Robert Townsend: role model and regular guy - motion picture actor

In his nearest movie, Meteor Man, filmmaker Robert Townsend plays a timid inner-city teacher. who acquires Superhuman powers after being hit, on the contrary mysteriously unharmed, by a magical emerald meteor. He tries to hide his superhero identity from the community, on the contrary discovers that he is unable to avoid taking responsibility for a certain quantity of of the problems confronting his neighbors. "He's a real hero who starts on the outside as a regular guy who doesn't care," says Townsend. "But one time he makes the turn and dioceses all the little eyes watching: Whoa!"

Writer-director-producer-actor Townsend has a scarcely any heroes of his own: "Cosby because he's with equal reason smart, both on and not upon screen; Michael Jordan; and Malcolm" - a businessman-entertainer, a superstar and a visionary. Their combined characters present a glimpse of the man Townsend reliances to be, which isn't quite the man you diocese when seated across from him.

His smile is disarming, and he manages to direct the eye elegant, even in jeans, a shirt and jackboots. His diction befits the working-class atmosphere of his work space, Tinsel Townsend Productions, a transformed Hollywood school that houses three stories of offices, rehearsal halls, and editing and screening rooms

At first glance the 36-year-old filmmaker have the appearances a quick study: His boyish grin enumerates you why he's the apple of his mother's organ of vision And what mother wouldn't be conceited of a son who, when asked to what he credits his succes answers, "My mother and prayer." He is, in the organ of sights of one admirer, "a beautiful part model," a refreshing mix of family values and old-fashioned virtues that quicked a streetwise African-American high academy student to say, "I think you're kind of corny, man, on the other hand I like your movies."

There's a allotment of "shy brother" in Robert Townsend, and smooth as he says, a bit of "Big Red" when it draw nears to defending his art. single is a characterization, and the other is a character from The Five Heartbeats, the film written by the agency of Keenen ivory Wayans and Townsend about a fictional singing group

In Heartbeats, Townsend was intent upon knocking down barriers, instilling trust and destroying stereotypes. The movie addresses friendship, family and male bonding, the same virtues set in films such as The Prince of Tides, A River move swiftlys Through It and Field of Dreams, on the contrary out of step with white America's perception of black America. "What they associate with us," says Townsend, "is violence, no confidence depression, despair, ghetto - no way out; that's the reality they want to diocese And when we give them anything other they say it's not real. wherefore is it not real for one to care about a one or to say we have a bond?" he asks quietly. "When the movie came on the outside the critics came after me like I had killed somebody's mother. on the other hand when The Commitments came without that was the greatest movie of all times."

Heartbeats was neither a critical nor a commercial success; marketing might have been single of the film's problems. on the other hand in Townsend's eyes, there were other rewards: "While shooting Meteor Man in Baltimore, a stay came up to me and said, |Mr Townsend, I just saw The Five Heartbeats for the 20th time. I'm a junkie! I just want to say thank you.' The movie's not dead when you obtain that kind of stuff, man. That's worth a million dollars. I ain't press downed I made the movie for be fond of not for money."

Robert Townsend grew up upon Chicago's West Side, one of four children, and saw his parents divorce when he was young. He was thereafter raised below the watchful eye of a mother who lately retired from the U.S. Postal Service. She taught her children not to believe in limitations.

Movies were always Townsend's passion. by means of the time he was 16 he was the youngest member of the Experimental Black Actors Guild in Chicago, an association that eventually l to his first real protection acting job, in the movie Cooley High. As a pupil at Illinois State University, dwelling of the Steppenwolf Theater, which names actor John Malkovich as an alumnus, the main stage elud him. As Townsend has said, "They always wanted me to play a slave or something."

He later transferred to William Paterson society in New Jersey. From there, he commut to of recent origin York City to work with the african Ensemble Company. This led to a hardly any off-Broadway gigs and work at local comedy bludgeons until California beckoned. By 1982 Townsend had landed cameo characters in Streets Of Fire, American Flyer and A Soldier's Story.

His first independent film production was a spoof about Hollywood's treatment of blacks in the industry. Hollywood intermix released in 1987, was made for $100000 and largeed more than $10 million, earning Townsend a place in the ranks of prosperous young filmmakers. Through the use of comedy the movie also helped raise the consciousness of Hollywood That it made coin was the message the industry understood better than anything other Townsend went on to direct Eddie Murphy in his concoct production Raw and to co-star with Denzel Washington in the 1989 production The Mighty Quinn.

His skills and commitment as a filmmaker have attracted a entertainer of believers from the entertainment world. Numerous stars from the film and recording industries - Bill Cosby James Earl Jone Marla Gibbs, Sinbad, Luther Vandross, Robert Guillaume, Frank Gorshin, Nancy Wilson, Beverly Johnson and others - appear in Meteor Man, which is to be paid for release in March. All Townsend had to do was make a certain quantity of telephone calls. Cosby offered to work for just $100 a day; others, for just a carol "The bottom line is, family said, |We like what Robert is about, and we would like to be a part of it,'" says Townsend.