In Black America

Speaker: From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio. This is in Black America.

Denise Nicholas: I really think it depends on how. How you, how you see yourself in the world. I mean, most many women at that time, not so much now. Mm-hmm. But at that time, people were looking for, uh, a different kind of life. I was looking or thinking, I don’t know if I was consciously doing it, but I was thinking of the world, not just of the, my little place in one place at a time.

I was looking to develop not only more intelligence, but more compa, more compassion for the rest of the world and other people besides myself. And so meeting people who were in the civil rights movement, which provoked my going south, talking to them and listening to them and the passion and, and. The, the sense of duty to help other people.

All of those things became a part of the mix in my head.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Denise Nicholas, actor, activist, writer, and author of Finding Home, a memoir published by Bolden Books. Nicholas is the best known for portrayals of high school guiding counselor Liz McIntyre on room 2 22 on A BC TV from 1969 to 1974, and Harriet DeLong on the TV version of In the Heat of the Night on NBC and CVS.

In a memoir of Finding home, she explored her six decade journey through TV and film stardom. Our experiences in Hollywood have shaped her the real stories behind her marriage to build with us her other two marriages and subsequent romantic life, and how she reinvented her creative life to become a celebrated novel.

Nicholas began the career as a founding member of the Free Southern Theater, joined Mississippi and Louisiana during the most violent days of the Civil Rights Movement. I am Johnny O. Hanson Jr. And welcome to another edition of In Black America on this week’s program, finding Home with Denise Nicholas in Black America.

Denise Nicholas: I had a friend who was in her workshop, and this is all after, in the Heat of the night, was, uh, was, uh, stopped. So I had started writing on In the Heat of the Night ’cause Carol O’Connor gave me a shot to write. So I did six episodes and then I thought by the, at the end of that I said, okay, now I’m in the lane that I wanna be in.

I’m writing and I’m getting paid to write. So then my friend told friend told me about Janet Fit’s workshop. So I went and, and audition by sending her something that I was working on and she accepted me in the workshop. So Freshwater Road comes out of that workshop every. Single word. So it was, um, about a three and a half year writing period to get that book done, to get it written, and with a lot of good help from people in the workshop, because they were, it was critical.

You had to present your work and you had to accept the criticism, discuss it, and then go back and do rewrites

John L. Hanson, Jr. : growing up, middle class in 1950, Detroit. Nicholas experienced a vibrant culture and harsh reality of a segregated city, which profoundly influenced her perspective on identity. Nicholas entered the University of Michigan as a pre-law student, but dropped outta the university to tour the Deep South with the free Southern Theater at the height of civil rights movement.

A few years later, she would gain national fame on the groundbreaking A BC TV comedy drama series, room 2 22. In her book, finding Home Nickley explores the ways of experiences Hollywood shaped her understanding of success. Intimacy and commitment. She candidly discusses the challenges she face as a trailblazing actress of color, shedding light on the systematic barriers and biases within the entertainment industry.

Nicholas presented emotionally charged and richly complex picture of the realities of personal and professional success as an African American woman in America. Over the past 50 years, you begin your book by talking about your mom. Why start there?

Denise Nicholas: I think because like with, with most women, the mother character has the most profound influence on your life because moms are the ones who, who prepare you for growing up more, much more so, and, and I guess dads or uncles.

Have some of the same function with men.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Yeah. Now, when you began, this is like your second book. Yes. Talk to us about that first book that you actually had published. Freshwater Road.

Denise Nicholas: Well, that book is, I think Freshwater Road is my favorite. Piece of writing that I’ve done so far. I love this memoir, but Freshwater Road came out of a love I had for the Civil rights movement and the things that happened in the South during those years.

And I was there for a part of that time with the free Southern Theater. So I tour toured around Mississippi and Louisiana and really that was my first time in the deep South. So I learned a lot and I sat on it for years and years as it percolated inside of me. And I read and studied about the history of the South and different things.

So when I got around to riding Freshwater Road, I was. So deeply passionate about it, uh, is almost like I couldn’t breathe until I got it done. And because I carried it from the time I was in Mississippi in the sixties until I started writing Freshwater Road. I carried everything from that period in my head, in my memory, and in my heart because I knew, I, I knew that someday I would write something about that period.

So I think it’s, uh, I love finding home. It’s a more difficult, in, in a sense for me, a more difficult task to write directly about myself. And so, you know, I was, uh, I was, it was a, a much more difficult write for me. My publisher, Doug Zebo, a agate had to continually push me forward ’cause I was ready to throw in the towel about 50 times.

And then, you know, with Freshwater Road, nobody had to do anything. ’cause I was so in love with the project itself.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : I say you born in Detroit, but you all eventually moved to to Marlin, Michigan, which is outside Detroit. Talk to us about living in Detroit prior to you all moving to Marlin.

Denise Nicholas: Well, I was pretty young, you know, um, ’cause I, when we moved out there, I was put ahead a, a full grade and I ended up in the ninth grade when I should have been in the eighth grade.

So back in Detroit at that time, you know, the city was changing and it was evident that the city was changing, not for the better. And schools were going down because of white flight and budgets and so forth. And so. Uh, my mother and my stepfather thought at best that I go to a different high school, go to high school where he was, you know, out in the town where they were, were living because he worked out at the federal prison there.

So that was, for me, it was difficult because I didn’t wanna leave the city. I, I see myself as a city girl, and the little town that we were moving to was very small. And it was, uh, we were the only black family in the town at that time. So that was also difficult because as you know, and I know and everybody knows Detroit has an abundance of black people.

So, uh, that’s what I was accustomed to. So I went. You know, I kind of fought a little bit with my mom ’cause I wanted to stay in Detroit with other relatives. I didn’t wanna leave the city, but eventually I went on out to Milan and finished high school out there. Uh, but it was difficult for me because of culture.

Culture, uh, differences. Uh, absolutely.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Now there was a learning experience once you were. Admitted and attended the University of Michigan. Talk to us about that experience prior to you going to the Free Southern Theater

Denise Nicholas: Theater. Well, I, I went to, I was a freshman at University of Michigan when I was 17, and which is kind of, you know, I was a little bit young, but, and, and I think that when looking back on it, my youth translates to immaturity of course.

So my, my grades were good. My scholarship was good, but. I was still a kid and University of Michigan, uh, as I’m sure you know, is a very sophisticated, very large campus with, uh, it was very swift moving. It felt more like a little New York. So, you know, so it was, what I say in the book is Ann Arbor picked me up on my bootstraps and turned me every which way but loose.

So it was great and it was challenging. And I refer to it constantly in my life because in a sense I loved it there, but once I went south, I wasn’t going back to school at that time. I eventually did go back to school here and graduated from University of Southern California. So, but Ann Arbor is still, is like in my heart and in my mind that is, it’s a, it’s beautiful memories.

It’s some kind of, uh, I kind of idyllic, you know, so, but I loved it and I absolutely loved it.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Now you talk about your first roommate when you were at the University of Michigan, and that didn’t last too long. But also during that period, I guess you found your blackness. I’m not sure what that means. What does that mean?

Well, you became more culturally and civic aware of what was going on around, around you and what was happening in the world.

Denise Nicholas: Well, yes, because the civil rights movement came to campus. Mm-hmm. Yes. You know, and remember around that time too, and just a little bit later, the Vietnam War right, was, um, heating up.

So there were plenty of things going on on campus in regard to both those occurrences or issues, civil rights and the Vietnam War. There was a lot of activity there, and I got to, um. One of my roommates, Martha Prescott, who still, who’s now moved back to Michigan, was the person who really introduced me to the Civil Rights movement.

She was very active and very, very smart, and I think because of influence, her influence and other things going on At the time when I met Gil Moses and he was. Setting up this theater to be a part of the Civil Rights movement. I thought that was my entree into the Civil Rights Movement.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Now, once you attended the University of Michigan, but also you went off to New York, why was that a learning experience, uh, for you to help shape the lady that you are today?

Denise Nicholas: Well, I, I think, I really think it depends on how. How you, how you see yourself in the world. I mean, most many women at that time, not so much now. Mm-hmm. But at that time, people were looking for, uh, a different kind of life. I was looking. Or thinking, I don’t know if I was consciously doing it, but I was thinking of the world, not just of the my little place, in one place at a time.

I was looking to develop not only more intelligence, but more compa, more compassion for the rest of the world and other people besides myself. And so. Meeting people who were in the civil rights movement, which provoked my going south, talking to them, listening to them, and the passion and the, the, the sense of duty to help other people.

All of those things became a part of the mix in my head that led me to the south, but also fed me as a woman who wanted to, to have a place in the world that wasn’t just, you know. I don’t wanna say just because it’s very important, housewife and mother. I never really wanted to have children. I wanted to work and that’s basically the way my life is, has played out.

So I’m a worker bee, I always was, and I guess I will be, uh, until the end. It’s my, it’s my comfort zone. Absolutely. So

John L. Hanson, Jr. : is it true that prior to you becoming an actress and, and author and writer, you wanted to become an attorney?

Denise Nicholas: Uh, I flirted with that for a while. Yeah. Uh, I had to, oh, okay. So I, I thought about becoming a, an attorney.

Mm-hmm. I used to also think about being in the foreign service. Okay. Being, you know, probably working for the CIA or something and that would’ve been a hoot. And then, um, yeah, those are the two things, and, and they were both things that would take me up and out into the world. Absolutely.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : You and your, your writing, you talk fondly about your grandparents.

Talk to us about your grandparents.

Denise Nicholas: Oh, okay. My grandparents on my dad’s side. Right. Yeah. We lived with them when we were very, my brother and I were very little. They were really sturdy. Strong people. They came up to Detroit from Kentucky in about, uh, 1919. ’cause my dad was born in Detroit in 1920. Uh, and he had an older sister, my Aunt Flora, who was born, I guess, I guess they both were born in Detroit.

So that part of my family, my dad’s part of the family. Were, I, I, it’s hard, you know, they were working class black people who had middle class aspirations and accomplishments. For example, the house that they lived in in Detroit, which is a house my brother and I were in repeatedly as little people, was not a big rich house.

It was a kind of a working class people house and a working class people neighborhood. But very nice. Everything structured, everything cared for everything. You know, the backyard was like a park. The front yard was small, but it was constantly taken care of. And I think I learned from my grandmother, mostly from my grandmother, the this quality of taking care of property because she, I mean, this woman worked every day and took care of her home and yard.

She did everything. So she was one of the primary role models for me. As I grew up. I knew immediately that as soon as I got, you know, to be an adult woman, that I was gonna own property. There was no question about it. If I had to, you know, take a job, take 40 jobs, I was gonna own property. That, that’s because they taught me the value of that.

She also taught me how to. How to, I don’t know how to create a home that has beautiful things and you know, gorgeous things, and it’s just a matter, of course, it’s not anything special. That’s the way you’re supposed to live, surrounded by as much beauty as you can put around you with plants and trees and flowers.

I mean, it’s a very, I guess in a way it could be kind of country because these people did come from the country they came from in the wilds of Kentucky, but. For a city, for a city girl. For me, it was like going to a kind of how to take care of a home charm school. I mean, it was really because she knew all of that.

I mean, she taught me about Crystal. I write about this in the book in China, and. Silver and flowers and a beautiful yard and all this. And if you came to this house that I live in right now, it’s a direct reflection of the things she taught me. Everything.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Yeah, understand. If you’re just joining us, I’m Johnny O.

Hanson Jr. And you’re listening to In Black America from KUT Radio, and we speak with Denise Nichols, actress, activist, writer, author of Finding Home a memoir. Denise talks about joining the Negro Ensemble Company in 1966, or was it prior to that?

Denise Nicholas: It was 66. Yeah.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Okay.

Denise Nicholas: Uh, 67, the Negro Ensemble Company, which was founded by Robert Hooks, Douglas Turner Ward in, um, I forgot the financial guy’s name.

Anyway, when I got up to New York from the Free Southern Theater. Uh, had finished my work there and I was, uh, hired to do a play with, uh, Vivica Lindfors and her husband, George Tabori in New York. So I went to New York, that’s what took me to New York, and I rehearsed with them, went on the road with them, uh, came back into New York.

City and, uh, started looking for, you know, like all actors do, started looking for work, doing auditions, going from one theater to the next. You know, you had to, you have to be really young to do that. So I did that and I did some work right after that. Uh, biblical in force piece. And then I met Robert Hooks and Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald Cron was the financial guy, just popped into my head.

So. They saw me in the plays that I did in New York. So when the Negro Ensemble company was forming, uh, I was, I went to see about doing an audition and I was, had been unemployed for a bit, so I got a job in the office first doing office work for the theater. And then my audition was Douglas Turner Ward and Robert Hooks said that the work that I had done with the Free Southern Theater, some of which had been televised in New York, and with the Open Theater and Judson Poets Theater and the thing with the biblical infos, they accepted me into the com company on the basis of work done.

So that was the beginning of really my professional career. So I was there for the training program and there for the first season, which was incredible. And we opened with a play, the Song of the Luan Bogey by Peter Weiss, which was a song, a play about the Portuguese in Africa. So. It was right up my alley.

I was, I was in negro heaven. And so then, uh, I did that first season and, and that’s when a, BCE had sent, um, agents to the theater to see the, the new, the big hot theater, the Negro Summer company. And they reached out to me to come in for a reading for a new series. I didn’t know anything about it, so I went in, I got the reading, and I did the reading.

I came back to work at the theater. And then soon after that they said they wanted me to do a callback. I went and did a callback in New York, and then they said, we wanna fly you to California to do a screen test. So I, they, I hadn’t even been in California, so I went to California and they, you know, they take very good care of you, at least they used to.

And I did a screen test for room 2 22, came back to New York as I waited for, for the answer on the screen test, they flew me back to Los Angeles for a personality test. Which is where they just stand you in front of a camera and turn the camera on and ask you a couple of questions, and you just talk your head off like I’m doing now.

That worked. So soon after that, they told me I had the role on room 2 22 and I, it was time for me to move to Los Angeles. So that’s, that’s how that played out.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Being one of the few people of color on television at that time. Talk to us about that experience.

Denise Nicholas: Well, you know, I. Because I had been in the civil rights movement and because I still paid attention to all of the, the stuff going on in Mississippi and in Alabama and, and deep south places.

And I stayed tuned in, tuned into the movement even after I went on, uh, to be a professional actor. So I think. I think what I wanted to do, what I wanted to do was room 2 22 while it’s filming, and as soon as the the filming season is over, I wanted to go back to New York and be a member of the Negro Ensemble Company.

That was my dream situation. Uh, so after the first season, I went back to New York, uh, and, you know, met with the, the people who run the theater, Douglas Turner Award and Robert Hooks, and they said, no, they needed a full company. They couldn’t have people coming in and going out, blah, blah, blah. So I said, okay.

So I just, you know, came back to LA and decided to focus on film and television, uh, to see what I could make happen. And that’s the be, that’s the first, that’s the first chunk. Of my career in Los Angeles, in Hollywood. That right there, what I just described.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : What first convinced you that acting is what you really wanted to do?

What, what changed? What, what? What changed your focus?

Denise Nicholas: I, you know, I don’t, I don’t know that I ever felt that way about acting. I enjoyed it. Um, I certainly enjoyed making money and you get a lot, you know, if you’re on a series like that, you get a whole lot of attention. You know, pr tons of press attention and just, you get a lot of attention, period.

Just people walking down the street, they see you, oh, aren’t you on tv? And that happens a lot. So that. That was, you know, that’s a part of the deal when you do that. But inside I always wanted something else and it had to do with writing. I was a good English student at University of Michigan in high school, and when I got to Ann Arbor, I exempted out of the first year of English that they require freshmen to take.

And even though I wasn’t thinking. No, I was thinking about being a writer. I did not know how to be a writer. I didn’t even know how to get that door open. It was like this great fantasy I carried around in my head that I was gonna, I was gonna write a great book or I was gonna, I was gonna be a writer because I read so much and I so loved fiction.

Um, and I took all the English classes, I took classes that I wanted to take, and I discovered. Different poets and different, uh, literary figures from England and France and everywhere. And I thought, oh my God. And I was, as I said earlier, I was a reader and I just loved books and I loved words, and I loved that whole, you know, of course what I had in my head was an idealized version of it, you know, not knowing how hard the work was until later, but that’s what I really always wanted to do, is what I’m doing now.

Right.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : I think that one of the first things you had published was in Essence

Denise Nicholas: Yes.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Uhhuh. Yeah. And what was that?

Denise Nicholas: That was, uh, a little short piece. My sister Michelle, who’s the one who was murdered in New York and two other close, close, close family, friends, older women from Detroit came to California to visit me, and we took a trip.

I bought a new Mercedes and the four lady, the three of them got in my car and oh, we went up to San Francisco on the coast route, which is a beautiful, beautiful trip. And I wanted to show people them, ’cause they were people that I loved dearly. I wanted to show them the beauty of California, and particularly the beauty of the coast, ride by the ocean all the way up to San Francisco.

So that’s what we did. And we had an adventure. Some of the, I mean, most everything was beautiful, but we had some. Stressful things as well. So when I got back and everybody went off, went home, I started writing a piece about the trip and. So I kind of, I didn’t, this was my first attempt at writing anything.

And I had a friend at Essence and I sent the piece to my, my friends there, and they said, we can publish it. And I was like, you are kidding. You know? I didn’t even believe it. And so they did. And it’s a little, I, I read it now ’cause I, I still have a copy of it and it’s a little rough around the edges, but I did a rewrite on it and it’s published again.

And the volume, a gathering of voices, which comes out of the writing workshop that I ran here in my house for a few years. So we produced a volume of short pieces by all the members of the workshop and my p, one of my pieces is that piece about the trip up the coast.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : What was some of the things that you learned and gathered from that workshop?

Denise Nicholas: Well, I, I had taken a class with, uh, a workshop with a, a writer whose name is Janet Fitch. She wrote a book called White Olender, which was a huge, huge, huge hit. And I, I had a, a friend who was in her workshop, and this is all after, in the heat of the night, was, uh, was, uh, stopped. So I had started writing on in the Heat of the Night ’cause Carol O’Connor gave me a shot to write.

So I did six episodes and then I thought by the, at the end of that I said, okay, now I’m in the lane that I wanna be in. I’m writing and I’m getting paid to write. So then my friend told friend told me about Janet Fitch’s workshop. So I went and, and auditioned by sending her something that I was working on and she accepted me in the workshop.

So Freshwater Road comes out of that workshop, every single word. So it was, um, about a three and a half year writing, uh, period to get that book done, to get it written, and with a lot of good help from people in the workshop because they were. The, it was critical. You had to present your work and you had to accept the criticism, discuss it, and then go back and do rewrites.

So when I started the workshop here, it was based on what I had experienced in that workshop. So I gathered five other people who were interested in writing all, all of people, people I knew before and many, um, they were all working on one. One project or another, uh, as writer is fledgling, fledgling, or beginning writers.

So at the workshop I try to emulate what Janet Fitch had done in that workshop, which was so incredibly successful. So I brought her teachings to this group of people, and it has, it has basic, very basic things. One of the things that she used to teach, uh, and hammer into our bony heads was writing the the senses.

You are a human being and you have five senses, and all those senses have to be at play when you write a character because they are human beings, and that helps the reader feel and get to know the character that you’re writing.

John L. Hanson, Jr. : Denise Nicholas, actress, activist, writer, and author of Finding Home a memoir.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions as to future In Black America, eps, email us at In Black America @kut.org. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Facebook and X. You can have previous programs online@kut.org. Also, you can listen to a special collection of In Black America programs at American Archive of Public Broadcasting as American archives.org.

The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessary those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for a technical producer, David Alvarez. I’m Johnelle Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week.

John L. Hanson, Jr.: Cd copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America.

CDs, KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard, Austin, Texas 7 8 7 1 2. That’s in Black America. CDs, KUT Radio 300 West Dean Keaton Boulevard. Austin, Texas 7 8 7 1 2. This has been a production of KUT radio.

Speaker 4: From the University of Texas at Austin, KUT Radio. This is in Black America.

I really think it depends on how. How you, how you see yourself in the world. I mean, most many women at that time, not so much now. Mm-hmm. But at that time, people were looking for, uh, a different kind of life. I was looking or thinking, I don’t know if I was consciously doing it, but I was thinking of the world, not just of the, my little place in one place at a time.

Speaker 5: I was looking to develop not only more intelligence, but more compa, more compassion for the rest of the world and other people besides myself. And so meeting people who were in the civil rights movement, which provoked my going south, talking to them and listening to them and the passion and, and. The, the sense of duty to help other people.

All of those things became a part of the mix in my head. Denise Nicholas, actor, activist, writer, and author of Finding Home, a memoir published by Bolden Books. Nicholas is the best known for portrayals of high school guiding counselor Liz McIntyre on room 2 22 on A BC TV from 1969 to 1974, and Harriet DeLong on the TV version of In the Heat of the Night on NBC and CVS.

John L. Hanson, Jr: In a memoir of Finding home, she explored her six decade journey through TV and film stardom. Our experiences in Hollywood have shaped her the real stories behind her marriage to build with us her other two marriages and subsequent romantic life, and how she reinvented her creative life to become a celebrated novel.

Nicholas began the career as a founding member of the Free Southern Theater, joined Mississippi and Louisiana during the most violent days of the Civil Rights Movement. I am Johnny O. Hanson Jr. And welcome to another edition of In Black America on this week’s program, finding Home with Denise Nicholas in Black America.

Speaker 5: I had a friend who was in her workshop, and this is all after, in the Heat of the night, was, uh, was, uh, stopped. So I had started writing on In the Heat of the Night ’cause Carol O’Connor gave me a shot to write. So I did six episodes and then I thought by the, at the end of that I said, okay, now I’m in the lane that I wanna be in.

I’m writing and I’m getting paid to write. So then my friend told friend told me about Janet Fit’s workshop. So I went and, and audition by sending her something that I was working on and she accepted me in the workshop. So Freshwater Road comes out of that workshop every. Single word. So it was, um, about a three and a half year writing period to get that book done, to get it written, and with a lot of good help from people in the workshop, because they were, it was critical.

You had to present your work and you had to accept the criticism, discuss it, and then go back and do rewrites growing up, middle class in 1950, Detroit. Nicholas experienced a vibrant culture and harsh reality of a segregated city, which profoundly influenced her perspective on identity. Nicholas entered the University of Michigan as a pre-law student, but dropped outta the university to tour the Deep South with the free Southern Theater at the height of civil rights movement.

John L. Hanson, Jr: A few years later, she would gain national fame on the groundbreaking A BC TV comedy drama series, room 2 22. In her book, finding Home Nickley explores the ways of experiences Hollywood shaped her understanding of success. Intimacy and commitment. She candidly discusses the challenges she face as a trailblazing actress of color, shedding light on the systematic barriers and biases within the entertainment industry.

Nicholas presented emotionally charged and richly complex picture of the realities of personal and professional success as an African American woman in America. Over the past 50 years, you begin your book by talking about your mom. Why start there?

Denise Nicholas: I think because like with, with most women, the mother character has the most profound influence on your life because moms are the ones who, who prepare you for growing up more, much more so, and, and I guess dads or uncles have some of the same function with men.

John L. Hanson, Jr: Yeah. Now, when you began, this is like your second book. Yes. Talk to us about that first book that you actually had published. Freshwater Road.

Well, that book is, I think Freshwater Road is my favorite. Piece of writing that I’ve done so far. I love this memoir, but Freshwater Road came out of a love I had for the Civil rights movement and the things that happened in the South during those years.

And I was there for a part of that time with the free Southern Theater. So I tour toured around Mississippi and Louisiana and really that was my first time in the deep South. So I learned a lot and I sat on it for years and years as it percolated inside of me. And I read and studied about the history of the South and different things.

So when I got around to riding Freshwater Road, I was. So deeply passionate about it, uh, is almost like I couldn’t breathe until I got it done. And because I carried it from the time I was in Mississippi in the sixties until I started writing Freshwater Road. I carried everything from that period in my head, in my memory, and in my heart because I knew, I, I knew that someday I would write something about that period.

So I think it’s, uh, I love finding home. It’s a more difficult, in, in a sense for me, a more difficult task to write directly about myself. And so, you know, I was, uh, I was, it was a, a much more difficult write for me. My publisher, Doug Zebo, a agate had to continually push me forward ’cause I was ready to throw in the towel about 50 times.

And then, you know, with Freshwater Road, nobody had to do anything. ’cause I was so in love with the project itself. I say you born in Detroit, but you all eventually moved to to Marlin, Michigan, which is outside Detroit. Talk to us about living in Detroit prior to you all moving to Marlin. Well, I was pretty young, you know, um, ’cause I, when we moved out there, I was put ahead a, a full grade and I ended up in the ninth grade when I should have been in the eighth grade.

So back in Detroit at that time, you know, the city was changing and it was evident that the city was changing, not for the better. And schools were going down because of white flight and budgets and so forth. And so. Uh, my mother and my stepfather thought at best that I go to a different high school, go to high school where he was, you know, out in the town where they were, were living because he worked out at the federal prison there.

So that was, for me, it was difficult because I didn’t wanna leave the city. I, I see myself as a city girl, and the little town that we were moving to was very small. And it was, uh, we were the only black family in the town at that time. So that was also difficult because as you know, and I know and everybody knows Detroit has an abundance of black people.

So, uh, that’s what I was accustomed to. So I went. You know, I kind of fought a little bit with my mom ’cause I wanted to stay in Detroit with other relatives. I didn’t wanna leave the city, but eventually I went on out to Milan and finished high school out there. Uh, but it was difficult for me because of culture.

Culture, uh, differences. Uh, absolutely. Now there was a learning experience once you were. Admitted and attended the University of Michigan. Talk to us about that experience prior to you going to the Free Southern Theater Theater. Well, I, I went to, I was a freshman at University of Michigan when I was 17, and which is kind of, you know, I was a little bit young, but, and, and I think that when looking back on it, my youth translates to immaturity of course.

So my, my grades were good. My scholarship was good, but. I was still a kid and University of Michigan, uh, as I’m sure you know, is a very sophisticated, very large campus with, uh, it was very swift moving. It felt more like a little New York. So, you know, so it was, what I say in the book is Ann Arbor picked me up on my bootstraps and turned me every which way but loose.

So it was great and it was challenging. And I refer to it constantly in my life because in a sense I loved it there, but once I went south, I wasn’t going back to school at that time. I eventually did go back to school here and graduated from University of Southern California. So, but Ann Arbor is still, is like in my heart and in my mind that is, it’s a, it’s beautiful memories.

It’s some kind of, uh, I kind of idyllic, you know, so, but I loved it and I absolutely loved it. Now you talk about your first roommate when you were at the University of Michigan, and that didn’t last too long. But also during that period, I guess you found your blackness. I’m not sure what that means. What does that mean?

John L. Hanson, Jr: Well, you became more culturally and civic aware of what was going on around, around you and what was happening in the world.

Denise Nicholas: Well, yes, because the civil rights movement came to campus.

John L. Hanson, Jr: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Denise Nicholas You know, and remember around that time too, and just a little bit later, the Vietnam War right, was, um, heating up.

Denise Nicholas: So there were plenty of things going on on campus in regard to both those occurrences or issues, civil rights and the Vietnam War. There was a lot of activity there, and I got to, um. One of my roommates, Martha Prescott, who still, who’s now moved back to Michigan, was the person who really introduced me to the Civil Rights movement.

She was very active and very, very smart, and I think because of influence, her influence and other things going on At the time when I met Gil Moses and he was. Setting up this theater to be a part of the Civil Rights movement. I thought that was my entree into the Civil Rights Movement. Now, once you attended the University of Michigan, but also you went off to New York, why was that a learning experience, uh, for you to help shape the lady that you are today?

Well, I, I think, I really think it depends on how. How you, how you see yourself in the world. I mean, most many women at that time, not so much now. Mm-hmm. But at that time, people were looking for, uh, a different kind of life. I was looking. Or thinking, I don’t know if I was consciously doing it, but I was thinking of the world, not just of the my little place, in one place at a time.

I was looking to develop not only more intelligence, but more compa, more compassion for the rest of the world and other people besides myself. And so. Meeting people who were in the civil rights movement, which provoked my going south, talking to them, listening to them, and the passion and the, the, the sense of duty to help other people.

All of those things became a part of the mix in my head that led me to the south, but also fed me as a woman who wanted to, to have a place in the world that wasn’t just, you know. I don’t wanna say just because it’s very important, housewife and mother. I never really wanted to have children. I wanted to work and that’s basically the way my life is, has played out.

So I’m a worker bee, I always was, and I guess I will be, uh, until the end. It’s my, it’s my comfort zone. Absolutely. So is it true that prior to you becoming an actress and, and author and writer, you wanted to become an attorney? Uh, I flirted with that for a while. Yeah. Uh, I had to, oh, okay. So I, I thought about becoming a, an attorney.

Mm-hmm. I used to also think about being in the foreign service. Okay. Being, you know, probably working for the CIA or something and that would’ve been a hoot. And then, um, yeah, those are the two things, and, and they were both things that would take me up and out into the world. Absolutely. You and your, your writing, you talk fondly about your grandparents.

John L. Hanson, Jr: Talk to us about your grandparents.

Denise Nicholas: Oh, okay. My grandparents on my dad’s side. Right. Yeah. We lived with them when we were very, my brother and I were very little. They were really sturdy. Strong people. They came up to Detroit from Kentucky in about, uh, 1919. ’cause my dad was born in Detroit in 1920. Uh, and he had an older sister, my Aunt Flora, who was born, I guess, I guess they both were born in Detroit.

So that part of my family, my dad’s part of the family. Were, I, I, it’s hard, you know, they were working class black people who had middle class aspirations and accomplishments. For example, the house that they lived in in Detroit, which is a house my brother and I were in repeatedly as little people, was not a big rich house.

It was a kind of a working class people house and a working class people neighborhood. But very nice. Everything structured, everything cared for everything. You know, the backyard was like a park. The front yard was small, but it was constantly taken care of. And I think I learned from my grandmother, mostly from my grandmother, the this quality of taking care of property because she, I mean, this woman worked every day and took care of her home and yard.

She did everything. So she was one of the primary role models for me. As I grew up. I knew immediately that as soon as I got, you know, to be an adult woman, that I was gonna own property. There was no question about it. If I had to, you know, take a job, take 40 jobs, I was gonna own property. That, that’s because they taught me the value of that.

She also taught me how to. How to, I don’t know how to create a home that has beautiful things and you know, gorgeous things, and it’s just a matter, of course, it’s not anything special. That’s the way you’re supposed to live, surrounded by as much beauty as you can put around you with plants and trees and flowers.

I mean, it’s a very, I guess in a way it could be kind of country because these people did come from the country they came from in the wilds of Kentucky, but. For a city, for a city girl. For me, it was like going to a kind of how to take care of a home charm school. I mean, it was really because she knew all of that.

I mean, she taught me about Crystal. I write about this in the book in China, and. Silver and flowers and a beautiful yard and all this. And if you came to this house that I live in right now, it’s a direct reflection of the things she taught me. Everything.

John L. Hanson, Jr.: Yeah, understand. If you’re just joining us, I’m John L. Hanson Jr. And you’re listening to In Black America from KUT Radio, and we speak with Denise Nichols, actress, activist, writer, author of Finding Home a memoir. Denise talks about joining the Negro Ensemble Company in 1966, or was it prior to that? It was 66. Yeah. Okay. Uh, 67, the Negro Ensemble Company, which was founded by Robert Hooks, Douglas Turner Ward in, um, I forgot the financial guy’s name.

Denise Nicholas: Anyway, when I got up to New York from the Free Southern Theater. Uh, had finished my work there and I was, uh, hired to do a play with, uh, Vivica Lindfors and her husband, George Tabori in New York. So I went to New York, that’s what took me to New York, and I rehearsed with them, went on the road with them, uh, came back into New York.

City and, uh, started looking for, you know, like all actors do, started looking for work, doing auditions, going from one theater to the next. You know, you had to, you have to be really young to do that. So I did that and I did some work right after that. Uh, biblical in force piece. And then I met Robert Hooks and Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald Cron was the financial guy, just popped into my head.

So. They saw me in the plays that I did in New York. So when the Negro Ensemble company was forming, uh, I was, I went to see about doing an audition and I was, had been unemployed for a bit, so I got a job in the office first doing office work for the theater. And then my audition was Douglas Turner Ward and Robert Hooks said that the work that I had done with the Free Southern Theater, some of which had been televised in New York, and with the Open Theater and Judson Poets Theater and the thing with the biblical infos, they accepted me into the com company on the basis of work done.

So that was the beginning of really my professional career. So I was there for the training program and there for the first season, which was incredible. And we opened with a play, the Song of the Luan Bogey by Peter Weiss, which was a song, a play about the Portuguese in Africa. So. It was right up my alley.

I was, I was in negro heaven. And so then, uh, I did that first season and, and that’s when a, BCE had sent, um, agents to the theater to see the, the new, the big hot theater, the Negro Summer company. And they reached out to me to come in for a reading for a new series. I didn’t know anything about it, so I went in, I got the reading, and I did the reading.

I came back to work at the theater. And then soon after that they said they wanted me to do a callback. I went and did a callback in New York, and then they said, we wanna fly you to California to do a screen test. So I, they, I hadn’t even been in California, so I went to California and they, you know, they take very good care of you, at least they used to.

And I did a screen test for room 2 22, came back to New York as I waited for, for the answer on the screen test, they flew me back to Los Angeles for a personality test. Which is where they just stand you in front of a camera and turn the camera on and ask you a couple of questions, and you just talk your head off like I’m doing now.

That worked. So soon after that, they told me I had the role on room 2 22 and I, it was time for me to move to Los Angeles. So that’s, that’s how that played out. Being one of the few people of color on television at that time. Talk to us about that experience. Well, you know, I. Because I had been in the civil rights movement and because I still paid attention to all of the, the stuff going on in Mississippi and in Alabama and, and deep south places.

And I stayed tuned in, tuned into the movement even after I went on, uh, to be a professional actor. So I think. I think what I wanted to do, what I wanted to do was room 2 22 while it’s filming, and as soon as the the filming season is over, I wanted to go back to New York and be a member of the Negro Ensemble Company.

That was my dream situation. Uh, so after the first season, I went back to New York, uh, and, you know, met with the, the people who run the theater, Douglas Turner Award and Robert Hooks, and they said, no, they needed a full company. They couldn’t have people coming in and going out, blah, blah, blah. So I said, okay.

So I just, you know, came back to LA and decided to focus on film and television, uh, to see what I could make happen. And that’s the be, that’s the first, that’s the first chunk. Of my career in Los Angeles, in Hollywood. That right there, what I just described. What first convinced you that acting is what you really wanted to do?

John L. Hanson, Jr.: What, what changed? What, what? What changed your focus? I, you know, I don’t, I don’t know that I ever felt that way about acting. I enjoyed it. Um, I certainly enjoyed making money and you get a lot, you know, if you’re on a series like that, you get a whole lot of attention. You know, pr tons of press attention and just, you get a lot of attention, period.

Denise Nicholas: Just people walking down the street, they see you, oh, aren’t you on tv? And that happens a lot. So that. That was, you know, that’s a part of the deal when you do that. But inside I always wanted something else and it had to do with writing. I was a good English student at University of Michigan in high school, and when I got to Ann Arbor, I exempted out of the first year of English that they require freshmen to take.

And even though I wasn’t thinking. No, I was thinking about being a writer. I did not know how to be a writer. I didn’t even know how to get that door open. It was like this great fantasy I carried around in my head that I was gonna, I was gonna write a great book or I was gonna, I was gonna be a writer because I read so much and I so loved fiction.

Um, and I took all the English classes, I took classes that I wanted to take, and I discovered. Different poets and different, uh, literary figures from England and France and everywhere. And I thought, oh my God. And I was, as I said earlier, I was a reader and I just loved books and I loved words, and I loved that whole, you know, of course what I had in my head was an idealized version of it, you know, not knowing how hard the work was until later, but that’s what I really always wanted to do, is what I’m doing now.

Right. I think that one of the first things you had published was in Essence Yes. Uhhuh. Yeah. And what was that? That was, uh, a little short piece. My sister Michelle, who’s the one who was murdered in New York and two other close, close, close family, friends, older women from Detroit came to California to visit me, and we took a trip.

I bought a new Mercedes and the four lady, the three of them got in my car and oh, we went up to San Francisco on the coast route, which is a beautiful, beautiful trip. And I wanted to show people them, ’cause they were people that I loved dearly. I wanted to show them the beauty of California, and particularly the beauty of the coast, ride by the ocean all the way up to San Francisco.

So that’s what we did. And we had an adventure. Some of the, I mean, most everything was beautiful, but we had some. Stressful things as well. So when I got back and everybody went off, went home, I started writing a piece about the trip and. So I kind of, I didn’t, this was my first attempt at writing anything.

And I had a friend at Essence and I sent the piece to my, my friends there, and they said, we can publish it. And I was like, you are kidding. You know? I didn’t even believe it. And so they did. And it’s a little, I, I read it now ’cause I, I still have a copy of it and it’s a little rough around the edges, but I did a rewrite on it and it’s published again.

And the volume, a gathering of voices, which comes out of the writing workshop that I ran here in my house for a few years. So we produced a volume of short pieces by all the members of the workshop and my p, one of my pieces is that piece about the trip up the coast. What was some of the things that you learned and gathered from that workshop?

Well, I, I had taken a class with, uh, a workshop with a, a writer whose name is Janet Fitch. She wrote a book called White Olender, which was a huge, huge, huge hit. And I, I had a, a friend who was in her workshop, and this is all after, in the heat of the night, was, uh, was, uh, stopped. So I had started writing on in the Heat of the Night ’cause Carol O’Connor gave me a shot to write.

So I did six episodes and then I thought by the, at the end of that I said, okay, now I’m in the lane that I wanna be in. I’m writing and I’m getting paid to write. So then my friend told friend told me about Janet Fitch’s workshop. So I went and, and auditioned by sending her something that I was working on and she accepted me in the workshop.

So Freshwater Road comes out of that workshop, every single word. So it was, um, about a three and a half year writing, uh, period to get that book done, to get it written, and with a lot of good help from people in the workshop because they were. The, it was critical. You had to present your work and you had to accept the criticism, discuss it, and then go back and do rewrites.

So when I started the workshop here, it was based on what I had experienced in that workshop. So I gathered five other people who were interested in writing all, all of people, people I knew before and many, um, they were all working on one. One project or another, uh, as writer is fledgling, fledgling, or beginning writers.

So at the workshop I try to emulate what Janet Fitch had done in that workshop, which was so incredibly successful. So I brought her teachings to this group of people, and it has, it has basic, very basic things. One of the things that she used to teach, uh, and hammer into our bony heads was writing the the senses.

You are a human being and you have five senses, and all those senses have to be at play when you write a character because they are human beings, and that helps the reader feel and get to know the character that you’re writing. Denise Nicholas, actress, activist, writer, and author of Finding Home a memoir.

John L. Hanson, Jr.: If you have questions, comments, or suggestions as to future in black America, ros, email us at In Black america@kut.org. Also, let us know what radio station you heard us over. Don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Facebook nx. You can have previous programs online@kut.org. Also, you can listen to a special collection of In Black America programs at American Archive of Public Broadcasting as American archives.org.

The views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessary those of this station or of the University of Texas at Austin. Until we have the opportunity again for a technical producer, David Alvarez. I’m Johnelle Hansen, Jr. Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again next week. Cd copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America.

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