Leslie Uggams Looks Back On Her Decades In Show Business

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Speaker 2 This is Fresh Air. I am Terry Gross.
My guest, Leslie Uggams, was first considered remarkable for starting her performing career when she was six.

Speaker 2 Now she's considered remarkable as one of the actors still active at the age of 82. She's in an episode of the new season of HBO's The Gilded Age.
She's played Blind Al in the Deadpool films.

Speaker 2 In the Oscar-winning 2023 film American Fiction, she played the mother whose dementia progresses through the film. In the series Empire, she was the mother of the main character, Lucius Lyon.

Speaker 2 Going back to the beginning, when she was six, she was featured in a 1950 episode of Beulah, the ABC series starring Ethel Waters as a wise maid in the home of a white family.

Speaker 2 Ughams played Beulah's niece. Soon after, Ugams started singing at the Apollo, where she met luminaries like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald.

Speaker 2 She became a regular on the CBS music variety show Sing Along with Mitch. In 1967, she starred on the Broadway civil rights musical Hallelujah Baby.

Speaker 2 She won a Tony and the show won one for Best Musical. Another achievement, she was the first black woman and the second black person after Nat Cole to host her own TV variety show.

Speaker 2 Leslie Uggams, welcome to Fresh Air. It's a pleasure to have you on the show.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Good to be here.

Speaker 2 So, what is it like for you now being remarkable for performing professionally at such a young age when you were six, and now being remarkable because you're in so many things at the age of 82?

Speaker 3 What's weird about it for me is I never think about that. I just think, what's my next gig?

Speaker 3 I mean, that's how I've always been.

Speaker 3 And then I realize when I run into so many different people, and they go, oh, you're such an icon. And I go,

Speaker 3 I guess I am. I have been doing this a long time.
But I always think in terms of, I'm working, baby. I'm happy.

Speaker 2 That's a good attitude. I have to say, in Deadpool, it is so surprising to hear you use explosives and synonyms for cocaine.

Speaker 2 How do they think of you for that?

Speaker 2 What What made them think, Leslie Aggums will be perfect for this?

Speaker 3 Well, the funniest thing about it is that I happened to be in Florida doing MAME

Speaker 3 and my agent called me and said, I have an audition for you

Speaker 3 for a movie.

Speaker 3 So I got the script. And I read it and I didn't understand what the heck was

Speaker 3 going on. All I knew is that she kept falling a lot.
Oh, you didn't know she she was blind had no idea i mean it would when you do these kind of uh

Speaker 3 superhero kind of things everything's encrypted because it's all so hush hush that you don't know until the last minute yourself what the heck is going on

Speaker 3 and so i had to figure it all out myself luckily i figured it right because when i finished filming the first one uh ryan came to me he said oh i just love you he said and

Speaker 3 you had such energy when you did the audition. And I thought to myself, I had no idea what I was doing.

Speaker 2 Did it feel good to use a lot of expletives?

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 you know, it's a character. It's not me.
I'm not a toilet mouth kind of person.

Speaker 2 I haven't heard that expression in a long time.

Speaker 3 Toilet mouth.

Speaker 3 So, I mean, it's the character. And of course, she has a lot to cuss about because she can't say anything.

Speaker 3 You know, and she's kind of ticked off about the whole thing.

Speaker 3 But I think what really got me to part is my interview with the director, the first director, Tim Miller, who

Speaker 3 we sat down and we talked and everything. And he was asking me about my background.
And in talking to him, I said a word, and he looked at me and said,

Speaker 3 I love the way you say that word. And the next thing I know, I was doing a screen test.
And the next thing I know, I was in the movie.

Speaker 2 So you're about to be in the Gilded Age in episode seven. Yes.

Speaker 2 And this is the HBO series about the culture clash between people with old money and people with new money and where prosperous black people fit in or don't fit in into that culture.

Speaker 2 Can you tell us something about your character?

Speaker 3 Where's that? Hush hush. She is a busybody.

Speaker 3 She likes to stir the pot,

Speaker 3 which she does.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 2 Do you know what was happening in your family during the period the Gilded Age is set, which is the late 1800s?

Speaker 3 Well, I know from my grandmother, on, you know, on my mother's side, her mother,

Speaker 3 there were ten children.

Speaker 3 They were all fathered by the plantation owner.

Speaker 3 The plantation owner built a house on his property for the ten children, which my grandmother was one of them. And they were highly educated.

Speaker 3 They looked like white people

Speaker 3 and they all were doctors, dentists, teachers, principals.

Speaker 3 And when my grandmother used to visit me and my mother and father, nobody in my neighborhood realized that I was walking with my grandmother because she looked like a white woman.

Speaker 3 So it was

Speaker 3 What I love about the new storyline is that there was the dark skin situation and then there was the high yellow that they would call them when my mother was a kid situation.

Speaker 3 And they're addressing that in Gilded Age,

Speaker 3 which is wonderful because

Speaker 3 the storyline is right on the mark when it comes to who came from slaves, who

Speaker 3 was highly educated and had mixed blood. So it's a good season.
It's a good season.

Speaker 2 So you must have really related when you played Kizzy and Roots because when she is sold to a different plantation owner,

Speaker 2 played by Chuck Honors,

Speaker 2 he comes into her cabin frequently and rapes her. And her son is his son.

Speaker 2 So did you already know about your family history when you played that role?

Speaker 3 Well, you know, it's very interesting.

Speaker 3 They didn't talk about a lot.

Speaker 3 They talked about the stuff that they had.

Speaker 2 They being your family?

Speaker 3 The family, but they never talked about those situations of being raped or anything like that because they were educated on the plantation.

Speaker 3 They had teachers and stuff to teach them there. So they didn't have that.
But

Speaker 3 I could relate

Speaker 3 to what was going on in that story very much because you don't have any say-so

Speaker 3 in anything.

Speaker 3 And first of all, be torn away from your family is quite something, you know. I find it hard today when I see what's going on here in our beautiful America and all of a sudden you've got

Speaker 3 people being torn away from their family.

Speaker 3 The pain of that, all I can say that when I played that part, it was very easy to to pay that that scene because you thought, well, she's got Missy, That's her best friend.

Speaker 3 Missy, who was breaking the rules and taught her how to read.

Speaker 3 And then because she taught her how to read, she helps the boyfriend on the plantation get this pass. And then he gets caught and then everything comes out.

Speaker 3 But she's going to protect me. And I found out

Speaker 3 not only was she not going to protect me, she was ticked off because

Speaker 3 I did this. And so to punish me, she just said to her uncle, go ahead, let her go.

Speaker 2 She was a white girl who you thought of, you know, Kizzy thought of as her best friend. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But she was from the slaveholder's family and wanted, when she returns to the plantation, she wants Kizzy to be her personal slave and how wonderful it will be for

Speaker 2 Kizzy to be her, yeah, to be her personal slave and move away from her family to this other plantation.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so you've said that if you knew about that scene, when you accepted the role, you might not have taken it because playing that scene where you're taken away by the new plantation owner, that it was, yeah, that was so horrible.

Speaker 2 Talk about why it had such an impact on you that you wouldn't have even taken the role.

Speaker 3 Well, because, well, first of all, thank God I knew Sandy Duncan. We had been friends before, because otherwise I never would have spoken to her again.

Speaker 2 Sandy Duncan played the

Speaker 3 white girl who wanted to have you as her personal slave. Yes, yes.
And I remember when we finished the scene,

Speaker 3 there was such a hush. I was still hysterical from it and everything.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because you had to be hysterical when they were taking your character away.

Speaker 3 And what happened was nobody wanted to talk to Sandy because

Speaker 3 they were just horrified and they kind of looked at her with different eyes and she'll tell you

Speaker 3 she's sorry that she did that part because that scene was just horrifying.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's watching you and doesn't intervene.

Speaker 3 Yeah, she's looking out the window and just watching

Speaker 3 the whole thing. It was tough.
Thank God I didn't have to shoot anymore for the rest of the day because I wouldn't have been able to.

Speaker 3 I came home and my husband looked at me and said, okay, you've had a rough day. And I had a glass of wine.

Speaker 3 got in the bathtub and just

Speaker 3 tried to get my thoughts together. And then later on, I called my mother and said, how could this happen?

Speaker 3 And, you know, I had a little conversation with her. And she said, that's the way things were back in grandma's day.
And

Speaker 3 we talked about it, but it was rough. Okay.

Speaker 2 So you had a remarkable childhood. Let's start with your aunt, Eloise Ugam.
She was a dancer at the Cotton Club.

Speaker 3 No, no, no, no. My mother was a dancer at the Cotton Club.

Speaker 2 Your mother was a dancer at the Cotton Club.

Speaker 3 She didn't last long because she said they didn't pay enough money and she wasn't Lena Horne.

Speaker 3 Ah, well, yes.

Speaker 2 Only Lena Horn was Lena Horne.

Speaker 3 Yes. And my aunt Eloise, though, was a wonderful, beautiful singer on Broadway.
She did shows like St. Louis Woman with Pearl Bailey and she was in Poirgy and Bess.

Speaker 3 And she traveled all over the world doing Poigame Best. She was also in the USO.
She did a lot of things, but she was the one that introduced me to a lot of classical music when I was a kid.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 having a career as a performer was something that was within reach because you'd seen it in your own family?

Speaker 3 Kind of, sort of. My father was not thrilled about show business, even though his sister, you know, had been Broadway shows.
He just thought, you know, the kind of loose women.

Speaker 3 My aunt never married, so

Speaker 3 he was kind of like, okay, well,

Speaker 3 she can sing. It wasn't really until I did Sing Along with Mitch that he went, oh, well, I guess she might be having a career in show business.

Speaker 3 Because up until then, his thing was he wanted me to go to college and get an education.

Speaker 2 Which you did. You went to Juilliard.

Speaker 3 Well, I went to Juilliard for a short period of time because then I got famous. because of Sing Along with Mitch.

Speaker 3 And then the schedule got too crazy for me to do it full-time.

Speaker 2 Okay, so before we get to performing on television, let's get to the Apollo Theater.

Speaker 2 So you started singing there when you were...

Speaker 3 Nine years old.

Speaker 2 I was nine. Nine years old.

Speaker 3 Okay, okay.

Speaker 2 So was this a talent competition or were you just like a featured performer?

Speaker 3 No, what happened was the Schiffmans who ran the Apollo Theater had a radio show. And it was a contest, and they would have a celebrity introduce a young talent.

Speaker 3 And there was a woman named Thelma Carpenter. She introduced me on the radio show.
And it was a contest, and I kept winning every week.

Speaker 3 And it really got to the point where they could not get rid of me. So the Schiffmans decided to do an act, pay for an act for me, and for me to play the Apollo.
So they paid for everything.

Speaker 3 I did a 20-minute act and made my debut at the Apollo Theater with the great Louis Armstrong.

Speaker 2 What a gift.

Speaker 3 Hello.

Speaker 2 What did you pick up from Armstrong about singing? He had such a perfect sense of rhythm.

Speaker 3 Oh, I loved him.

Speaker 3 I watched every single performance. I had a little nook on the stage of the Apollo where I could watch everything.
And I would watch him every single show.

Speaker 3 First of all, he was so loved. He had that kind of warmth that when you sat in the audience, you could feel it from him.

Speaker 3 He had fabulous musicians when we played at the Apollo. And I was always curious about what makes the magic happen between the artist

Speaker 3 and the audience.

Speaker 3 And I figured out that you know that you have the audience when they're sitting in their seats and all of a sudden they start moving forward without them realizing that they are moving forward because they're so captured by what you're doing and into what you're doing.

Speaker 3 And so I learned a lot from him.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I mentioned Armstrong's sense of rhythm. His sense of rhythm was always surprising.
Like he would hold notes you wouldn't expect.

Speaker 3 The musicians, you know, they

Speaker 2 had so behind the beat. It was like the most relaxed rhythm.
Yeah, and it influenced everybody.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he had that. And then the next person person I worked with was Ella Fitzgerald.
And boy, was that another gift, you know, and I watched her shows, every single show.

Speaker 3 And she'd just walk out there and open her mouth, and you'd go crazy. And she was very quiet

Speaker 3 when we were backstage. In fact, I worked with her.
It was during the summertime.

Speaker 3 And I used to play hopscotch. in front of the stage door and she'd take a chair and she'd sit out there with my mother and they'd watch me play hopscotch scotch.

Speaker 3 And then the good humor truck would come.

Speaker 3 Good humor truck would come and she'd buy me ice cream because she thought I was too skinny. She was always trying to fatten me up.

Speaker 2 What was in your repertoire at the time when you were nine?

Speaker 3 I remember I opened with a song called When You're Smiling.

Speaker 3 I think my second song was Exactly Like You.

Speaker 3 Pennies from Heaven, which I also did a soft shoe because I was a tap dancer as well.

Speaker 3 And then I had a segment where I did impressions

Speaker 3 very badly, but I got through it because I was nine and cute.

Speaker 3 What are you doing?

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 Ted Williams,

Speaker 3 oh God, Johnny Ray.

Speaker 3 I forgot who was the third one. But

Speaker 3 Johnny Ray had a big hit,

Speaker 3 Crying in the Chapel. Oh, I remember that.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So I did that, and

Speaker 3 it was about a 20-minute show,

Speaker 3 and I was adorable. But I could sing.
I'm sure you were.

Speaker 2 In 2012, you released an album called Uptown, Downtown, and it was songs that you did in a one-woman show.

Speaker 2 I think it was probably performed in cabarets.

Speaker 3 It was done at some theaters, regional theaters.

Speaker 3 In fact, I started it at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Speaker 2 So I want to play a song from that, and this is Them Their Eyes. But these are songs that have personal meaning to you.
So tell us about the meaning of this song before we hear it.

Speaker 3 Well, basically,

Speaker 3 the Schiffmans kind of picked the material,

Speaker 3 and they loved the song Them, Their Eyes, and I took to it. And

Speaker 3 it was in that repertoire that I did the first time I was at the Apollo.

Speaker 2 Well, Let's Hear Them Their Eyes, recorded by my guest, Leslie Uggams, in 2012.

Speaker 3 I was just minding my business.

Speaker 3 Life was a beautiful song.

Speaker 3 I didn't have a care, no worry.

Speaker 3 Then you

Speaker 3 had

Speaker 3 to come

Speaker 3 along

Speaker 3 I fell in love with you the first time I looked into

Speaker 3 Them their eyes

Speaker 3 You've got a certain little cute way of flirting with

Speaker 3 them their eyes

Speaker 3 You make me

Speaker 3 feel happy.

Speaker 3 You make me blue.

Speaker 3 No stalling,

Speaker 3 I'm falling,

Speaker 3 falling in a great big way for you.

Speaker 3 My heart is jumping. You sure started something with

Speaker 3 them their eyes.

Speaker 2 That was Leslie Uggams recorded in 2012 from her album, Uptown Downtown. If you're just joining us, my guest is singer and actor Leslie Uggams.

Speaker 2 She'll soon be in episode 7 of the Gilded Age if you want to see her latest thing. We'll be right back.
I'm Tariq Gross, and this is Fresh Air.

Speaker 3 There's danger lurking in

Speaker 3 them there.

Speaker 3 I fell in love with you the first time I looked into

Speaker 3 them their eyes

Speaker 3 You've got a certain little quick way of flirting with them their eyes

Speaker 3 You make me feel so happy

Speaker 3 You make me feel so blue

Speaker 3 No stalling, I'm falling, falling in a great big way for you

Speaker 3 You sure started something with

Speaker 3 them there, I

Speaker 3 better watch them

Speaker 3 if you're wise.

Speaker 3 Those big brown eyes that sparkle,

Speaker 3 they bubble.

Speaker 3 They're gonna get you in a whole lot of trouble.

Speaker 3 You're overworking all

Speaker 3 There's danger lurking in

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Speaker 5 Hi, this is Molly Sevinesberg, digital producer at Fresh Air.

Speaker 2 And this is Terry Gross, host of the show.

Speaker 5 One of the things I do is write the weekly newsletter.

Speaker 2 And I'm a newsletter fan. I read it every Saturday after breakfast.
The newsletter includes all the week's shows, staff recommendations, and Molly picks timely highlights from the archive.

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Speaker 2 So I want to talk with you about Beulah, which starred Ethel Waters as a very wise, like super competent maid and cook in the home of a white family.

Speaker 3 The Hendersons.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 And I love Ethel Waters' jazz recordings from the 30s. And in Beulah,

Speaker 2 you can see episodes of Beulah on the internet now. And it's kind of fascinating as a piece of history.
And I have to say, Ethel Waters carries herself with such dignity.

Speaker 2 And I imagine she was that way in real life. And I'm wondering what you learned from working with her and talking with her.

Speaker 3 She was extraordinary. And she really took a liking to

Speaker 3 my mother and I. And whenever she would do what they call a soiree,

Speaker 3 a private

Speaker 3 musical night, she would invite my mother and I. And we would always go.

Speaker 3 And I learned so much just watching her.

Speaker 3 But when I did her show, they wanted my hair to be in pick and ninny braids. And Ethel Warder said, You see how her hair is the way her mother has her hair done now? That's what she's wearing.

Speaker 3 She's not wearing any pick and any braids, you know, because that was really slave kind of

Speaker 3 look.

Speaker 3 And she stood up right away for me

Speaker 3 in that particular episode. But she was wonderful and she thought I had talent.

Speaker 2 It sounds like your family

Speaker 2 was, you know, it had performers and teachers and

Speaker 2 you know other professionals. Did anyone in your family, as far as you know, ever either work as a maid or employ a maid in their home?

Speaker 3 My mother kind of worked as a

Speaker 3 she wasn't a maid for every day, but there was a psychiatrist that lived not far from our neighborhood, and she would go there.

Speaker 3 I remember she took me there a couple of times while she cleaned their apartment. But basically, my mother was a waitress.
That's what she did. And then when I started doing stuff on TV and

Speaker 3 getting more famous, my father said,

Speaker 3 I want you to be with her all the time. So he made her quit her job, and my father took on a third job, and he worked three jobs so that my mother could stay home and watch over his little Leslie.

Speaker 2 When you had your variety show,

Speaker 2 the Leslie Ugham show, there was a recurring sketch that I think was called the Sugar Hill.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And you grew up in the Sugar Hill Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem.

Speaker 2 The Sugar Hill sketch was about when was set i i in in sugar hill when it was no longer representative of prosperity in harlem and like y you know you have trouble paying the rent, and suddenly you have a black landlord, which is really kind of baffling because you're so surprised that a landlord would be black.

Speaker 2 So, when you were growing up in Sugar Hill,

Speaker 2 what was the neighborhood like?

Speaker 3 Well, I was on the fringe of Sugar Hill because Sugar Hill really kind of stops at like 155th, 158th Street. I lived 164th Street, which is more Washington Heights.

Speaker 3 So, where I lived, it was

Speaker 3 predominantly a black neighborhood, and then later on, it became

Speaker 3 more Puerto Rican.

Speaker 3 So the area went through a lot of different changes.

Speaker 3 But, you know, it was a great neighborhood. A lot of hardworking families lived in the neighborhood.
you know, nine to five people that doing the jobs that they could do.

Speaker 3 Also, a lot of stay-at-home moms as well. It was an interesting neighborhood because around the corner for me, Frankie Lyman, who became Frankie Lyman in the teenagers.
So there was a lot of music.

Speaker 3 A lot of us would stay outside our buildings and just sing. We had one neighbor, she didn't appreciate it, and she'd get a pot of water and pour it out the window

Speaker 3 to stop us from singing.

Speaker 2 Did you sing with Frankie Lyman?

Speaker 3 Frankie Lyman, listen, we used to hang out 165th Street and we'd all sing. A lot of music in my neighborhood.
Always a lot of music.

Speaker 2 Frankie Lyman was like this teenage star who had like a falsetto voice, a beautiful voice. He influenced a lot of women singers.
And he had the big hit, Why Do Fools Fall in London Love?

Speaker 3 Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 you know, I'm wondering if class was really confusing to you when you were young.

Speaker 2 Because on the one hand, you know, you have relatives, your aunt was you know in show business had a very successful career

Speaker 2 you're there were professionals in your family you know like doctors and and teachers as as we've said

Speaker 3 was economic class confusing to you since you traveled to two through two different worlds well it wasn't confusing I just realized that hmm some people were living a better life and this was my goal to live a better life.

Speaker 3 One of my best friends at school at PCS

Speaker 3 used to hang out all the time and she lived on Central Park West in this building where the elevator opened up into her living room and I was like, oh my gosh,

Speaker 3 I think I would like something like this. And I didn't see any cockroaches as well.
And I'm like, this is the life. How do I get to have this?

Speaker 2 Were you plagued by cockroaches?

Speaker 3 Oh, God, yes. Are you kidding? They were pets.

Speaker 3 It was their apartment. We only lived there.

Speaker 3 But I mean, so I didn't move out of my neighborhood till I was 18, and that was because of Sing Along with Mitch, and I got popular, and we could afford to move.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 that changed my life as far as, oh.

Speaker 3 Wow, this is great. I like living like this.

Speaker 3 But up till then, you know, we lived, walked up three flights of steps, and there was no elevator, and there was no air conditioning. You opened the window when you wanted air.

Speaker 3 If you're lucky, you had screens. And so, yes, I was very aware of the different life I was living.

Speaker 3 But I'll have to tell you a funny story.

Speaker 3 In the school was also Mary Martin's daughter, Hella, Hella Holiday. And she and I became best friends.
And she had this chaperone that was always with her. And we got to be very close.

Speaker 3 And so I had been invited to her place. Her parents lived, stayed at one of the hotels, very big hotels in New York at the time, because Mary Martin was always doing a musical on Broadway.

Speaker 3 And so I invited her up to my place. And so they came up to my area.

Speaker 3 hung out with us. Of course, every

Speaker 3 kid in my neighborhood, all of a sudden, was out there on the sidewalk seeing this white girl with a chaperone hanging out with with me

Speaker 3 and she had the best time ever because there was a park right across the street from where I live so we hung out in the park and we had a wonderful day and I look back and I think

Speaker 3 see I was proud of where I was living no matter what it was home and she enjoyed that

Speaker 2 well let's take another break and then we'll talk some more If you're just joining us, my guest is singer and actor Leslie Uggams. We'll be right back.
This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 So let's get to name that tune and that was a quiz show

Speaker 2 in the 60s

Speaker 2 where they'd play a few notes of a song and

Speaker 2 the competition was about being the first person to recognize the tune.

Speaker 3 Well, basically,

Speaker 3 you had a person that was on the show as a contestant, and then if if they went to a certain position in this quiz show, then the following week was going to be the big

Speaker 3 thing happening, moving towards the $25,000. So at home, they say, send in seven songs and you may be picked.
Well, ironically, my seven songs were picked.

Speaker 3 And I was sitting there watching the show because we used to watch it whenever it was on. And I went, oh my goodness, I got so excited about it that I ran out of the house

Speaker 3 because I was going, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. And so

Speaker 3 they contacted me and then I became partners with an Italian kosher butcher

Speaker 3 named Simon. And he answered the seven songs.
That's how I became his partner. And from then on, we started going for the big money.
But that's how I got on Name That Tune.

Speaker 3 And they asked me, George DeWitt was the host and he said what do you like to do and I said I like to sing and he said what do you like to sing and at the time I loved singing he's got the whole world in his hands and he said so sing and I sang a cappello whole world in his hands

Speaker 3 and then we did the contest and Simon and I answered the songs well they got so much mail

Speaker 3 from that that from then on they'd have me sing every time before I did the contest And Mitch Miller happened to be watching one night

Speaker 3 because I sang the Lord's Prayer. And Mitch tuned in because he had been hearing about this young girl.

Speaker 3 And he got in contact with us and said he wanted me to come down to the studio and do some demonstration records. So he wanted to hear how I sounded on

Speaker 3 a record. And we went down and he liked what he heard and he signed me to Columbia Records.
And he had not sold Sing Along with Mitch yet. He was still trying to sell it.

Speaker 2 That was such a strange show. I mean, Mitch Miller.

Speaker 3 Follow the bouncing ball.

Speaker 2 Follow, yeah, there were lyrics at the bottom of the screen and follow the bouncing ball so you could sing along with Mitch. And it was one of the most,

Speaker 2 if I may say, squarest shows.

Speaker 3 But you know what's interesting about that is because Mitch Miller was not square. I mean, he did many jazz albums.
He played. Yeah, he did Charlie Parker with strings.

Speaker 3 Yes, I mean, but he knew he had a sense of what was right for television. And it turned out to be exactly what he thought it was going to be.
But that was a, it was a family show, and people loved it.

Speaker 3 I've had people come up to me, and I used to watch it with my parents and stuff like that. So he had that sense of

Speaker 3 what was right.

Speaker 2 Stations in the South didn't want to carry the show because you were on it. You didn't want to carry a show with a black performer on it.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 2 And I've heard you say that

Speaker 2 Lena Horne, when she was on TV, they'd sometimes like put her separately so that she could be cut out.

Speaker 3 No, that was in movies.

Speaker 2 That was in movies?

Speaker 3 In movies. Her movies, when it played the South, they'd cut her section out.
That's why

Speaker 3 if you notice in a lot of the musicals, she's isolated from anybody else so that they were able to cut that out.

Speaker 3 So when we went on the air and we started getting popular, the South refused to take the show because I was on it, which at the time Mitch kept for me. I had no idea.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 they just refused to do the show and the sponsors were kind of trying to get him to get rid of me or isolate me, anything, because they wanted to sell their products.

Speaker 3 I believe we had, what was it, Rango beer or something. We have those different sponsors.
And Mitch kept saying, no, she's part of the family. She's not going anywhere.

Speaker 3 Well, we became such a hit that the South decided, oh, you know, maybe we will have the show on the air. And some of my best fan mail was from the South.

Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 That's good.

Speaker 2 Showed them.

Speaker 3 Showed what they were missing.

Speaker 2 Let me ask you about Hallelujah, Baby. It opened opened on Broadway in 1967 with music by Julie Stein and lyrics by Comden and Green, won a Tony for Best Musical.

Speaker 2 This was about the struggle for civil rights. Not many musicals on Broadway revolving around black characters in 1967.
What impact did the show have on your life?

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, in the theater world, I became a Broadway star. I wound up winning a Tony Award for it, so it changed my life as far as a theater was concerned.

Speaker 3 The music alone to this day is still relevant. I mean, you sing the song, it's like it was written yesterday.
It was thrilling when I look back

Speaker 3 to be working with giants of the theater, because they were giants. But I never let it faze me.
And I look back, I think, I go, How did I not let it happen? That it made me crazy.

Speaker 3 But I loved every minute of it. I loved Julie Stein.
You know, he'd play the song. I'd sit by him on the piano and he'd teach me the songs and then Comden and Green.
And it was magic time.

Speaker 3 And of course, Arthur, if most people who know Arthur, Arthur was kind of like a curmudgeon.

Speaker 3 He was never really happy about anything.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he was kind of like, hmm, you know, he had Lena in his head for the role.

Speaker 3 So years later, he said to me, you know, you can sing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and Arthur Lawrence also wrote the book for Westside Story. Yes.
And Gypsy, as you mentioned.

Speaker 3 Yes, one of the great musicals, Gypsy. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to play, If It's Okay With You, my favorite song from Hallelujah, Baby, and that's Talking to Yourself. And

Speaker 2 you sound beautiful on this, and I love the

Speaker 2 arrangement behind you.

Speaker 2 So let's hear it. We're going to hear your part:

Speaker 3 Talking to yourself.

Speaker 3 Don't stand here talking to yourself.

Speaker 3 The one you love is standing there.

Speaker 3 So don't delay

Speaker 3 it.

Speaker 3 Say it.

Speaker 3 Tell him how

Speaker 3 you miss his voice,

Speaker 3 his angry mood,

Speaker 3 his sudden smile.

Speaker 3 Are you

Speaker 3 lonely all the while

Speaker 3 and tired

Speaker 3 of talking to yourself

Speaker 3 talking to yourself?

Speaker 3 Is he lonely too?

Speaker 3 Just acting proud the same as you.

Speaker 3 Has he been wondering if you care?

Speaker 3 Don't let him doubt it,

Speaker 3 shout

Speaker 3 it.

Speaker 3 It's time you spoke.

Speaker 3 Don't let your chance go up and smoke.

Speaker 3 Just take one plunge and go for bro

Speaker 3 all wind up by yourself

Speaker 3 It's lonely

Speaker 3 talking to yourself

Speaker 2 I love that song me too me too and that's Leslie Uggams from the original cast recording of Hallelujah Baby we'll be right back. This is Fresh Air.

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Speaker 2 So moving on in your career,

Speaker 2 you had a variety show, the Leslie Ugam show, starting in 1969.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 your show replaced the Smothers Brothers show. The Smothers Brothers show was canceled because of how controversial it was.

Speaker 2 Pete Seeger sang an anti-Vietnam war song on it, and there was a lot of like, you know, counter-culture comedy on it. And the network didn't, it was not ready for that.

Speaker 2 So your show comes along, and I think it's like at your opening episode. Your guest star is Sly and the Family Stone.

Speaker 3 Yes, I maneuvered that.

Speaker 2 That was you who

Speaker 3 had a lot of people who weren't there CBS didn't know what hit them.

Speaker 2 I can imagine. Why did you choose Sly?

Speaker 3 Because I was a big fan of Sly and the Family Stone.

Speaker 3 My husband and I had seen them in Vegas when I was playing at one of the hotels down there and we went to a place after the show and to go dancing and there was Sly and the Family Stone and we went, whoa.

Speaker 3 They're fabulous. And then shortly after that, they had, you know, start having hit records.

Speaker 3 And so they were like at the top of my list because that was the music that was happening and it was a black artist who who were doing it and it was called the Leslie Uggam Show so we're going to have some black people on the show besides just me

Speaker 3 we became successful more than they thought it was going to be but they had no plans for me to stay having this show.

Speaker 3 But we had 10 weeks of great, great times, great, great times.

Speaker 2 What year did you get married?

Speaker 3 1965.

Speaker 2 Your husband is from Australia.

Speaker 3 Yes. He's white.

Speaker 2 In 1965, I think, tell me if I'm right here,

Speaker 2 was interracial marriage in parts of the South still illegal then?

Speaker 3 Oh, yes.

Speaker 3 I have to tell you a funny story. Ha ha ha.

Speaker 3 When Martin Luther King died, we went down for the funeral and

Speaker 3 we were there with a family friend that had worked with my aunt many years ago at that time and

Speaker 3 she invited us to come down, fly down with her. And we did and then we checked into the hotel and Graham and I are in the room.

Speaker 3 unpacking the things and all of a sudden there's a loud knock on the door and we go, what the heck? We opened the door and she goes, what are you doing? What are you doing?

Speaker 3 We said, well, we're about to unpack. She said,

Speaker 3 you can't be in this room together. And we're going, what? And my husband said, that's my wife.

Speaker 3 We're not going anywhere. Unbeknownst to me, I didn't even realize that that was a law then.

Speaker 3 So I was not thinking about anything. This is my husband, and this is how we are, and that's it.

Speaker 3 I was shocked. later on when I found out why she was in such a panic.
But we didn't change anything.

Speaker 2 Were there other problems you ran into as an interracial couple back then?

Speaker 3 Basically,

Speaker 3 people accepted my marriage because my husband was an American,

Speaker 3 because he was Australian.

Speaker 2 Why did that make a difference?

Speaker 3 I

Speaker 3 figured that there's something about

Speaker 3 then,

Speaker 3 an American white man,

Speaker 3 it's closer to like feeling like a sl he's a slave master. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 3 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 So he's not a part of the American drama about race

Speaker 2 and slavery. So it's maybe a little better because he's an outsider.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because you had so many breakthroughs in your career,

Speaker 2 I'm wondering what your reaction is now to the Trump administration trying trying to basically do away with all DEI initiatives that they possibly can.

Speaker 3 I'm not happy.

Speaker 3 I'm not happy.

Speaker 3 I'm shocked, quite frankly. I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime, but

Speaker 3 I'm waiting for America to come back, for us to get our senses together, because

Speaker 3 it's just, it's just,

Speaker 3 how can I express express it? Everybody can relate to the arts. It's the one moment where you can go see your favorite person, listen to your favorite person.

Speaker 3 It brings joy.

Speaker 3 In my head, I go to sleep with music in my head and I wake up with music in my head. It's a universal language.
You don't have to speak the language.

Speaker 3 You just have to hear the beautiful sounds that someone is making. And to

Speaker 3 not get these opportunities and try to get rid of diversity and think that there's something wrong with that. I just don't get it.

Speaker 3 I don't get it.

Speaker 2 Leslie Ughams, it's just really been a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 Thank you. It's been a wonderful time being with you today.

Speaker 2 Leslie Uggams will be in the August 3rd episode of HBO's The Gilded Age.

Speaker 3 Free and easy.

Speaker 3 That's my style.

Speaker 3 How did you meet

Speaker 3 watch me smile

Speaker 3 fairly well, me

Speaker 3 after a while,

Speaker 3 cause I got a role,

Speaker 3 and any place I I hang my hat is

Speaker 3 home

Speaker 3 Sweetening water

Speaker 3 Sherry wine

Speaker 3 Thank you kindly

Speaker 3 Suits me fine

Speaker 3 Kansas City

Speaker 3 Caroline

Speaker 3 That's my honey cold

Speaker 3 Cause any place I hang my hat is

Speaker 3 home

Speaker 2 Tomorrow we'll talk about how tech is helping and exploiting us. My guest will be novelist and tech reporter Wahini Vara.

Speaker 2 Her new memoir is based in part on her history of internet searches and on asking ChatGBT for feedback on each chapter of her book. She was evaluating its benefits and shortcomings.

Speaker 2 I hope you'll join us. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley.
I'm Terry Gross.

Speaker 2 That's how it ought to be

Speaker 2 I think of you when the spirit moves me

Speaker 2 across the river

Speaker 2 Round the bend

Speaker 2 how to stranger

Speaker 2 So long friend

Speaker 3 They're the voice in the lonesome wind that keeps a whispering

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