulder, flashing a brotherly grin. He gives a warning call to his mother inside the suite that he's got company in tow, then swings open the door.

Estelle Harewood is sitting happily on a couch as her pint-sized grandson toddles around the room. After a round of friendly introductions, Harewood eases out of the hubbub into a quiet room for the interview. Harewood graduated from Jefferson High School in 1968, won a five-year scholarship to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and spent the summer of '72 singing Who Can I Turn To? and other show tunes at Kings Island for $150 a week. His first professional role was Judas in a touring production of Jesus Christ Superstar; after that, he sang in a number of other musicals and played opposite Bette Davis in a musical, AfssAfoYaf. But he's best known for his dramatic roles: as Gregory Foster in CBS's Foster and Laurie a true story of police heroism; as Alex Haley's father, Simon, in ABC's Roots: The Next Generations and currently in ABC's Strike Force as detective Paul Strobber.

"a human being," says Harewood, "who happens to be black." Harewood had his pick of three offers to perform on Broadway for the fall '81 season, but "I preferred to do the television because television Is a much more widely-exposed medium. And I'm basically concerned with a lot of projects I want to get done; and in order to get those projects done, I have to have a name of a certain stature." Harewood pauses a second, then He's adaptable to different people and places, he says, and that's been an asset. And "I think it's important to knuw that just because people are different doesn't mean that they're better; doesn't mean that they're worse. It just means that they're different and that's what makes life interesting." And he doesn't seem to have adopted any extreme image: no chunky gold chains or flashy clothes on Dorian. He's wearing black corduroy pants, tan corduroy jacket, gray cotton knit sweater.

He fingers the window's cream mesh curtains as he reflects, "Dayton's been a great foundation. For show business, you have to come in with both feet on the ground because it's a very unstable business, and you could really lose perspective and get into a lot of trouble." There's a danger when people are successful, l.e says, of starting "to float into an imaginary world, thinking that everything is the way it is when they're performing. You can't speedhall like John ilelushi. lie thought," says Harewood with a sad smile, "he was Mr. Indestructible all of a sudden.

You're still a human being; you're not that character. When you die, you're not going to go to a commercial and cimc back. You're gonna go to the next life and you'd better be ready. It's that kind of thing. I just try," he says, "to keep everything in perspective." Staff photo by Charles Steinbrunner.