Previously Unpublished: Yaphet Kotto on THE GREAT WHITE HOPE
A few weeks ago, I made my debut on the Smithsonian Magazine website with a piece about The Great White Hope, one which provided me with the opportunity to do phone interviews with James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, and Ken Burns. As it happens, I actually did an additional interview for the piece, but it was one that was conducted via email, and to my regret, the answers arrived too late for me to incorporate them into the piece.
That email interview, as you’ve probably deduced by now, was with Yaphet Kotto, and this would seem to be an appropriate time to share it, even if the reason for that appropriateness is a sad one: Kotto died last night, as his wife revealed on Facebook earlier today.
Thank you, Yaphet, for providing these recollections as well as all those wonderful performances throughout your career. May you rest in peace, and may you do so comfortable in the knowledge that you leave behind one heck of a filmography…
I know that you and Maria Tucci took over for James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander after they completed their run of The Great White Hope, but when I talked to James, he referred to you as his “understudy.” I’d actually read that J.A. Preston was his understudy. Did James just misspeak, or did you indeed also spend time as his understudy?
Yaphet Kotto: James never misspeaks. He’s a very deep man and for sure that greatest actor on planet Earth. He’s talking about a play called The Blood Knot. It was my first job in theater. Before that, I was working from Warren Street Employment Center, delivering lunches and pushing dollies through the streets, when a friend of mine gave me a job as a stage hand and understudying James Earl. It was that job that aided me to join Actor’s Equity, and understudying James... I even went on for him one night when he was away doing a TV guest appearance. The producers must have been satisfied with my work: when the show closed, I went on the road with it.
Prior to doing the play, how much knowledge of Jack Johnson’s life and career did you have? Did you do any research before starting the role?
I never heard of Jack Johnson. The only similarities between he and I was the fact that I was married to a Caucasian woman. She was from Germany...and she seemed to know more about Johnson than me!
When you took on the role, did you think of it as making a statement, or was it simply a good part?
Ha-ha-ha! Statement? It was a good job. In those days, it was simply work, which means I get paid. I was on a roll: I was in Mexico filming Five Card Stud when my agent told me, “Don’t come home, go straight to New York and start rehearsal for the Hope!”
Did you have any hesitation about stepping into James’s formidable shoes? And did you have to get into shape for the role? Because James had a good laugh telling me about how being in shape has never been his normal state.
Ha! Shape? Never occurred to me to get in shape! I was so familiar with James Earl’s style of acting, I figured all they wanted me to be was James Earl Jones again, as I was in doing The Blood Knot. They weren’t interested in my interpretation of the role. They insisted on his. So that’s what I did: be James Earl Jones for them for a year on Broadway. My interpretation of Johnson would have been another thing altogether.
James mentioned that he went back and saw the play a few times when you were starring. Do you recall if he popped backstage afterwards?
I think so. I popped back and saw him after seeing his performance and realized how much roadwork I would have to do in order to cut that role. It scared the hell out of me. I spent several months training with a few fighters to get ready.
I know that Jane had to deal with a certain amount of hate mail when she played Eleanor. Do you know if Maria had any such issues?
I never discussed that with her, so I don’t know.
Did you ever see the film adaptation? If so, what were your thoughts about it? I’m particularly curious because of how much was cut from the play to make it into a film of reasonable length.
The film didn’t come anywhere near the play. The play was about a black man. The play was a rollercoaster that moved like a freight train. It knocked you out and kicked you in the balls. The film was soft and apologetic. They toned it down, and they toned down James Earl’s performance. It didn’t have that punch the play had.
I don’t know how long it’s been since you’ve revisited the script, but do you think the play holds up? If so, do you think that it’s something that you be revived today (whenever Broadway gets back to regular business), or would audiences in 2020 struggle with the content?
I had the script before it went to an experimental workshop in Washington. I turned it down when I read it in Hollywood and went straight to Mexico to film Five Card Stud. I was annoyed with the way it was written. At first glance, it’s racist and outrageously stereotyped. James Earl Jones made it human and palatable. He’s a great actor and keenly aware of this society, and he had the creative skills to make Jack Johnson human. No other actor at the time could do that, in my opinion. At the time, I didn’t have the skills or knowledge of this society to create that American black man. You can believe I have them now. Today my Jack Johnson would express the total anger of what American blacks feel, but I was not fully aware of Black America’s social problems.
James, I believe is from Mississippi. He understood the racist mentality. My family are not from America: my mother was from Panama and my father was from Cameroon. At the time, I was more of a product of my father’s Cameroonian turmoil. I identified with African Americans only to a small degree. They were busy targeting me as “Jungle Bunny “and “Black Dispatch.” Africa has its own social problems, which aren’t just about Black and White. I was still resentful over the fact that the Germans hung my grandfather, King Rudolf Douala Manga Bell and his wife Emily Engome Dayas, who was related to Queen Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg–Strelitz.
But I digress, sorry. No, the written play doesn’t hold up. If you don’t have a creative person in that role, you’d be playing with fire, especially with black audiences, who reacted negatively to Jack Johnson and hated his attitude toward women. But that’s another story, isn’t it?