Category: Whats Buzzing in the Streets

Debbie Allen

Deborah Kaye Allen (born January 16, 1950) is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, singer-songwriter, director, producer, and a former member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. She has been nominated 20 times for an Emmy Award (winning five), two Tony Awards, and has also won a Golden Globe Award and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991.

Allen is best known for her work in the musical-drama television series Fame (1982–⁠1987), where she portrayed dance teacher Lydia Grant, and served as the series’ principal choreographer. For this role in 1983 she received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy and two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography and was nominated for four Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Allen later began working as director and producer, most notably producing and directing 83 of 144 episodes of NBC comedy series A Different World (1988–⁠1993). She returned to acting playing the leading role in the NBC sitcom In the House from 1995 to 1996, and in 2011 began playing Dr. Catherine Avery in the ABC medical drama Grey’s Anatomy also serving as an executive producer/director. She has directed more than 50 television and film productions.

In 2001, Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, where she currently teaches young dancers. She also taught choreography to former Los Angeles Lakers dancer-turned-singer, Paula Abdul. She is the younger sister of actress/director/singer Phylicia Rashad.

Born in Houston, TX, her father was a full-blooded Native American (Cherokee). She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors from Howard University. Allen began her career on Broadway in the 1970s in the chorus of “Purlie,” “A Raisin In the Sun,” “West Side Story,” and “Anita,” which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award. She is probably best known for her role as Lydia Grant in the 1982 TV show Fame.

She was also a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

In 1988, she choreographed “Carrie” with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Allen has worked on TV’s “Good Times,” “The Love Boat,” “The Cosby Show,” “Touched By An Angel,” and “The Division.” “Fame” gave Allen international prominence.

Its popularity in the United Kingdom prompted a special cast tour in England. While still a cast member of “Fame,” she became the first African American woman hired by a television network as a director in prime time. In 1989, after directing episodes of “Fame,” she co-wrote, produced, directed, choreographed, and starred in “The Debbie Allen Special” for ABC. She received two Emmy nominations for the direction and choreography of this variety show. She also produced and directed “A Different World.”

In 1989, Allen directed a remake of the 1960 film “Pollyanna.” She also directed the sequel “Polly: Comin’ Home” in 1990, “Stompin At The Savoy,” “The Old Settler,” and was the producer of the 1997 film “Amistad.” Allen, the sister of actress Phylicia Rashad, has been married twice: to Win Wilford from 1975 to 1983 and former NBA star Norman Nixon in 1984. They have two children Written

by Dianne Washington

Joyce Randolph Dead at 99

Joyce Randolph (née Sirola; October 21, 1924 – January 13, 2024) was an American actress, best known for playing Trixie Norton on the television sitcom The Honeymooners.

Randolph was born in Detroit, Michigan, on October 21, 1924, and she is of Finnish descent. As a teenager, she acted with the Wayne University Workshop. After she finished high school, she began working in retail sales for a Saks Fifth Avenue store in Detroit. When a touring company of Stage Door played in Detroit, she auditioned, got a part, and performed for the rest of the tour. She moved to New York City in 1943 to pursue an acting career. She took roles on Broadway and landed various television roles.

In 1951, she was seen in a Clorets commercial by Jackie Gleason and was asked to appear in a skit on Cavalcade of Stars, Gleason’s variety show on the DuMont Television Network. Soon after, she was cast as Trixie in The Honeymooners. Several New York columnists referred to her as the “Garbo of Detroit”. “That’s still a mystery … I was a nobody in Detroit. Why Garbo? Well, she was Scandinavian — and so was I”, responded Randolph.

Joyce Randolph died in her sleep on January 13, 2024, at the age of 99. She had been a long time resident of New York City and was in hospice care suffering the effects of old age.

Written by Dianne Washington

Simone Biles

Simone Arianne Biles Owens (born Simone Arianne Biles; March 14, 1997) is an American artistic gymnast. The most decorated American gymnast in history, she is widely considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all time. Her seven Olympic gymnastics medals are ninth-most of all time and tied with Shannon Miller for the most by a U.S. gymnast.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Biles won individual gold medals in the all-around, vault, and floor; bronze on balance beam; and gold as part of the United States team, dubbed the “Final Five”. At the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where she was favored to win at least four of the six available gold medals, she withdrew from most of the competition due to “the twisties”, a temporary loss of air awareness while performing twisting elements. She won a silver medal with her team and a bronze medal on the balance beam.

Biles is a six-time World all-around champion (2013–2015, 2018–2019, 2023), six-time World floor exercise champion (2013–2015, 2018–2019, 2023), four-time World balance beam champion (2014–2015, 2019, 2023), two-time World vault champion (2018–2019), an eight-time United States national all-around champion (2013–2016, 2018–2019, 2021, 2023), and a member of the gold medal-winning American teams at the 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. She is also a four-time World silver medalist (2013–2014 and 2023 on vault, 2018 on uneven bars) and a four-time World bronze medalist (2015 on vault, 2013 and 2018 on balance beam).

In 2019, Biles broke the record for most World Championship medals in gymnastics; she won her 24th and 25th medals at the event, surpassing Vitaly Scherbo’s 23 World medals. Biles has since secured an additional five World medals, for a total of 30. She holds the record for World all-around titles (6) and is the sixth woman to win an individual all-around title at both the World Championships and the Olympics, the first since Lilia Podkopayeva in 1996 to hold both titles simultaneously. Biles is the tenth female gymnast and first American female gymnast to win a World medal on every event, and the first female gymnast since Daniela Silivaș in 1988 to win a medal on every event at a single Olympic Games or World Championships.

In 2022, Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2023, she won her eighth U.S. Gymnastics title, breaking the 90-year-old U.S. Gymnastics title record previously held by Alfred Jochim.

Written by Dianne Washington

Teena Marie

Mary Christine Brockert (March 5, 1956 – December 26, 2010), known professionally as Teena Marie, was an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and producer. She was known by her childhood nickname Tina before taking the stage name Teena Marie and later acquired the nickname Lady T, given to her by her collaborator and friend Rick James.

She was known for her distinctive soprano vocals, which caused many listeners to believe she was black. Her success in R&B and soul music, and loyalty to these genres earned her the title Ivory Queen of Soul. She played rhythm guitar, keyboards, and congas. Teena Marie was a four-time Grammy Award nominee.

In 2004, while Teena Marie was sleeping in a hotel room, a large picture frame fell and struck her on the head. The blow caused a serious concussion that resulted in momentary seizures for the rest of her life.

On the afternoon of December 26, 2010, Teena Marie was found dead by her daughter, Alia Rose, in her Pasadena home. On December 30, 2010, an autopsy was performed by the coroner of Los Angeles County, who found no signs of apparent trauma or a discernible cause of death and concluded she had died from natural causes. She had suffered a generalized tonic–clonic seizure a month before.

A memorial service was held at Forest Lawn Cemetery on January 10, 2011. Among those in attendance were Stevie Wonder, Deniece Williams, Smokey Robinson, Queen Latifah, LisaRaye, Sinbad, Tichina Arnold, Shanice Wilson, and Berry Gordy, Jr.

Written by Dianne Washington

Tim Reid

Tim Reid (born December 19, 1944) is an American actor, comedian and film director best known for his roles in prime-time American television programs, such as Venus Flytrap on WKRP in Cincinnati (1978–82), Marcel “Downtown” Brown on Simon & Simon (1983–87), Ray Campbell on Sister, Sister (1994–99) and William Barnett on That ’70s Show (2004–06). Reid starred in a CBS series, Frank’s Place, as a professor who inherits a Louisiana restaurant. Reid is the founder and president of Legacy Media Institute, a non-profit organization “dedicated to bringing together leading professionals in the film and television industry, outstanding actors, and young men and women who wish to pursue a career in the entertainment media”

Timothy Lee Reid was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and raised in the Crestwood area of Chesapeake, Virginia, formerly Norfolk County, Virginia. He is the son of William Lee and Augustine (née Wilkins) Reid. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration at Norfolk State College in 1968. Reid also became a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

After graduation, he was hired by Dupont Corporation, where he worked for three years. Reid’s entertainment career also began in 1968. He and insurance salesman Tom Dreesen met at a Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting near Chicago. They were “put together to promote an anti-drug program in the local schools” and, prompted by a comment from a child, decided to form a comedy team. The team, later named “Tim and Tom,” was the first interracial comedy duo.

Reid started on the short-lived The Richard Pryor Show. Reid starred as DJ “Venus Flytrap” on the hit sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, in what is perhaps his best-known TV role. Reid starred as Lieutenant Marcel Proust “Downtown” Brown (episodes 43-127) on the detective series Simon & Simon. In 1988, Reid won an award from Viewers for Quality Television Awards as “Best Actor in a Quality Comedy Series” in Frank’s Place. In 1988, the same role earned him an Image Award for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.”

In 1966, Reid married Rita Ann Sykes; they divorced on May 9, 1980. They have two children: Timothy II (born 1968) and Tori Reid (born 1971). On December 4, 1982, he married actress Daphne Maxwell Reid. Reid appeared in the initial movie version of Stephen King’s epic horror novel It. He made an appearance in three first-season episodes of Highlander: The Series. He had a starring role in the series Sister, Sister as Ray Campbell for the entire six-season run. On April 13, 2009, Reid appeared on the short-lived series Roommates as Mr. Daniels. Reid had a recurring role on That ’70s Show as William Barnett.

Reid has directed various television programs and the film Once Upon a Time…When We Were Colored is based on a novel by Clifton L. Taulbert. He directed and adapted a children’s TV show called Bobobobs, which aired in the late 1980s. Reid is the creator of Stop the Madness, an after-school special video in the fight against drugs recorded on December 11, 1985.

Tim and Daphne Maxwell Reid built New Millennium Studios in 1997. Located in Petersburg, Virginia, the 57.4-acre site with its 14,850-square-foot sound studio was the only Black-owned film studio in the United States since the 1930s and also one of the largest independent film studios outside of Hollywood. New Millennium Studios was used in dozens of movie and television productions, including scenes from the 2001 film “Hearts in Atlantis,” of the Stephen King novel; parts of 2000’s “The Contender,” and elements of Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film, “Lincoln,” were all shot there. The Reid’s also produced feature films of their own. In 2008, he and Tom Dreesen wrote a book about those years called Tim & Tom: An American Comedy in Black and White.

Reid was named to the board of directors of the American Civil War Center in July 2011 at Tredegar Iron Works. On May 10, 2014, Reid received a VCU honorary doctorate for his outstanding and distinguished contributions. He delivered a commencement speech during the ceremony. During the 1980s and 1990s, Reid served on the advisory board of the National Student Film Institute. Due to “a lack of incentives in the state” to bring film production to Virginia, the Reid’s sold the property in March 2015 for $1.475 million to Four Square Property Management LLC, a company formed by Four Square Industrial Constructors based in Chester, Virginia.

Written by Dianne Washington

Jennifer Beals

Jennifer Beals was born on December 19, 1963. She is a Black actress and photographer.

Beals was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, in the Bronzseville community. She’s the daughter of Jeanne Anderson, an elementary school teacher, and Alfred Beals, who owned grocery stores. Beals’ father was Black, and her mother was Irish. She has two brothers, Bobby and Gregory. Her father died when Beals was nine years old. Beals says her biracial heritage affected her. She “always lived sort of on the outside,” with an idea “of being the other in society.” She got her first job at 13 at an ice cream store, using her height to convince her boss she was 16. Her mother remarried in 1981 to Edward Cohen.

She was inspired to become an actress by two episodes: working on a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and seeing Balm in Gilead with Joan Allen while volunteer-ushering at the Steppenwolf Theatre. Beals graduated from Francis W. Parker School and participated in Goodman Theatre Young People’s Drama Workshop. She graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in American Literature in 1987.

She deferred a term so she could film Flashdance. While at Yale, Beals was a resident of Morse College. Beals had a minor role in the 1980 film My Bodyguard. She was nominated for a Golden Globe, and the film received an Academy Award for Best Song. After graduation, Beals resumed acting, playing in the boxing film Split Decisions. She was in 1989’s Vampire’s Kiss. In 1992, she appeared in 2000 Malibu Road. In 1995, Beals and Denzel Washington co-starred in Devil in a Blue Dress. That same year, she appeared in two segments of the four-story anthology Four Rooms, one of which was directed by her then-husband, Alexandre Rockwell.

In 2003, she played in the film adaptation of Runaway Jury and 2006’s The Grudge 2. In 2004, Beals made a brief cameo in the final episode of Frasier. In 2007, she appeared in the small TV drama My Name Is Sarah. Beals starred in The L Word. She also appeared alongside Tim Roth in Lie to Me. Beals was in The Chicago Code. In 2010, Beals reunited with Denzel Washington in the post-apocalyptic action drama The Book of Eli.

In 2013, Beals was in the drama pilot Westside; in 2014, Beals was in Proof, and Beals played in the Full Out movie about Ariana Berlin. In 2017, the actress played in the film version of Before I Fall. On February 27, 2017, Beals played the series Taken, a prequel to the Taken film series. In 2018, Beals was cast in the Swamp Thing series. In 2019, she played the role of Karen in the romance movie After. In December 2019, Beals reprised her role as Bette Porter in The L Word: Generation Q. In 2021, Beals appeared in the series premiere of The Book of Boba Fett.

Beals is a practicing Buddhist. She married Alexandre Rockwell in 1986 and divorced him in 1996. In 1998, she married Ken Dixon, a Canadian entrepreneur. On October 18, 2005, Beals gave birth to their daughter. Dixon also has two children from a previous marriage. She has been a vocal advocate for gay rights. In October 2012, she received the Human Rights Campaign’s Ally For Equality Award for supporting the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. She also practices kung-fu, sanshou, and kickboxing and is a triathlete.

She has shown her work as a photographer under Dixon’s married name. In 1989, she spent some time in Haiti photographing the elections. She published a book about her time on The L Word featuring her photographs. In 2010, Beals served as the Grand Marshal of the McDonald’s Thanksgiving Parade in Chicago. She spoke of the two charities important to her: the Matthew Shepard Foundation and The Pablove Foundation.

Written by Dianne Washington

Angie Stone

Angela Laverne Brown (born December 18, 1961) known professionally as Angie Stone, is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and record producer. She rose to fame in the late 1970s as member of the hip hop trio The Sequence. In the early 1990s, she became a member of the R&B trio Vertical Hold. Stone would later release her solo debut Black Diamond (1999) on Arista Records, which was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America and spawned the single “No More Rain (In This Cloud)”.

After transitioning to J Records, she released her second album, Mahogany Soul (2001), which included the hit single “Wish I Didn’t Miss You”; followed by the albums Stone Love (2004) and The Art of Love & War (2007), her first number-one album on the US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.

Stone ventured into acting in the 2000s, making her film debut in the 2002 comedy film The Hot Chick, and her stage debut in 2003, in the role of Big Mama Morton in the Broadway musical Chicago. She has since appeared in supporting roles in films and television series as well as several musical productions, including VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club and TV One’s R&B Divas, and movies such as The Fighting Temptations (2003), Pastor Brown (2009) and School Gyrls (2010).

Stone has been nominated for three Grammy Awards and has won two Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards. In 2021, she received the Soul Music Icon Award at the Black Music Honors.

Stone was born in Columbia, South Carolina, where she began singing gospel music at First Nazareth Baptist Church, under the leadership of Reverend Blakely N. Scott. Her father, a member of a local gospel quartet, took Stone to see performances by gospel artists such as the Singing Angels and the Gospel Keynotes.

In the late 1970s, when Stone was 16, she formed the rap trio The Sequence, a female hip-hop act, also consisting of Cheryl “The Pearl” Cook and Gwendolyn “Blondie” Chisolm. They were the second rap group signed to the Sugar Hill Records after auditioning for manager Sylvia Robinson backstage at a Sugar Hill Gang concert in South Carolina. In 1980, The Sequence scored a hit with their single “Funk You Up”, which reached number 15 on the US Top Black Singles chart. The trio enjoyed a series of rap hits as the first female rap group during the early years of hip hop. Singles such as “Monster Jam” featuring rapper Spoonie Gee and “Funky Sound (Tear the Roof Off)” kept the band touring, with Robinson acting as their mentor. The group faded into obscurity as hip hop changed from its original party sound to a grittier street art form and the trio eventually disbanded in 1985.

Stone has two children. Stone’s daughter, Diamond, was born in 1984 and is from her marriage to Rodney Stone (also known as Lil’ Rodney C!, from the hip-hop group Funky Four Plus One). Diamond contributed background vocals to Stone’s 2007 song “Baby”. Diamond gave birth to Stone’s grandson in 2008 and another grandchild in July 2012.

During the 1990s, Stone was in a relationship with neo soul singer D’Angelo. They have a son named Michael D’Angelo Archer II. He was born in 1998.

Stone lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her son, Michael and her daughter, Diamond.

In March 2015, it was reported that Stone had been arrested for assaulting her 30-year-old daughter.

Stone was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 1999 and, along with comedian-actor Anthony Anderson, was part of the F.A.C.E Diabetes (Fearless African Americans Connected and Empowered) program sponsored by Eli Lilly and Company, which helps African Americans understand their risk for the disease and how to control it. Stone said that both her mother and her mother’s sister were diabetic.

Written by Dianne Washington

Ossie Davis

Raiford Chatman “Ossie” Davis (December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005) was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death. He and his wife were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame; were awarded the National Medal of Arts and were recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994.

Davis’s credits as a film director include Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Black Girl (1972), and Gordon’s War (1973). As a screen actor, Davis appeared in such films as Do the Right Thing (1989), Grumpy Old Men (1993), The Client (1994), Dr. Dolittle (1998), and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

Raiford Chatman Davis (his birth name) was the oldest of five children born to Laura Cooper and Kince Davis in Cogden, GA. He picked up his nickname; others mistook his mother’s articulation of his initials, “R.C” as “Ossie.” He is the older brother of research scientist William C. Davis. He headed for Howard University, where he studied under drama critic Alain LeRoy Locke. Davis began his career as a writer and an actor with the Rose McClendon Players in Harlem in 1939.

In 1946, Davis made his Broadway debut in “Jeb,” winning rave reviews. He went on to perform in many Broadway productions, including “Anna Lucasta,” “The Wisteria Trees,” “Green Pastures,” “Jamaica, Ballad for Bimshire,” “The Zulu and the Zayda,” and the stage version of “I’m Not Rappaport.”

Davis and Ruby Dee were married in 1948 and are the parents of three children. They published their joint autobiography, “With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together.” Davis and Dee, partners and performers, stage and screen collaborators, and political activists, enjoyed a long and luminous career in entertainment. They had over 50 years of collaboration on various creative, charitable, political, and social projects.

Davis’ first movie role was in “No Way Out” in 1950, followed by a Broadway role in “No Time for Sergeants” and “Raisin in the Sun,” a ground-breaking 1950s play about the personal and painful consequences of housing discrimination for a black family, which he reprised in a film version. He also starred in “The Joe Louis Story” in 1953.

In 1961, Davis wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed “Purlie Victorious.” He wrote and directed many films, including “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970) and “Countdown at Kusini” (co-produced with his wife, 1976), the first American feature film to be shot entirely in Africa by Black professionals. Other Davis credits include “Do the Right Thing” (1989), “Jungle Fever” (1991), and “Malcolm X” (1994).

Davis also appeared in the film “Dr. Doolittle” with Eddie Murphy; “Get on the Bus” for Spike Lee; “Angry Men” for Showtime Network; and on the CBS television series “Promised Land.”

Davis received many honors and citations, including the Hall of Fame Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement in 1989; the Theater Hall of Fame in 1994; the U.S. National Medal for the Arts in 1995; the New York Urban League Frederick Douglass Award; the NAACP Image Award and more. He and his wife were joint Kennedy Center honorees in December. They were cited not only for their “theatrical and film achievement” but because they opened “many a door previously shut tight to African American artists and planted the seed for the flowering of America’s multicultural humanity.”

Davis is the author of three children’s books, including “Escape to Freedom,” which was honored by the American Library Association and the Jane Adams Children’s Book Award; “Langston”; and “Just Like Martin.”

Davis and Dee were eloquent voices and fund-raisers for American Civil Rights issues from the HUAC hearings of the McCarthy era in the 1950s. They were blacklisted because of their activities, and well into the 1980s and ’90s, Davis continued as a spokesman for numerous causes of equality.

Ossie Davis was found dead on February 4, 2005, in his hotel room in Miami Beach, FL, at the age of 87; he was making a film called “Retirement.”

Written by Dianne Washington

Frankie Crocker

Frankie “Hollywood” Crocker (December 18, 1937 – October 21, 2000) was an American disc jockey who helped grow WBLS, the black music radio station in New York.

According to popeducation.org, Crocker began his career in Buffalo at the AM Soul powerhouse WUFO (also the home to future greats Gerry Bledsoe, Eddie O’Jay, Herb Hamlett, Gary Byrd and Chucky T) before moving to Manhattan, where he first worked for Soul station WWRL and later top-40 WMCA in 1969. He then worked for WBLS as program director, taking that station to the top of the ratings during the late 1970s and pioneering the radio format now known as urban contemporary. He sometimes called himself the Chief Rocker, and he was as well known for his boastful on-air patter as for his off-air flamboyance.

When Studio 54 was at the height of its popularity, Crocker once rode in through the front entrance on a white stallion.[4] In the studio, before he left for the day, Crocker would light a candle and invite female listeners to enjoy a candlelight bath with him. He signed off the air each night to the tune “Moody’s Mood For Love” by vocalese crooner King Pleasure. Crocker, a native of Buffalo, coined the phrase “urban contemporary” in the 1970s, a label for the eclectic mix of songs that he played.

He’d been the program director at WWRL and felt held back by what he considered to be the narrow perspective of the station. He quit and was twice re-hired by the station management; “He knew how to attract attention,” the chairman of Inner City Broadcasting, Hal Jackson was the owner of WBLS and once said, “We called him Hollywood.”

By 1979 he was shuttling between the west and east coast, with programming duties at KUTE in L.A. which featured R&B before a format change instituted there and on the east coast at WBLS which he called “Disco and More”, relying on his expertise at “finding the music”. Speaking to Radio Report magazine, an industry periodical, Crocker said, “There is nothing I won’t play if I hear it and like it and feel it will go for my market”.

WBLS-FM broke Blondie, Madonna, Shannon, D Train, all Arthur Baker records, The System, Colonel Abrams, Alicia Myers and supermodel Grace Jones. He made, “Love is the Message” by MFSB NYC’s unofficial anthem on the radio. WBLS airplay made “Ain’t No Stoppin Us Now” by McFadden and Whitehead a favorite cookout, church, wedding and graduation song. “The Magnificent Seven” by the Clash became a hot song in the Black Community. He gave America exposure to an obscure genre called “Reggae” and a little-known Jamaican rocker named Bob Marley. Fatback Band frontman Bill Curtis credited Crocker with breaking the group in New York.

Crocker was the master of ceremonies of shows at the Apollo Theater in Harlem and was one of the first VJs on VH-1, the cable music video channel, in addition to hosting the TV series Solid Gold and NBC’s Friday Night Videos. As an actor, Crocker appeared in five films, including Cleopatra Jones (1973), Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), and Darktown Strutters (Get Down and Boogie) (1975).

He is credited with introducing as many as 30 new artists to the mainstream, including Manu Dibango’s “Soul Makossa” to American audiences. While both Gary Byrd and Herb Hamlett were influenced by Crocker, it is only Hamlett who always attributes his success to his mentor in Buffalo, Frankie Crocker.

Frankie Crocker was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2000 and the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 2005.

Crocker was indicted as a result of a 1976 payola investigation; the charges were later dismissed.[13] After he was charged, the radio station dropped him, and Crocker moved to L.A. and returned to school.

After the payola charges were dismissed, he returned to New York radio in 1979 as DJ and Program Director on WBLS-FM, at the end of the disco era. Crocker’s career in radio ended by 1985. He moved to MTV as a VJ on the VH-1 cable channel.

In October 2000, Crocker went into a Miami area hospital for several weeks. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and kept the illness a secret from his friends and even from his mother. He died on October 21, 2000. His friend and former boss Bob Law, a onetime program director of WWRL, said of Crocker, “He encompassed all of the urban sophistication. He appreciated the culture, the whole urban experience, and he wove it together. That’s missing now, even in black radio”.

Written by Dianne Washington

Jamie Foxx

Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, comedian, and singer. He received acclaim for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the film Ray (2004), winning the Academy Award, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. That same year, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the crime film Collateral.

Foxx gained his career breakthrough as a featured player in the sketch comedy show In Living Color until the show’s end in 1994. Following this success, he was given his own sitcom The Jamie Foxx Show, in which he starred, co-created and produced from 1996 to 2001. He gained prominence for his film roles in Booty Call (1997), Ali (2001), Jarhead (2005), Dreamgirls (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Horrible Bosses (2011), Django Unchained (2012), Annie (2014), Baby Driver (2017), and Soul (2020). He played the supervillain Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). For playing Walter McMillian in Just Mercy (2019) he received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination.

As a musician, Foxx earned two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, with his features on the singles “Slow Jamz” by Twista alongside Kanye West, and “Gold Digger” by Kanye West. His single “Blame It” won him the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. Four of his five studio albums have charted in the top ten of the U.S. Billboard 200: Unpredictable (2005), which topped the chart, Intuition (2008), Best Night of My Life (2010), and Hollywood: A Story of a Dozen Roses (2015). Since 2017, Foxx has served as the host and executive producer of the Fox game show Beat Shazam. In 2021, he wrote his autobiography Act Like You Got Some Sense.

Born in Terrell, Texas, Foxx is the son of Darrell Bishop (renamed Shahid Abdula following his conversion to Islam), who sometimes worked as a stockbroker, and Louise Annette Talley Dixon. Shortly after his birth, Foxx was adopted and raised by his mother’s adoptive parents, Esther Marie (Nelson), a domestic worker and nursery operator, and Mark Talley, a yard worker. He has had little contact with his birth parents, who were not part of his upbringing. He was raised in the black quarter of Terrell, which at the time was a racially segregated community. He has often acknowledged his grandmother’s influence as one of the greatest reasons for his success.

Foxx began playing the piano when he was five years old. He had a strict Baptist upbringing and as a teenager was a part-time pianist and choir leader in Terrell’s New Hope Baptist Church. His natural talent for telling jokes was already in evidence as a third grader, when his teacher used him as a reward: if the class behaved well, Foxx would tell them jokes. He attended Terrell High School, where he received top grades and played basketball and football (as quarterback). His ambition was to play for the Dallas Cowboys, and he was the first player in the school’s history to pass for more than 1,000 yards. He also sang in a band called Leather and Lace. After high school, Foxx received a scholarship to United States International University, where he studied musical and performing arts composition.

Written by Dianne Washington