Robert Hooks

Last updated
Robert Hooks
Robert Hooks.jpg
Born
Bobby Dean Hooks

(1937-04-18) April 18, 1937 (age 87)
Washington, D.C., United States
Occupation
    • Actor
    • Producer
    • Activist
    • Creator cultural institutions
    • Creator/Co-creator civil rights organizations
Years active1960–present
Political party Democrat
SpouseLorrie Marlow (aka LorrieGay Marlow) (m. 2008)
Children Kevin Hooks, Eric Hooks, Cecilia Onibudo, Christopher Carter (née Hooks), Kiyo Tarpley, Robert (Rob) Hooks, Jr.
Parent(s)Mae Bertha "Bert" Ward Hooks (9/27/11 – 12/27/78); Edward Hooks (d. 1939)
Website Robert Hooks
Robert Hooks – Cultural Architect Facebook

Robert Hooks (born Bobby Dean Hooks; April 18, 1937) is an American actor, producer, and activist. [1] Along with Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald S. Krone, he founded The Negro Ensemble Company. [2] [3] The Negro Ensemble Company is credited with the launch of the careers of many major black artists of all disciplines, while creating a body of performance literature over the last thirty years, providing the backbone of African-American theatrical classics. Additionally, Hooks is the sole founder of two significant black theatre companies: the D.C. Black Repertory Company, and New York's Group Theatre Workshop. [4]

Contents

Biography

Early life

The youngest of five children, Hooks was born in Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C., to Mae Bertha (née Ward), a seamstress, and Edward Hooks, who had moved from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, with their four other children, Bernice, Caroleigh, Charles Edward "Charlie", and James Walter "Jimmy". Named Bobby Dean Hooks at birth, Robert was their first child born in Washington, D.C., and the first to be born in a hospital. His father, Edward, died in a work accident on the railroad in 1939.

Hooks attended Stevens Elementary School. In 1945, at the insistence of his sister Bernice who was doing community arts outreach for youngsters at Francis Junior High School, he performed the lead in his first play, The Pirates of Penzance , at the age of nine. From the ages of six to 12, Bobby Dean journeyed with his siblings to Lucama, North Carolina, to work the tobacco fields for his uncle's sharecropping farm as a way to help earn money for the coming school year in D.C.

In 1954, just as Brown vs. Board of Education was being implemented in the north, Hooks moved to Philadelphia to be with his mother, her second husband, and his half-siblings, Safia Abdullah (née Sharon Dickerson), George E. Dickerson, Charles Dickerson, Annette Dickerson, Margie Dickerson, Robert Dickerson. Hooks experienced his first integrated school experience at West Philadelphia High School. Hooks soon joined the drama club and began acting in plays by William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett. Hooks graduated in 1956, passing on a scholarship to Temple University in order to pursue a career as a stage actor at the Bessie V. Hicks School of Theatre (alongside Charles Dierkop and Bruce Dern, with whom he second-acted plays doing their pre-Broadway tryouts in Philadelphia), while working at Browning King, a men's tailor shop at Fourteenth and Chestnut Streets. [5] [6]

Acting career

Having trained at the Bessie V. Hicks School of Theatre in Philadelphia, and after seeing A Raisin in the Sun in its Philadelphia tryout in February 1959, Hooks moved to New York to pursue acting. In April 1960, as Bobby Dean Hooks, he made his Broadway debut in A Raisin in the Sun , replacing Louis Gossett Jr., who would be doing the film version. Hooks then continued to do its national tour. He then stepped into the Broadway production of A Taste of Honey , replacing Billy Dee Williams; then repeating the same national tour trajectory as he had done for "Raisin..." the previous year. In early 1962, he next appeared as the lead in Jean Genet's The Blacks , replacing James Earl Jones as the male lead, leaving briefly that same year to appear on Broadway again in Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright , before stepping back into the lead role in The Blacks in 1963. He then returned to Broadway, first in Ballad for Bimshire and then in the short-lived 1964 David Merrick revival of The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More (as a character created by Tennessee Williams for this revival) and starring Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter in his only stage performance. Immediately thereafter, on March 24, 1964, he originated the role of Clay in Amiri Baraka's Dutchman . With this play, on the advice of Roscoe Lee Brown, Hooks became known as, Robert Hooks. He also originated roles on the New York stage in Where's Daddy? for which he won the Theatre World Award and he was nominated for Best Male Lead in a Musical for Hallelujah Baby while he was simultaneously starring in David Susskind's N.Y.P.D. —the first African-American lead on a television drama.

In 1968, Hooks was the host of the new public affairs television program Like It Is . [7]

Hooks was nominated for a Tony for his lead role in the musical Hallelujah, Baby! , has received both the Pioneer Award and the NAACP Image Award for Lifetime Achievement, and has been inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. He also won an Emmy for his PBS special Voices of Our People.

Significant roles for which Hooks is known include Reeve Scott in Hurry Sundown (1967), Mr. T. in the blaxploitation film Trouble Man (1972), grandpa Gene Donovan in the comedy Seventeen Again (2000), and Fleet Admiral Morrow in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984). He also appeared on television in an episode of the NBC crime drama series The Eddie Capra Mysteries in 1978, and portrayed Doctor Walcott in the 1980s television series Dynasty .

Activism

Arts and culture

In 1964, as a result of a speaking engagement at the Chelsea Civil Rights Committee (then connected to the Hudson Guild Settlement House), Hooks founded The Group Theatre Workshop, a tuition-free environment for disadvantaged urban teens who expressed a desire to explore acting. Among the instructors were Barbara Ann Teer, Frances Foster, Hal DeWindt, Lonne Elder III, and Ronnie Mack. Alumni include Antonio Fargas, Hattie Winston, and Daphne Maxwell Reid.

The Group Theatre Workshop was folded into the tuition-free training arm of the Negro Ensemble Company, founded in 1967 with Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald S. Krone, [3] with a $1.3 million grant from the Ford Foundation under the auspices of W. McNeil Lowry. [2] [8]

From 1969 to 1972, Hooks served as an original board member of Black Academy of Arts and Letters, located in New York, alongside C. Eric Lincoln, President; John O. Killens, Alvin F. Poussaint, and Charles White. Chartered by the State of New York, its mission was to bring together black artists and scholars from around the world. Additional members included Julian Adderley, Alvin Ailey, Margaret Walker, James Baldwin, Imamu Baraka, Romare Bearden, Harry Belafonte, Lerone Bennett, Arna Bontemps, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee Davis, St. Clair Drake, Ernest Dunbar, Katherine Dunham, Lonne Elder III, Duke Ellington, Alex Haley, Ruth Inge Hardison, Vertis Hayes, Chester Himes, Lena Horne, Jacob Lawrence, Elma Lewis, Henry Lewis, Paule Marshall, Donald McKayle, Arthur Mitchell, Frederick O’Neal, Gordon Parks, Sidney Poitier, Benjamin Quarles, Lloyd Richards, Lucille D. Roberts, and Nina Simone.

In response to his hometown 1968 Washington, D.C., riots, in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and aided by a small grant from the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Hooks took a leave of absence from the Negro Ensemble Company to create The D.C. Black Repertory Company (1970–1981). The company was intended as a further exploration of the ability of the arts to create healing. The a capella group Sweet Honey in the Rock was created and developed within its workshop process.

The Inner Voices (Lorton Prison arts training program, 1971) proved to be a result of the beneficial effect of the repertory company in the D.C. area. In response to a direct plea from an inmate, Rhozier "Roach" Brown, who was serving a life sentence in Lorton, Hooks' D.C. Black Repertory Company structured the first prison-based arts program in the United States. While it is the norm now, it was then a revolutionary attempt at rehabilitation through the arts. Eventually The Inner Voices performed more than 500 times in other prisons, including a Christmas special entitled, "Holidays, Hollowdays." Due to Roach's work, President Gerald Ford commuted his sentence on Christmas Day, 1975. [9]

His relocation to the West Coast redirected Hooks' approach to parity in the arts with his involvement with The Bay Area Multicultural Arts Initiative (1988) as a board member and grant facilitator-judge. Funded by monies from a unique coalition made up of the San Francisco Foundation (a community foundation); Grants for the Arts of the San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, and The National Endowment for the Arts, the function of this organization was the funding of deserving local multicultural arts organizations.

In 1992, Hooks co-founded (with writer Lonne Elder III) Arts in Action. Located in South Central Los Angeles, this was a film and television training center established to guide individuals who aspired to careers in film production. It formulated strategies and training for securing entry-level jobs. Courses included: career development workshops; pre-production and production for film and television; creative problem solving in production management; directing for stage and screen—principles and practices; also the craft of assistant directors, script supervisor, technicians, wardrobe, make-up, etc.

The Negro Ensemble Company of Los Angeles (1994–1997) was created because so many New York members and original members had relocated to the West Coast. Hooks, as founder and executive director, asked Denise Nicholas, Denzel Washington, James Earl Jones, Laurence Fishburne, Richard Roundtree, Samuel L. Jackson, all alumni from New York Negro Ensemble Company, to serve as board members. The goal of the Negro Ensemble Company of Los Angeles was to be a new and innovative multi-ethnic cultural project that strived to achieve the community effectiveness and professional success of its parent organization.

Personal life

Hooks is the father of actor, television and film director Kevin Hooks. He married Lorrie Gay Marlow [10] (actress, author, artist) on June 15, 2008. Previously, he was married to Yvonne Hickman and Rosie Lee Hooks. [11]

In 2021, Emory University began adding to its official archives material documenting Hooks' career, including scripts, printed material, contracts and financial records, notes, correspondence, writings, books and periodicals, audiovisual and digital files. [12]

Awards

Acting credits

Film

Television

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Schenkkan</span> American dramatist (born 1953)

Robert Frederic Schenkkan Jr. is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1992 for his play The Kentucky Cycle and his play All the Way earned the 2014 Tony Award for Best Play. He has three Emmy nominations and one WGA Award.

Judyann Elder is an American actress, director, and writer. She played Nadine Waters on the FOX sitcom Martin. She also played Harriette Winslow on CBS' Family Matters for the remaining eight episodes of its ninth and final season, after the departure of Jo Marie Payton. Elder is also a veteran of the stage who has appeared in scores of theatrical productions throughout the United States and Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karamu House</span> United States historic place

Karamu House in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, United States, is the oldest producing Black Theatre in the United States opening in 1915. Many of Langston Hughes's plays were developed and premiered at the theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L. Scott Caldwell</span> American actress

L. Scott Caldwell is an American actress perhaps best known for her roles as Deputy U.S. Marshall Erin Poole in The Fugitive (1993) and Rose on the television series Lost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glynn Turman</span> American actor (born 1947)

Glynn Turman is an American actor. First coming to attention as a child actor in the original 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Turman is known for his roles as Lew Miles on the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (1968–1969), high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom A Different World (1988–1993), and Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series The Wire. He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role on the HBO drama series In Treatment.

Lonne Elder III was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Elder was one of the leading African-American figures who informed the New York theater world with social and political consciousness. He also wrote scripts for television and film. His best known play, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, won him a Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. The play, which was about a Harlem barber and his family, was produced by the Negro Ensemble Company in 1969.

The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) is a New York City-based theater company and workshop established in 1967 by producer-actor Robert Hooks, playwright Douglas Turner Ward, and theater manager Gerald S. Krone, with funding from the Ford Foundation. The company's focus on original works with themes based in the black experience with an international perspective created a canon of theatrical works and an audience for writers who came later, such as August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Brown (actor)</span> American actor (1946–2004)

Charles Brown was an American actor and a member of New York City, New York theater troupe the Negro Ensemble Company. He was best known for his performances in Off-Broadway and Broadway plays by Samm-Art Williams and August Wilson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samm-Art Williams</span> American playwright and screenwriter (1946–2024)

Samuel Arthur Williams was an American playwright and screenwriter, television producer, and an actor on stage, television and film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph A. Walker (playwright)</span> American dramatist (1935–2003)

Joseph Alexander Walker was an American playwright and screenwriter, theater director, actor and professor. He is best known for writing The River Niger, a three-act play that was originally produced Off-Broadway in 1972 by the Negro Ensemble Company, before being transferred to Broadway in 1973 and then adapted into a 1976 film of the same name starring James Earl Jones and Cicely Tyson. In 1974, Walker became the first African-American writer to win a Tony Award, receiving the Tony Award for Best Play for The River Niger. The playwright previously won an Obie Award during that play's 1972 to 1973 Off-Broadway run.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. E. Franklin</span> American dramatist (born 1937)

J. E. Franklin, who publishes under the name J. e. Franklin, is an American playwright, best known for her play Black Girl, which was broadcast on public television in 1969, staged Off-Broadway in 1971, and made into a feature film, Black Girl. She has written and adapted plays for television, theater, and film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Turner Ward</span> American playwright and actor (1930–2021)

Douglas Turner Ward was an American playwright, actor, director, and theatrical producer. He was noted for being a founder and artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). He was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1974 for his role in The River Niger, which he also directed.

<i>Clybourne Park</i> 2010 play by Bruce Norris

Clybourne Park is a 2010 play by Bruce Norris inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun (1959). It portrays fictional events set during and after the Hansberry play, and is loosely based on historical events that took place in the city of Chicago. It premiered in February 2010 at Playwrights Horizons in New York. The play received its UK premiere at the Royal Court Theatre in London in a production directed by Dominic Cooke. The play received its Chicago premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in a production directed by Steppenwolf ensemble member Amy Morton. As described by The Washington Post, the play "applies a modern twist to the issues of race and housing and aspirations for a better life." Clybourne Park was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play.

James Still is an American writer and playwright. Still grew up in a small town in Kansas, and graduated from the University of Kansas. His award-winning plays have been produced throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, China, Australia and South Africa. He is a two-time TCG-Pew Charitable Trusts' National Theatre Artist with the Indiana Repertory Theatre where he is the IRT's first-ever playwright in residence (1998–present). He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Ceremonies in Dark Old Men is an American two-act play by Lonne Elder III that premiered Off Broadway in 1969 at St. Mark's Playhouse in a production by the Negro Ensemble Company. Later in the 1969 season, it was given a commercial production that was a long-running success. It was the runner-up for the 1969 Pulitzer Prize in drama and was adapted for a television movie in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Abbott</span> American actress

Loretta Agatha Abbott was an American educator, dancer, choreographer, singer, director, dance captain, and actress. She was an early member and foundation builder for the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. She was also a founding member of the Clark Center for the Performing Arts, and worked with the organization from 1959 to 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Downing (actor)</span> American actor (1943-2017)

David Downing was an American stage, film, and television actor. He was one of the original members of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City.

Harold "Hal" DeWindt was an American producer, director, actor, and model. He worked to increase opportunities for African Americans in the arts.

Charles Weldon was an American actor, director, educator, singer, and songwriter. He was the artistic director of the Negro Ensemble Company for thirteen years. He was the co-founder of the Alumni of this company, and directed many of their productions. During his career he worked with Denzel Washington, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Alfre Woodard, Muhammad Ali, and Oscar Brown Jr.

Day of Absence is a play written by American playwright Douglas Turner Ward, which premiered off-off-Broadway in 1965. Telling the story of a Southern town where all of its Black residents suddenly disappear, Day of Absence is notable for most productions starring Black actors in whiteface in a reverse minstrel show style. Day of Absence explores themes of whiteness and discrimination against Black Americans through its insertion of Black actors into farcical situations inhabiting white bodies.

References

  1. ↑ "Lorrie Marlow and Robert Hooks". The New York Times . June 15, 2008.
  2. 1 2 "American Masters: Negro Ensemble Company". Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 2007-04-28.
  3. 1 2 Genzlinger, Neil (February 28, 2020). "Gerald Krone, a Negro Ensemble Company Founder, Dies at 86". The New York Times . p. D6. Retrieved April 29, 2020.
  4. ↑ Hill, Anthony D.; Barnett, Douglas Q. (4 December 2008). Historical Dictionary of African American Theater. Scarecrow Press. ISBN   9780810862760 . Retrieved 10 September 2017– via Google Books.
  5. ↑ "Robert Hooks – The HistoryMakers". Thehistorymakers.org. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
  6. ↑ "Robert Hooks Biography (1937–)". Filmreference.com. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  7. ↑ "Gil Noble: Visionary Videos: NVLP: African American History". Visionaryproject.org. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  8. ↑ Anderson, Jack (7 June 1993). "W. McNeil Lowry is Dead; Patron of the Arts Was 80". The New York Times .
  9. ↑ Locy, Toni (July 13, 1995). "The Price of Redemption". The Washington Post .
  10. ↑ "Lorrie Marlow". IMDb. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  11. ↑ "Robert Hooks". IMDb. Retrieved 11 November 2018.
  12. ↑ Hooks, Robert (2022-02-22). "Robert Hooks papers, 1955-2018". findingaids.library.emory.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
  13. ↑ "Theatre World Awards". Theatreworldawards.org.
  14. ↑ "Jet". Johnson Publishing Company. 1985-04-08.
  15. ↑ Grove, Lloyd (May 24, 2000). "The Reliable Source". The Washington Post.
  16. ↑ "District of Columbia Register". Books.google.com. 2000.
  17. 1 2 "The Crisis". Books.google.com. p. 63.
  18. ↑ "Btaa - Black Theater Alliance Awards, Inc". Btaawards.org.
  19. ↑ "National Black Theatre Festival : 2015 Brochure" (PDF). Nvblackrep.org. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
  20. 1 2 3 Roberts, Roxanne (October 26, 2018). "Longtime African American actor Robert Hooks on the state of black theater, then and now". The Washington Post.
  21. ↑ "Congressional Record Extensions of Remarks Articles". Congress.gov. Retrieved 24 January 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.