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E-mail a friendRichard Roundtree
original airdate May 15, 2008
Richard Roundtree experienced instant fame with his starring role in the Shaft film franchise of the '70s. He then starred in the pioneering Roots miniseries and a number of films with some of Hollywood's most legendary actors. Roundtree attended college on a football scholarship but later decided to pursue acting. He became an Ebony Fashion Fair model before joining NY's acclaimed Negro Ensemble Company. A breast cancer survivor, his recent appearances include the series Desperate Housewives and Lincoln Heights.
Richard Roundtree
Tavis: Richard Roundtree is an awfully talented actor who brought the iconic character Shaft to the big screen, of course, back in the '70s. He's gone on to star in so many notable projects, including "Roots," "Earthquake," and more recently television shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Heroes." In addition to a part in the new "Speed Racer" film, which is of course in theaters now, you can catch him in the Hallmark original movie "Final Approach." The film airs Saturday night, May 24th. Here now, a scene from "Final Approach."
[Clip]
Tavis: Richard, I like the goatee. You lost it.
Richard Roundtree: Oh, indeed, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't need that much gray anymore. (Laughter)
Tavis: I liked the goatee, and I'm always impressed by a brother who has access to the president. (Laughter) I just got off the phone with the president.
Roundtree: Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's a very suspenseful film. I had a lot of fun doing it.
Tavis: Tell me about "Final Approach."
Roundtree: There is a plane that we think - we know that has been hijacked, and there's so many different storylines going on. And we - this plane has a bomb on it. And I've been told by the president that we've got to bring that plane down. But we have an operative -
Tavis: Down as in?
Roundtree: Blow it out of the air.
Tavis: (Laughs) Yeah, we all want to come down, but you're talking about blowing -
Roundtree: Blowing it out of the air. And there's an ex-CIA operative on the plane that the hijackers don't know about, and he's saying that this is not - they have what do you call it, he has diffused the bomb.
Tavis: Oh, I got it, okay, the bomb itself.
Roundtree: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's some bankers that they want some money from, and they've kidnapped the wives of the bankers. And it's a lot of stuff going on.
Tavis: There's a lot going on in this movie.
Roundtree: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but it all ends nicely. (Laughs)
Tavis: Yeah, that's always good, that's always good.
Roundtree: Indeed, indeed.
Tavis: How at this point in your career do you go about selecting what you do want to do? You're obviously turned on by this project.
Roundtree: At this point in my life, people will ask me, they'll say what do I prefer doing, stage, movies, or television? I like to work.
Tavis: That's a good answer.
Roundtree: Yeah, I get - I just finished another Hallmark film with Pam Grier. I get some very nice things thrown my way, and I'm very blessed and fortunate to have been this busy for so many years.
Tavis: I was just about to say, not everybody feels that way, especially people who look like you and me, Black men.
Roundtree: Hello?
Tavis: Not a whole lot of brothers can come on this show and say, "A lot of good stuff is coming my way." I don't hear that too often.
Roundtree: It's a good thing, I've been blessed.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah. I know you've talked about "Shaft" a thousand times, and I'm not going to belabor that point with you, but how have you, since we're on this conversation now, navigated your career beyond that iconic moment? How challenging has that been for you to do?
Roundtree: It's been a challenge. Our makeup lady remembers me doing "Rock." I do as many varied things to try to get away from that image as I can. "Rock," I was the first interracial gay marriage.
Tavis: Gay. I remember this, yeah, sure.
Roundtree: (Laughs) And I purposely do that type of thing to get away from that box. And sometimes it's difficult, but I give good authority figure.
Tavis: That you do. (Laughter) Hence the movie, "Final Approach," and the role you plan in it. To your point now that you take different roles to deliberately try to get out of this box, as you put it, was it worth being put in the box?
Roundtree: Oh, absolutely.
Tavis: Okay, that's what I thought you'd say. I just wanted to ask.
Roundtree: Absolutely.
Tavis: You wouldn't have given "Shaft" back, would you?
Roundtree: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Tavis: That's what I'm asking. Okay. (Laughs)
Roundtree: I was commiserating one day with my dad about constantly being Shaft, and hearing the music and everyone "Hey, Shaft," and they do the lines, and yadda, yadda, yadda. And he says, "Son, let me tell you something. A lot of people leave this Earth without being known for anything. Shut up." (Laughter)
Tavis: That's a good point.
Roundtree: You know?
Tavis: Father knows best.
Roundtree: Yes, yes, yes. It's amazing how smart that got, the older I got.
Tavis: Yeah, isn't that funny? (Laughter) He got smarter as you got older. I like that dialect. When I last saw you, I think it was the last time I saw you -
Roundtree: It was in an airport.
Tavis: Yeah. Last time I saw you, and certainly the last time I was honored to have a conversation with you, you had gone through - you had breast cancer.
Roundtree: Mm-hmm.
Tavis: And I was just trying to figure out whether or not you had - were you on the other side of it or were you in it at the time, but I remember this conversation we had about breast cancer.
Roundtree: No, I'm here.
Tavis: How you doing?
Roundtree: I'm doing great. That was in '93, and I didn't talk about any of that until five years later.
Tavis: Exactly.
Roundtree: And then I came out of the closet, so to speak, about it, and I've been doing that constantly around the country, speaking to men about our health issues.
Tavis: So how crazy do men look, how crazy do their faces look when they realize or when they hear you say that I, Richard Roundtree, had breast cancer?
Roundtree: It's amazing how - I call it a back-handed blessing, because I can speak about it and I have a platform, and people will listen. Richard Roundtree had breast cancer? Whoa. I'd better check myself out. And my mantra is early detection can save your life.
Well, we as men have this cavalier attitude about our health issues. I say in my talks that we'll take better care of our cars than we will our bodies, and won't go in for that annual, won't go for the testing. And early detection can save your life, and that's what I speak about.
Tavis: You know what's amazing as I listen to you give this answer, it occurs to me now there's been so much talk, quite frankly for my money, too much talk, about Barbara Walters' new book and the affair that she had with this Black former U.S. Senator Edward Brooke out of Massachusetts. As you, I'm sure, well know, another guy who survived breast cancer.
Roundtree: He came out about it, yeah.
Tavis: Everybody talks about him and Barbara and what went down, but here's a guy who every time I see him or talk to him, I just revel in his humanity that he is still around, because here's another example along with you of a guy who survived breast cancer - another Black male.
Roundtree: We don't like to talk about survival of breast cancer because it's still looked upon as a disease that only women can get. And as a matter of fact when I was diagnosed and the doctor told me what I had to go through, I'm sitting there saying, "Wait a minute - is he questioning my manhood? How could I have breast cancer? Wait a minute." So there's a stigma, kind of a stigma attached to it as well.
Tavis: Yeah, yeah. Back to your career now - first of all, speaking of career, "Speed Racer" just opened. Did you have fun doing that, too?
Roundtree: Oh, I had a grand time.
Tavis: You're too old to be playing in kid films like that.
Roundtree: I would love to. (Laughter) You got another one for me?
Tavis: I know why, because Richard Roundtree likes to work.
Roundtree: Yes indeed.
Tavis: I got that down. Tell me about your "Speed Racer" role. I used to love that as a kid, I watched that as a kid every day.
Roundtree: I didn't know about that -
Tavis: I know the whole song, man. I remember that song like it was yesterday.
Roundtree: My older kids have said, "Dad, we used to watch that when we came home from school every day."
Tavis: As did I, yeah.
Roundtree: I said, "Oh, okay." Ben Burns is kind of Speed Racer's idol. He was a racer back in the day. And Ben Burns kind of lives vicariously through the kid, so there's a kind of relationship there. And I'm watching this kid race, and he's doing some things that I was good in my day; he's doing some crazy things that are just off the chain. So I get excited during a race watching him do his thing.
Tavis: Yeah, so you got some great roles, Richard Roundtree. You're a hero to White male race car drivers, got the president on the phone in another movie. You are getting some good stuff coming your way.
Roundtree: Yes, yes, and working with Pam Grier.
Tavis: Yeah, that's -
Roundtree: Hello. (Laughter)
Tavis: Yeah, this is a family show, we'll leave that alone. That tops all of that (unintelligible) my hands. Hanging out with Pam Grier, man. What do you make of the fact that you have been blessed? What does Richard Roundtree make of the fact he's been blessed this long to still be in this business, to still be relevant, to still be working?
Roundtree: I have no idea, and I'm not going to question. I'm going to ride the horse in the direction it's going. And that's one of the things my dad laid on me many years ago, is that "Son, sometimes it's much easier to ride the horse in the direction it's going."
Tavis: That's good. Yeah, your dad gave you a lot of good advice, obviously.
Roundtree: Yes.
Tavis: He still living?
Roundtree: No, no, no, no, no. He caught the bus about four years ago.
Tavis: Tell me about Richard Roundtree before "Shaft." And I ask that because that's always - there's always that moment when an actor, if he or she is fortunate enough, comes into the collective consciousness of American moviegoers. And for you, it is that moment. Before that, you got into acting how? You were doing what before we came to know you as John Shaft?
Roundtree: I was a clothing salesman at Barney's in New York.
Tavis: Are you serious?
Roundtree: When it used to be Seventh Avenue and 17th Street.
Tavis: Are you serious?
Roundtree: And waiting on actors and models and whatnot, and this guy says, "You know, why don't you get into modeling?" And I said, "What does it pay?" (Laughter)
Tavis: Richard wants to work. There's a theme - (laughter) there's a theme in your whole career, man. You just want to work. I got it, I got it.
Roundtree: Forty dollars an hour.
Tavis: Forty dollars an hour?
Roundtree: I said, "$40 an hour?" And he didn't tell me that that wasn't a 40-hour week. But I got into modeling, and then I did the "Ebony" fashion fair. And that was a turning point for me, because earlier on I wanted to be a professional football player. Didn't have the skills, and I didn't want to get hurt like that. No brainer to just turn that around. So I did the "Ebony" fashion fair and I came out in front of a live audience - (makes crowd noise). Oh, I know what that's about. And how do I extend that? And we ended up here in Los Angeles at the - back in those days they were doing 79 cities in 90 days.
We wound up here in Los Angeles, and I was fortunate enough to meet Bill Cosby. And he said, "So, what are you going to do now?" I said, "I'm going to become an actor." And he said, "Let me tell you something - don't do like a lot of these kids you can see at the Greyhound bus station, the train station, coming out here thinking they're going to turn this town upside down. Go back to New York and learn your craft."
And I took that advice reluctantly, and it was some of the best advice I ever had. I went back and I joined the Negro Ensemble Company, and in the beginner's class started taking acting lessons there and started studying with other teachers around Manhattan and started doing off - way off Broadway. (Laughter) You talk about 35 people, standing room only.
Tavis: And the rest, as they say, is history.
Roundtree: Yeah, yeah.
Tavis: Wow. Richard Roundtree. "Final Approach" is the Hallmark project. "Speed Racer," of course, in theaters now. And because Richard likes to work, I'm sure there'll be (laughter) more to come from Richard Roundtree.
Roundtree: Indeed.
Tavis: Always an honor to see you, man.
Roundtree: Tavis, it's good to see you as well.
Tavis: Glad to have you on the program.
Back to May 15, 2008