Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
(Singing) I was born by the river
in a little ol' tent.
(Speaking) Had you, didn't I? Not exactly.
I was actually born and raised in a small community
nestled in the southeastern quadrant of Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee.
This community was founded in 1868 by a missionary
who said that it was the "divine providence of God that had led him there."
(Laughter)
And he decided to call the community "Lake Providence."
Now, as stories were told to me
many years after this community had formed itself
and become a flourishing neighborhood and community,
my grandmother would sit with me and she would tell me stories.
Everybody in the community, I think, at that time was a self-proclaimed griot.
They would grab you and pull you to the side and say,
"Well, look, son, I have something to tell you.
This is how it was when I grew up."
And as a child, these stories were so important and so enchanting,
I would stop and listen.
But I remember how storytelling and music would overlap when I was growing up.
My grandmother, who was a self-taught pianist,
she would sit me down, and she'd say,
"Look, I'm going to teach you some hymns and some spirituals."
She didn't have a piano at home, so she would pretend,
plucking out these notes on her knee.
And she'd look at me, and she'd say,
"Son, open your mouth."
And, of course, I'd look at Granny,
and tears would be streaming down her face.
All of a sudden, she'd tilt her head back,
and I thought - you know, at age 3 and 4,
you don't know what has happened to Granny, so I would tap Granny:
"Granny, Granny, come back, Granny."
(Laughter)
She would tilt her head forward
and give me that it was just a tacit agreement:
Granny's okay.
Now, in the neighborhood that I grew up in,
all of the kids - there were tons of kids -
they'd play contact sports.
One of my favorite things to do was to watch Wide World of Sports
on Saturdays,
and Nadia Comăneci and Olga Korbut
would be turning flips and back flips and front flips,
and I would go outside after I turned the television off,
and I would go out in my yard,
and I would turn back flips and front flips,
just like Olga Korbut and Nadia Comăneci.
And my brother said, "Mom, we need to do something about that.
(Laughter)
He's way too nimble."
She said, "Well, you need to start involving him in some contact sports."
And by this time,
I was really interested in football.
So I started playing football,
and lo and behold, I become a football star.
I go to college on a football scholarship,
and by this time - 16, 17 years old -
my whole world is immersed in football.
Not only do I want to go play college football,
I want to play professional football.
Now seeing the size that I am -
I may look larger on stage, but I'm about 5' 7",
and when I was coming out of high school,
I weighed about 165 pounds, soaking wet.
(Laughter)
But I had one thing that everybody on the football field wanted to possess,
and that was blazing speed.
And so, what you can't catch, you can't get to, right?
So I had one of those unique qualities.
Well, I went and played college football and wanted to play professional football,
and that didn't work out.
So I went to work for IBM as a marketing and sales representative,
and my mother was overjoyed.
(Laughter)
My mother would say, "Honey, my child works for IBM.
(Laughter)
He's making a whole lot of money, and he got all the benefits."
(Laughter)
Well, they give you a development book when you start working for IBM,
and I was sitting at my desk one day,
and I was reading through the development book
and came across a page where it said,
"Well, where do you see yourself at IBM in two years?
Where do you see yourself at IBM in five years? Ten years?"
And I looked around the room,
got my pencil, and I wrote, "Not here."
(Laughter)
I couldn't understand it.
All I knew is that that structure didn't fit me.
Great money, great benefits.
What else could you want?
So I left IBM,
got a call to move to another city to start up another company,
moved there.
The gentleman who hired me, he got fired within six months,
and then I got fired a year later.
By this time, I had started singing in jazz clubs,
just to wash the week off.
I would even sign up for skits and do plays and things like that,
just as a hobby.
When I got fired, the first person I called was a best friend.
I didn't call my mother; I called a best friend of mine,
and I was reading my letter of termination to him,
and he said, "Stop."
He said, "Charles, they didn't fire you.
They released you."
Well, when you think you've been released to something,
you've been released here, you're going here.
Well, I had no idea where I was going.
I said, "So what have I been released to?"
He said, "You're an entertainer. You're an entertainer."
I was crazy enough to believe him,
so I enrolled in an acting class -
nothing big.
Every Saturday for three weeks,
you get up and read a sheet of paper
and you mark the stage,
go through stage direction.
Both of my instructors came up to me after the three weeks were over and said,
"Charles, you really need to be auditioning.
You need a head shot and a resume."
I knew nothing about this world of entertainment, nothing at all.
But I jumped in, got a big break.
Kenny Leon, he was the artistic director at the Alliance Theatre at the time,
who has gone on to do - now he has two Broadway shows:
Mountaintop and Stick Fly.
He was the artistic director.
He called me and said, "Charles Holt. This is Kenny Leon.
And we're getting ready to mount and premiere
a production of "The Amen Corner"
in three weeks,
and one of the gentlemen in the cast, he's had to drop out.
There are three people in the cast
who said you are the man to fill his position."
I said, "Okay."
He said, "I'm going to offer you the job
without giving you or having you come in for an audition."
That never happens.
I didn't know that then, but that never happens.
(Laughter)
He said, "But there's one condition."
I said, "Yes."
He said, "You better be good."
(Laughter)
I got a big break,
and during the time of that run,
I heard a voice tell me it was time.
Now, something had happened the year before
where I understood what this voice was talking about,
so I moved to New York with $400 in my pocket.
Now, you know before you make any move, or before I would make any move like that,
the first person that I had to clear it with,
or the last person that I had to clear it with, was who?
You know who. My mother.
And my mother has this way about her,
so I called her and I said,
"Mom, I'm getting ready to move to New York City."
"Uh hum."
I gave her all the details.
She said, finally, "Son, I want you to do something before you move."
I said, "Yes, ma'am."
She said, "I want you to go to the white pages, get the phone book,
go to the white pages, thumb all the way down to P,
and then when you get to psychiatrist,
I want you to call the first name on there.
You don't have to search anymore.
When you go in and talk to them,
when you come out, you'll be okay."
(Laughter)
I said, "Okay, Mom, I'll do that.
But there's just one thing. I've already bought my ticket."
There was something that was inside of me
that I could not understand and articulate,
but it was calling me to New York.
I arrived to New York July 6, 1996,
and it seemed like my entire soul just opened up.
I said, "I'm home" -
never having living outside of the South -
but I was trying to find something that I could share
that would eventually become my full self-expression,
just like my grandmother was teaching me these hymns.
So, as the story goes, a month later,
I got the national tour of Jesus Christ Superstar.
A month after that ended,
I got the first national tour of Smokey Joe's Cafe.
The only one cast out of 600 people that auditioned.
Then I went to Europe and played the first African American Rocky
in the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
(Laughter)
Imagine that.
Then I came back, and I got the Lion King.
Lion King changed my life,
and I remember December 17, 1999, just like it was yesterday:
(Singing) Nants ingonyama bagithi baba.
(Applause)
Now, that's a beautiful and pleasant thought,
but after three years,
(Laughter)
waking up at three o'clock in the morning
to (Singing) nants ingon,
I thought, Sithi uhm ingonyama.
Oh, I'm not in the show, I'm asleep. I'm asleep.
So at this time, I said to myself,
I have to get out of the show, I have to get out of the show.
At that time - you know, I won't tell a fib, I won't tell a story -
I wanted to be a Broadway star.
I wanted to go on and do movies and television and be a big star,
so I can't lie and say that I didn't want to.
But it was at that time in my career that I really had to ask the question:
Why am I really here?
And I remember lying on the stage, looking up at the catwalk,
asking that question,
and, of course, we live in a wonderful universe
that if we ask a question, we do get an answer.
It's just I was ready to listen.
And the voice said, "Do you remember
the first time you came down in Bertha the elephant?" -
because I was in the back leg of the elephant.
Have you ever seen Lion King,
you know when they parade down, you see all these animals.
Well, the largest and last is Bertha the elephant.
You probably saw me if you went to Broadway and saw the Lion King.
"But do you remember when you were coming down
and you saw all the faces, tears streaming down?
The eyes of the children?
Do you remember that, Charles?"
And I said, "Yes, I remember it."
And I'm sitting here talking to what I call my higher self.
It said, "That's why you do it.
It's not about you.
It's about what you give through what you do."
And from then on, my whole intention changed.
And so I understood all along
that now I'm becoming more conscious and aware,
that I want to be a beneficial presence on the planet, no matter what I do.
I moved to Los Angeles, and while I was moving to Los Angeles,
even before then, my grandmother made her transition.
But I could still hear those songs:
(Singing) He lives in you.
She lives in me.
They're watching over everything we see.
Into the water, into the truth.
In my reflection,
she lives in you.
(Speaking) So my grandmother was coming full circle,
and what I had learned through this beautiful community,
this small community,
was that what I give and what I create for myself,
I get to give as a part of my sharing to the world.
And so now I create from that.
I create shows and getting ready to do a documentary.
I have two CDs.
Those are great,
but the intention and the awareness behind what I do is even greater.
And this is such a wonderful place
because now I think we're living in the greatest time of human history.
We have so many technological advances,
but now we get to tune in
to the real consciousness and the real awareness behind our work.
And what are we giving?
What are we giving?
Understanding that we're all on a stage, all on this great platform.
So I just wanted to probably leave you
with a little bit of a song from Lion King.
Maybe.
(Singing) Where has a starlight gone?
Dark is the day.
Father, I feel so alone.
You promised you'd be there whenever I needed you.
Whenever I call your name, you're not anywhere.
I'm trying to hold on, just waiting to hear your voice.
One word, just a word will do to end this nightmare.
I know that the night must end, and that the sun will rise,
and that the sun will rise.
I know that the clouds must clear, and that the sun will shine.
I know, yes, I know the sun will rise.
The sun, the sun will rise.
Thank you.
(Cheering) (Applause)