Morgan Freeman: The Latecomer

"Did that impress other kids? Girls?"

"Well, I'll tell you this. I had a paper route when I was 15. One Sunday I was making my collection round, and I knocked on this lady's door. She gave me the five dollars, or whatever, and I signed a receipt, and she looked at it and said, 'Oh, you're Morgan Freeman! My daughter talks about you all the time!' So, yes, I had a lot of girlfriends. And I got a lot of flak from the jocks, too: 'Hey, man, there must be something wrong with you. You spend all that time around those girls!'"

"You didn't do well at sports?"

"No, I was clumsy physically. Great dancer, though! Rock and roll, rhythm and blues. We had a place in Greenwood called the Stand--a little shack. Friday and Saturday nights, we'd get greased up, go to the Stand, drop a nickel in the jukebox and dance! dance! dance! That place was shaking."

"Were teenagers better behaved then than now?"

"We were. I went to a 20-year high school reunion, and there was a whole class of people who had successful lives. Not in jail. Not dead."

"Is it still there, the potential for the village?"

"No. What has happened is the courts. Those little towns still have schools that are federally funded, and the courts have said you can't use corporal punishment. If a kid stands up and tells you, 'Go fuck yourself,' and you slap him, they can call the police. Incredible, isn't it? I argue this with my wife, about rights. I say, children don't have rights. You give them permission. She says, 'Children have rights!' I say, 'No, they only have whatever you give them.'"

"You don't speak out on this kind of thing very much."

"Not my place. I'm just an actor."

"But you're highly respected, not just as an actor, but as a man of integrity and character. You never feel a pressure to speak?"

"No, because, look, I'm just talking to you. We're discussing things, and this is how I feel about growing up. But I'm not political, as an animal. I avoid it as much as possible. I keep my mouth shut--unless I'm asked a direct question."

"Why did you go into the Air Force?"

"Well, remember, I grew up with the movies. I went to the movies every day during the summer. When I lived in Chicago, I had access to three different movie theaters. Programs lasted three days and all I had to do to go every day was find enough bottles. Quart milk bottles were a nickel. Movies cost 12 cents. Two Coca-Cola bottles and a beer bottle was movie money. So I spent a lot of time looking for bottles and hoarding them. I went on my own. Got in to everything. Didn't seem to be any ratings. Strongest thing then was Clark Gable's 'damn' in Gone With the Wind. No one took their clothes off."

"Who were your favorites?"

"I suppose my favorite was Gary Cooper. My earliest love as an actor. Then Gregory Peck, Spencer Tracy, Bogart, Cagney, Dick Powell and William Powell. And all the ladies. Lizabeth Scott, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis."

"What does this have to do with the Air Force?"

"I lived in my imagination, and flying was the great dream. I would fly in my sleep, and I had a lot of dreams of falling--but I never hit the ground. I leveled off, came back out of it. I really wanted to fly. So I just went along to recruiting when I was 16--the Korean War was still on--and the sergeant said, 'You've only got one year of high school. Go back and finish.' So I did, and as soon as I had finished high school I went back and I went into the Air Force, in Mississippi. They sent me to Texas. They should have put me straight into the Strategic Air Command, but nobody black was going into that, so they made me a radar mechanic. I thought, that's OK, that's temporary. I'll do that and then I'll start my campaign to fly. But by the time that fell into place I realized that the military and I were two different animals. My problem is I question authority--deeply. And I don't suffer fools easily. But the military is full of them. So we were going to part company."

"Somehow, I managed to stay out of jail--but you couldn't say anything to me without me talking back to you. So I got into this plane, a T-33 Jet Trainer at North Isle Air Station, and I'm sitting there, thinking this is really real. I had just seen a movie, Battle Hymn with Rock Hudson, and there's a scene where a pilot is in his plane and he sees a column of North Korean soldiers. He doesn't see that there are civilians around, and strafes the column. But then as he banks his plane he sees the civilians. Screws him up. Now, I'm sitting in this plane, and I'm remembering the movie, and thinking how all the people got up, dusted themselves off, and did the shot again. But this plane is real. This is a bullet. This is a bomb. Not what I wanted. I wanted a camera sitting there! I was 21 and somehow it occurred to me that I wanted make-believe."

"When do you think your breakthrough came?"

"Every time I got a job!"

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