catlover79
09-17-2011, 12:45 AM
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20107633,00.html
THE JEFFERSONS
"We're movin' on up to the East Side/ We finally got a piece of the pie-ie-ie...." The theme song said it perfectly. In 1975, almost a decade before The Cosby Show introduced the Huxtables, The Jeffersons was the first sitcom to showcase an upscale black family. Irascible dry cleaning entrepreneur George Jefferson, his exasperated wife, Louise, and their college-educated son, Lionel, had been Archie Bunker's neighbors on All in the Family. On their own, in what turned out to be TV's longest-running spinoff (1975-85), the Jeffersons moved into a posh Manhattan high-rise, where George, loud and proud, flaunted his nouveau riche status.
Today, though, it's Louise who's sounding off. "CBS pulled the rug out from under us," protests Isabel Sanford, 76, who became the only cast member to win an Emmy, in 1981. "We deserved a closing episode, and they didn't let us have it." Her TV spouse agrees. "We just got a gold clock," says Sherman Hemsley, 56, who went on to star on NBC's Amen. But they couldn't let their old show fade away. So last spring the two turned three episodes into a stage play, signing on Maria Gibbs, 62 (tart-tongued maid Florence), Franklin Cover, 65, and Roxie Roker, 64 (neighbors Tom and Helen Willis), and Ned Wertimer (Ralph the Doorman)—and The Jeffersons drew standing ovations at Detroit's Fox Theater. What audiences liked was "the parents being respected by the younger people," believes Roker, whose own son is rocker Lenny Kravitz. Gibbs agrees: "People want to get back to The Jeffersons' family values."
Yet at least one cast member wanted to flee the family. Damon Evans, 43, who succeeded Mike Evans (now a real estate developer in Palm Springs, Calif., and no relation to Damon) as Lionel in the second season, quit in 1978 to pursue an opera career that led him to England. "My development as a musician had to take place outside my country," says Damon, a 1992 Olivier Award nominee for his performance in Carmen Jones. But with time, even he has mellowed. "I had no idea I was walking into one of the biggest hits of the '70s," Evans says. "The public's memory of the show follows me worldwide."
THE JEFFERSONS
"We're movin' on up to the East Side/ We finally got a piece of the pie-ie-ie...." The theme song said it perfectly. In 1975, almost a decade before The Cosby Show introduced the Huxtables, The Jeffersons was the first sitcom to showcase an upscale black family. Irascible dry cleaning entrepreneur George Jefferson, his exasperated wife, Louise, and their college-educated son, Lionel, had been Archie Bunker's neighbors on All in the Family. On their own, in what turned out to be TV's longest-running spinoff (1975-85), the Jeffersons moved into a posh Manhattan high-rise, where George, loud and proud, flaunted his nouveau riche status.
Today, though, it's Louise who's sounding off. "CBS pulled the rug out from under us," protests Isabel Sanford, 76, who became the only cast member to win an Emmy, in 1981. "We deserved a closing episode, and they didn't let us have it." Her TV spouse agrees. "We just got a gold clock," says Sherman Hemsley, 56, who went on to star on NBC's Amen. But they couldn't let their old show fade away. So last spring the two turned three episodes into a stage play, signing on Maria Gibbs, 62 (tart-tongued maid Florence), Franklin Cover, 65, and Roxie Roker, 64 (neighbors Tom and Helen Willis), and Ned Wertimer (Ralph the Doorman)—and The Jeffersons drew standing ovations at Detroit's Fox Theater. What audiences liked was "the parents being respected by the younger people," believes Roker, whose own son is rocker Lenny Kravitz. Gibbs agrees: "People want to get back to The Jeffersons' family values."
Yet at least one cast member wanted to flee the family. Damon Evans, 43, who succeeded Mike Evans (now a real estate developer in Palm Springs, Calif., and no relation to Damon) as Lionel in the second season, quit in 1978 to pursue an opera career that led him to England. "My development as a musician had to take place outside my country," says Damon, a 1992 Olivier Award nominee for his performance in Carmen Jones. But with time, even he has mellowed. "I had no idea I was walking into one of the biggest hits of the '70s," Evans says. "The public's memory of the show follows me worldwide."