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Tavis: So let's see here. I've been on PBS for about three seasons. We're about to start season number four. Which puts me just about 29 or 28 years behind Roscoe Orman, (laugh) who's been playing Gordon on 'Sesame Street' since 1974. The popular actor is, of course, a daily staple of one of PBS' most successful shows ever. He is now thankfully and finally out with a memoir about his life on and off camera.

The book is called 'Sesame Street Dad, Evolution of an Actor.' Roscoe Orman, let me just start by shaking your hand, brother, and telling you thank you, thank you, thank you.

Roscoe Orman: Wow. You're very welcome, and thank you.

Tavis: Well...

Orman: Thanks for that wonderful introduction. (Laugh)

Tavis: Yeah, well, you have earned every bit of it. When I say thank you, I know that there are millions of folk who feel the same way. You must get that all the time.

Orman: It's been a blessing, I tell you. These three decades. It's not something I could have planned, or anyone could have planned. But 'Sesame Street' was just one of those phenomenons that came along at the right time, and I was blessed to have been there when they were looking for an actor actually to replace...

Tavis: Holly's father.

Orman: Holly's father was the original Gordon on 'Sesame Street.'

Tavis: Yeah. And we jumped right into that like we - we're talking about Holly Robinson Peete. Her father, who was the first Gordon.

Orman: Who was a dear friend, and a great writer and producer.

Tavis: You knew (unintelligible).

Orman: I knew him very well. As a matter of fact, I have a one-man play that I do written by Matt called 'The Confessions of Stepin Fetchit,' which he gave to me as a gift, yeah.

Tavis: After 30 years of doing this, does it ever get old? Or put another way, how do you keep it fresh?

Orman: Well for one thing, we have a whole new audience every few years.

Tavis: Yeah, that's true. Duh. (Laugh)

Orman: The audience never gets stale.

Tavis: Point well taken. That was a dumb question, yeah. (Laugh)

Orman: No, no. But another big part of it is that we have just an ideal situation. It's like a family that we have, and we spend, what most people don't realize, a very short period of time each year taping the entire season. Now it's down to only two months out of the year. And we come and it's like going to camp for two months and hanging out with your buddies and getting paid for it. So it's really a wonderful opportunity. And the fact that we all know we're doing something that has impacted generations of children in a very positive way.

Tavis: Do you really and truly get that? Do you really get it when people like me walk up and say thank you, thank you?

Orman: I get it more and more and more. It began in the 1980s is when I first got a taste of the fact that there were high school and college age kids who when they saw me would act as if they were seeing, like, the Beatles, or someone from their past that really touched them, in a way. And some of them would get really emotional, too. So that was my first indication that what we were doing had that kind of value to it.

Tavis: How did you end up in this kind of work? I'm gonna jump into this book in just a second, there's some stuff about your past and off camera that I'm as fascinated by now as I am by your work on 'Sesame Street.' But how did you find yourself in this line of work? This is not - and I'm glad you're there, it's the reason why I said thank you. This is not the kind of work that we would typically expect - can I be frank about this? - a Black male to be in. And yet here you are, and representing for 32 years so wonderfully. But how does a brother end up with a job like that?

Orman: At the beginning, it was just another acting job. It was something that just happened. I wasn't looking for it. I was actually doing a play in New York City, and off-Broadway, in '74. And my good friend Stan Latham, who was an up-and-coming film and TV director, and who had worked on 'Sesame Street' along with Matt Robinson since the show had begun in '69, he came backstage after the play was over and said that they were looking for someone to replace Matt on the show.

And my initial thought was, 'I'm a serious actor. Do no kid's show.' But my wife and I were expecting our first child, and I said a steady gig on a TV show might pay for baby food. So, my first meeting with the 'Sesame Street' producers made me realize that this was more than just your typical children's television show. This was something really different.

Very creative and very committed to its mission of teaching and expanding the minds of young people, so.

Tavis: And that baby that you and your wife were expecting, and that baby's siblings, have all appeared over the years, have they not, on 'Sesame Street.'

Orman: Yes, they have. And that's been one of the additional gifts that I've received, being a part of the show. That baby who's on the cover at the age of four is now 32 years old, and all four of my children have really had the privilege of sharing what I do in my career, at least to the extent of 'Sesame Street' is concerned.

Tavis: Speaking of the privilege of sharing, those who will read this book, and I hope many will now, will have the privilege of sharing in your life. And who knew that you came out of, that Gordon, that Roscoe Orman, came out of the Civil Rights era and movement and went, I'm so jealous of you, went to the March on Washington and met Dr. King and shook his hand. And tell me about your movement days, man.

Orman: Well, I began my acting career at the threshold of that Civil Rights era. Or really, in the heart of it. Right in the mid portion of what Dr. King and his colleagues had started probably 10 years earlier. So, in '63, when I was 19 years old, I went with some friends to this great march that he and Bayard Ruston and A. Philip Randolph had called. And it was just an unbelievable, indescribable experience for me, as a 19 year old, to be in the midst of all of this incredible power and electric humanity and thought and political commitment.

And so the Civil Rights leaders and workers became my heroes from that moment. Two years later, I had the opportunity to - I heard about this young troupe of actors, the Free Southern Theater. A group that was founded by a writer from Ohio named Gilbert Moses, and a slick field coordinator named John O'Neal from Illinois. They had gone south to begin this theater company.

And they had been around for one season, 1964 was their first year, and I joined them in '65 and spent two years touring the south and performing plays for the Civil Rights movement.

Tavis: How has that informed, that experience, that exposure, your work over the years? I assume it has in some way.

Orman: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it really created a paradigm for me in terms of what it meant to be an artist. An artist had to be more than just someone who was living for his own art and for himself, and creating his art as a responsible member of society, and doing something that really served people beyond just the art itself. So, it also made me aware of the benefits of being a part of a collective effort beyond my own personal goals.

And contributing my talents to a group that was committed to larger issues in society. And I've really taken that to heart. It's been a part of just about everything that I've done. After Free Southern Theater, I joined a group in Harlem called the New Lafayette Theater, at the height of the Black theater movement. And really a seminal group of artists at that time. Ed Bullins and Robert MacBeth, and Richard Westley, and Whitman Mayo, Sunny Jim Gaines. We were all there, just creating a whole new field of theater.

Tavis: How do you spend, since you're spending a couple of months taping the episodes for the full year for 'Sesame Street,' what do you do with the rest of your time? How do you spend the other 10 months of the year?

Orman: The other 10 months, my wife and I have raised four children, as you know. I also still have maintained my theatrical life. I'm always looking for new plays to do. I've done a few productions of August Wilson's pieces around. I was in the original Broadway production of 'Fences.'

Tavis: What a loss that was.

Orman: Oh, tremendous loss. He was much too young to have died. But he left an incredible legacy of work that we will live on for many years to come. I'm looking forward to doing as many of his pieces as possible.

Tavis: So does Gordon get typecast? I guess not.

Orman: Well, not in theater. Not in theater.

Tavis: Yeah, I'm being semi-funny, but yeah.

Orman: But in the realm of television, which I don't do a lot of other television. I do mostly voiceover work in television more than anything else. I do independent film work, as well, which I enjoy. I love film. And I write. Now that I've got a book published, I'm inspired to write some more. I also have a children's book coming out, as a matter of fact, as we speak. I've signed to have that released.

Tavis: Imagine that. Gordon writing a children's book.

Orman: Yeah, Gordon writing a children's book. Which I've also illustrated, as well, so.

Tavis: You illustrate as well?

Orman: Yes.

Tavis: You just got too much - you just trying to do it all.

Orman: Yeah.

Tavis: He's like a Prince record. All songs written, performed.

Orman: I'm only here once. (Laugh)

Tavis: Lead vocals, background vocals. (Laugh) So you're writing and illustrating.

Orman: I wanna use all of it, yeah.

Tavis: So you draw, too?

Orman: Well, that was my first vocation in life, was to be a visual artist.

Tavis: See, I love that. I heard that. That was my first vocation.

Orman: Yes.

Tavis: You see your work now as right in the midst of your vocation, don't you?

Orman: Yes. And I'm at a point now where I'm really trying to and finding the opportunity to bring all of those pieces together.

Tavis: I was just giving a speech to some high school kids the other day, and I was telling them that you don't wanna have a job. You want a vocation. What is your vocation? What is your purpose? What is your calling?

Orman: What do you love to do?

Tavis: What do you love to do.

Orman: Yes.

Tavis: Well you've inspired a lot of us to figure that out over the years.

Orman: Thank you.

Tavis: And it's an honor to have you on the program. What a pleasure to meet you.

Orman: My pleasure.

Tavis: Ah, 'Sesame Street Dad, Evolution of an Actor,' by Roscoe Orman. If you appreciate what he has given this country as much as I do over the years, I hope you pick up a copy of it and be empowered by the story of Roscoe Orman. True American treasure. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles, thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith.