My grandmother had the most dramatic effect on my life because she set me in one direction, and I had to go back the other direction for my sanity, and for my ability to be a social human being.
No one asked me to be an actor, so no one owed me. There was no entitlement.
I happened to happened to land in a time, in the middle '60s, that without knowing it, and without being told by the history of theater - which we now see from a historical point of view was an explosive time.
When I was in New York after I left the Army, I studied for two years at the American Theater Wing, studied acting, which involved dance and fencing and speech classes and history of theater, all that.
There is not enough magic in a bloodline to forge an instant, irrevocable bond.
Before my grandpa built his own church, we went to the neighboring town, and it was a white community. You know, up north, mostly middle European people and Indians, Chippewa Indians. We were welcome to that church, but once we got in, they didn't know what to do with us.
When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.
Once you begin to explain or excuse all events on racial grounds, you begin to indulge in the perilous mythology of race.
The goal wasn't to be a millionaire or to be a Hollywood star. That was not the goal. The goal was something about - the goal was to find the goal, but I knew where it was.
You cannot be an actor like I am and not have been in some of the worst movies like I have. But I stand before you deeply honored, mighty grateful and just plain gobsmacked.
And I think, on the other end, there were actors who were not as good as I was, perhaps who could have hung in too, but began to blame everything on race.
The arts have always been an important ingredient to the health of a nation, but we haven't gotten there yet.
I think stutterers are funny. And I know it's rude and politically incorrect to laugh at stutterers. But I think it is okay because I know why they're funny. They make people nervous. People think, when on earth are they going to get the word out, so they start laughing out of their own nervousness.
I think the extent to which I have any balance at all, any mental balance, is because of being a farm kid and being raised in those isolated rural areas.
So in my junior year, I switched to the drama department.
When you are mute, you become a good listener - it's all one-way. You appreciate the written word. You appreciate the sound.
People who lusted after Marilyn Monroe had no idea she stuttered. It is the secret of her sexiness, actually.
So by the time I got to Michigan I was a stutterer. I couldn't talk. So my first year of school was my first mute year and then those mute years continued until I got to high school.
My grandmother though, began to prepare in her own neurotic - and I think psychotic - way to face racism. So she taught us to be racist, which is something I had to undo later when I got to Michigan, you know.
I consider myself a novice film actor.
