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The groundbreaking miniseries stirred emotions across America 25 years ago, but on TV, some things haven't changed.
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 18, 2002
LOS ANGELES -- What I remember most vividly is the anger.
White hot. Visceral. Goosebump-raising fury.
I was 11 years old, and I was watching a white slaver command his black henchman to whip the just-enslaved African Kunta Kinte until he said the name his new masters had picked for him: Toby.
Already, young Kunta had been brutally ripped from a pastoral Africa, where he had a loving grandmother and a young girl who cared for him. He had survived months in the hold of a slave ship packed so tightly with Africans that some jumped overboard to certain death rather than spend another moment inside.
That's why the moment in which Kunta had to accept his new, demeaning name had so much power. It wasn't just about a slaver handing out a name white Southerners could pronounce better; this was about stripping away his culture, his history and his heritage.
Just like what happened to my family, way back then.
Roots producer David L. Wolper knows exactly how I felt.
He was responsible for bringing America those images, night after night, for eight consecutive evenings -- wrapping the saga of an American family in a detailed, shocking account of slavery, the Middle Passage and the continuing resonance of America's near-genocide of African slaves.
"Some African-Americans got so angry, they couldn't speak to their white friends. But some African-Americans and white people bonded for a moment . . . they began to have a dialogue," said Wolper, 74.
"From a white perspective, all I heard was, "We never knew things were so bad,' " the producer added. "White America saw for a moment . . . (and) appreciated what black families have gone through. Roots didn't really change television much. . . . It changed people."
Viewers will have a chance to celebrate that event at 8 tonight, when NBC telecasts an hourlong special commemorating the 25th anniversary of Wolper and author Alex Haley's groundbreaking TV event.
If the NBC documentary whets your appetite, the Hallmark Channel plans to rebroadcast the entire miniseries, at 9 p.m. Sunday through Jan. 25, and from noon to midnight Jan. 26. A three-disc DVD, featuring commentary from Wolper and the series' stars, also hit store shelves Tuesday.
Based on Haley's bestselling book of the same name, Roots was a TV phenomenon no one saw coming. More than 130-million people watched the show when it aired on ABC -- 71 percent of those watching TV (also known as the "share") -- a record-setting audience still hailed as the third-largest ever for anything on television.
Before cable TV's 200 channels, before VCRs could preserve a missed show, Roots kept a nation riveted to its TV sets in a way few other events ever had.
"You could have Moses and Jesus come down today and they wouldn't get a 71 share," said Wolper, laughing. "It just captured something in this country."
"It was a stunning victory for people my age," said LeVar Burton, who was 19 when his performance as Kunta Kinte turned him into a major television star. "To finally have a new frame of reference for what the root of the African-American experience was. Slavery was never taught in the history books as having a human, family component. There was an origin to (Kunta Kinte's) soul that had nothing to do with his confinement. That was huge."
Wolper got involved with Roots after mutual friend Ruby Dee introduced him to Haley, who had already written a landmark book: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. This time, he was tracing his family history back to the time of slavery, a delicious concept Wolper knew would bring a new take on American history.
But there was one problem. In this story, white people were the bad guys.
"It didn't sound like a good idea -- doing a show where the black people are the good guys and the whites are the villains in a country that's 90 percent white," said Wolper, who got ABC to buy the miniseries by taking Alex Haley to the pitch meeting and letting him tell the tale. "We had to be very careful how we told this story."
The first idea Haley cooked up involved the casting. To short-circuit any fear or hate white viewers might feel for the overseers and slavers shown in the miniseries, he wanted white actors America loved.
That's why The Mary Tyler Moore Show's Ed Asner played the vicious captain of the ship that brought Kunta Kinte from Africa. The Rifleman's Chuck Connors played a slave owner who rapes Kunta's daughter, Kizzy. Robert Reed, Sandy Duncan, Lloyd Bridges, Lorne Greene and George Hamilton all played major characters who commit awful acts.
Conversely, said Wolper, Haley didn't want actors associated with heavy, race-conscious parts to play the slaves, either, for fear whites would tune out the characters prematurely. So Wolper cast show biz veterans already accepted by white society, including Leslie Uggams, Ben Vereen, Louis Gossett Jr., John Amos and, yes, O.J. Simpson (as the father of a girl Kunta Kinte courted).
"We knew black America would get what they wanted out of Roots. . . . The question was, what would white America do?" said Wolper. "It was a subtle philosophy. Alex once said to me, "If I don't get whites to watch this, then I haven't accomplished anything.' "
Uggams, who became one of the first black women to appear on national TV when she performed with Mitch Miller at age 17 in 1961, remembers Roots as the most diverse project she'd ever seen.
"So many of the wonderful actors involved had never had that kind of forum . . . and here they all were, and here I was working with them," said the actor, who played Kizzy from her teen years to old age. "It was a gift."
Of course, making the miniseries wasn't all smiles and laughs. For black actors in particular, recreating dehumanizing scenes proved a challenge.
"When we did the scene in the slave ship, we shot it in Savannah, Ga. Only about 20 percent of the extras (playing slaves) came back the next day. . . . It affected them so much, they couldn't go back," said Wolper, who also recalls cajoling actor Richard Roundtree into completing a scene where the Shaft star had to kneel before George Hamilton and beg forgiveness.
"He just couldn't do it," the producer said. "The African-Americans watching Kunta Kinte being beaten -- there were real tears there. It was tough on everyone."
"I just checked out," Burton said of his reaction during the Middle Passage scenes. "Emotionally, it was really debilitating. I don't remember very clearly those days, and they're the only three days on the shoot that I don't have a clear rememberance of."
That makes it all the more surprising that ABC passed last year when producer Judy Leonard pitched the idea for a commemorative documentary to the network. NBC, sensing an opportunity to embarrass a competitor, snapped it up (ABC will be airing that hallmark of quality programming, America's Funniest Home Videos). Why would an organization pass up commemorating the TV event that made them a No. 1 network and inspired thousands of Americans to re-examine their own family histories?
"(They said) there's no audience for it," Leonard said last week. "Didn't they say that the first time? How much progress have we really made?"
Of course, that was before CBS scored big ratings -- even among younger viewers -- for retrospective specials featuring Lucille Ball and Carol Burnett.
"When the show was pitched to us, we didn't feel, creatively, what we heard was very strong," said Lloyd Braun, chairman of the ABC Entertainment Television Group, noting that Good Morning America would feature segments on the show's anniversary during its broadcast.
"Everybody has construed our failure to make that particular show as some kind of statement that we don't believe in supporting Roots, and it's just not the case," added Braun, just before his newly hired president of ABC Entertainment, Susan Lyne, took a PR bullet for him by saying she should have thought of an anniversary project in her previous job as head of miniseries and specials.
But Lyne wasn't the executive who turned down the documentary in the first place. No wonder Wolper laughs when asked whether Roots had a lasting impact on the TV industry.
"It didn't have any effect on TV, other than showing that a miniseries was a good thing to do," added the producer, who next produced the epic miniseries The Thorn Birds. "Other than LeVar, the actors didn't get any more jobs, and there weren't any African-American TV dramas. I don't know why."
Burton agreed, adding that, in a town where cynics say "Imitation is the sincerest form of television," the industry passed up a rare chance to clone one of TV's biggest hits.
"I remember there was this huge sense of anticipation within the African-American community inside of Hollywood that there would be some huge sea change post-Roots," the actor added. "That sense of disappointment fueled my commitment to becoming a producer and a writer and a director -- ensuring that my voice was going to be heard. No one's going to hand me the opportunity; I have to carve it out for myself."
In the end, Wolper noted, that may be the real legacy of Roots.
"As hard and harsh as it was, it was a story about overcoming the worst (in life)," he said. "Roots is good to celebrate, because it shows what TV can do. TV can say something . . . if people are willing to listen."
AT A GLANCE: The documentary Roots: Celebrating 25 Years airs at 8 tonight on WFLA-Ch. 8.