Last night, in another bout of insomnia (the 1-0 Red Sox loss to the Yankees was giving me nightmares), I went down to my living room and turned on the TV. TCM was showing, “Alligator II, the Mutation” starring Joseph Bologna and Dee Wallace Stone (the mother in “E.T.”) and a CGI alligator-like monster. I was puzzled. I knew that in August TCM was using each of the 31 days to honor a significant movie star by showing only their movies, and they have all been major stars, though some of the movies chosen by TCM to represent them are quirky selections—only 3 of the 14 films picked for John Wayne are legitimate classics, and the Duke made at least 11 by my count and arguably several more. Who was the major star being honored with this terrible movie?
It turns out that the star TCM decided to devote a whole 24 hours to is Brock Peters. I knew who he was because I know way too much about show business, but I quickly moved from puzzlement to annoyance. Clearly, I thought, this was TCM, as it has done frequently recently, being woke. This is DEI personified. Brock Peters, now deceased, was black. There just weren’t a lot of major black stars in the Golden Age of Hollywood (although I don’t understand how Sidney Poitier missed the cut), but Brock Peters was never considered a movie star by any measure. He only starred in a single major film, “Black Girl,” and it was a critical and financial flop.
But TCM’s odd focus on Peters made me curious. I knew about his memorable performance as Tom Robinson, the black man defended in a rape trial by Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in “To Kill a Mocking Bird,” but surely “Alligator II,” a late career film for Peters in which he had a supporting role as a police detective, couldn’t be his career high point after “To Kill a Mocking Bird.” Well, it wasn’t.
Peters was versatile and talented, and had an impressive career, though movies were not his best genre, and his race probably limited his opportunities severely considering that he began performing professionally in 1949. He was a trained singer with terrific bass voice, receiving accolades in several Broadway musicals, including a Tony nomination for his role in the Kurt Weill musical in “Lost in the Stars.”
Peters had continuing roles on several hit TV show, like “Battlestar Gallactica.” Because of that voice, between 1981 and 1996 Peters played Darth Vader in the radio adaptations of the first three Star Wars films for National Public Radio. He was chairman and a co-founder of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
In short, Brock Peters may have been a DEI choice to honor as a movie star by TCM, but because of that quirky choice, a lot of people were introduced to a unique, talented and accomplished black artist who might otherwise be completely forgotten. He shouldn’t be.
Thanks, TCM!
And thanks, DEI. You’re not completely useless after all.
Ethics Alarms 