Speaker 1: This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories.
Speaker 1: Our next story is about a man whose legend has
Speaker 1: reached Chuck Norris like heights. In fact, the man behind
Speaker 1: all those farcical facts about Chuck Norris wrote a book
Speaker 1: titled Chuck Norris Versus Mister T. Four hundred Facts about
Speaker 1: the Baddest Dudes in the History of Ever. Without further ado,
Speaker 1: here's Greg Hengler with the story of Mister T.
Speaker 2: Mister T is, without a doubt, one of the most
Speaker 2: recognizable pop culture curiosities of the eighties, right up there
Speaker 2: with the Rubik's Cube breakdancing and pac Man bursting onto
Speaker 2: the scene as villainous boxer clubber Lang and Rocky three,
Speaker 2: in which he ad lipped his famous catchphrase, No.
Speaker 3: I don't hate their boa, but I paid it for
Speaker 3: and I would destroy any man who tries to take
Speaker 3: what I got. What's your prediction for the fight?
Speaker 2: Then addiction?
Speaker 3: Yes, prediction.
Speaker 2: He went Reagan era viral with the A Team. What
Speaker 2: you're doing, sucker?
Speaker 1: What's going on here?
Speaker 3: This road leads directly to the airport, Hannibal, this road
Speaker 3: is nowhere near the airport.
Speaker 2: The popular TV show launched the former Chicago nightclub bouncer
Speaker 2: to a surreal level of fame that spawned a Saturday
Speaker 2: Morning cartoon, action figures and even a ridiculously sweet breakfast Cereal. Well,
Speaker 2: enough with the jibajebba. Here's mister T with his story,
Speaker 2: starting with how he was discovered, how he got his name,
Speaker 2: and why the mohawk.
Speaker 3: When I wouldn't bodygarden. I used to work at this
Speaker 3: disco in Chicago called Dean Bets. I was sort of
Speaker 3: bouncing people's a saint and then the in DC had
Speaker 3: this contest called the Toughest Bounce in America. Humbly I
Speaker 3: won the contest. When I say humbly I wanted even
Speaker 3: though it was called the Toughest Bounce in America. I
Speaker 3: did not win that I wanted two years in a row.
Speaker 3: I didn't win that contest because I was the roughest,
Speaker 3: the toughest, or the baddest. I won that contest again
Speaker 3: because the calls c A U S E. The cause
Speaker 3: that I represented was far more greater than anybody else's cause.
Speaker 3: I told my pastor that my church caused some Politan
Speaker 3: community church on the South side of Chicago.
Speaker 2: I said, Pastor.
Speaker 3: Hardy, they are having a contest and when I win,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give you the money so you can buy
Speaker 3: clothes and food for less fortunate people in the community.
Speaker 3: So I won two years in a row. I gave
Speaker 3: a check both times to my church. And then they
Speaker 3: say that syl Vesteristallone was at home at the time
Speaker 3: watching the program. Then he saw me. I had my
Speaker 3: ear rings and my tuxio each bounce at a tuxi home.
Speaker 3: Then he saw me. He said, that guy's different and
Speaker 3: he can talk. Then they called me out. At first
Speaker 3: they called me and they sent me a script. Then
Speaker 3: that came out to Hollywood audition for the role. Had
Speaker 3: to beat out fifteen hundred black guys for the part.
Speaker 3: But I like to think that I got it because
Speaker 3: I freely gave the money. And everything I give, you know,
Speaker 3: it comes back to me, you know, And so I
Speaker 3: never look back, you know, I think because I get
Speaker 3: so much, because I give so much, I don't give
Speaker 3: looking for that return I'm giving. Thanking God allowed me
Speaker 3: to be here. Thanking God. Sure I'm tough on all that.
Speaker 3: I'm tough because I conditioned my body to be tough,
Speaker 3: you know. And when I was nine years old, I
Speaker 3: got seven brothers and four sisters. We was on welfare
Speaker 3: food stamps. I drew a picture when I was in
Speaker 3: school of a house and my mother and I showed
Speaker 3: it to my mother. I said, Mama, one of these days,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be big and strong. I'm gonna be a
Speaker 3: football player and a boxer. I'm gonna value a beautiful house, mama,
Speaker 3: and i'm'a value you pretty dresses. My mother was a maid.
Speaker 3: My mother used to go in the suburbs and scrub
Speaker 3: up white people floor. She was not allowed to go
Speaker 3: in the front door, had to go in the back door.
Speaker 3: I'm not a race. I'm telling you where I come from.
Speaker 3: But my mother never taught us hate. She said, son,
Speaker 3: you do your best.
Speaker 1: You work hard.
Speaker 3: If you want something, work hard, save your money and
Speaker 3: get it. So I told my mother, I said do
Speaker 3: this hill. Then I said, I'm gonna be a football
Speaker 3: player in a box. I'm'a buy you a beautiful house.
Speaker 3: And then she hugged me and said, if that's the
Speaker 3: lord's willing, it was, and heels the lord's willing.
Speaker 2: Mister T is the youngest son and a family of
Speaker 2: twelve children, and grew up in Chicago's Projects. Having been
Speaker 2: expelled from university after his first year, mister T enlisted
Speaker 2: in the US Army, serving in the Military Police Corps,
Speaker 2: where he excelled. After his discharge, he tried to make
Speaker 2: it as a professional American football player, but failed to
Speaker 2: make the team due to a knee injury. In the seventies,
Speaker 2: he started working as a bouncer, during which time he
Speaker 2: created the mister T persona and started cladding himself in
Speaker 2: gold jewelry, usually left behind by customers at the end
Speaker 2: of the night.
Speaker 3: You know, like I gotta tell people, crime in drugs
Speaker 3: was over me, under me, and around me, but crime
Speaker 3: and drugs will never in me. Why I wasn't afraid
Speaker 3: to get a whooping, wasn't afraid to go to jail.
Speaker 3: I loved my mother too much.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I would rather die and burning the hail than to
Speaker 3: bring dishonor or disrespect to my mother. I'm nothing but
Speaker 3: a big, overgrown, tough god fearing but kicking mama's boy.
Speaker 3: So after I did Rocky, I save all my money
Speaker 3: bought my mother a house in pre dresses. Okay, back
Speaker 3: to how I got the name mister T. See as
Speaker 3: I tell everybody as a black man growing up in
Speaker 3: white society, I watched my father being called boy. My
Speaker 3: father is a minister. He preached the gospel. He baptized
Speaker 3: me I was four years old, and I used to,
Speaker 3: you know, take the Bible up to the thing and opening,
Speaker 3: and he preached anyway. And I watched my father being
Speaker 3: disrespected called boy. I watched one of my brothers, who
Speaker 3: was a marine, come back from Vietnam with his marine
Speaker 3: uniform on, and guys call him boy. So I questioned
Speaker 3: the fight, what do a black man have to do
Speaker 3: before he's given the respect as a man. So when
Speaker 3: I was eighteen years old, old enough to fight and
Speaker 3: die for my country and be drafted, I said, I'm
Speaker 3: old enough to be called a man. So now I
Speaker 3: became eight years old, I self ordained myself mister T.
Speaker 3: So the first word out of everybody's mouth would be mister.
Speaker 3: That's a sign of respect, Ta, because it took our
Speaker 3: last name. I was born Lawrence Turogue, So that's why
Speaker 3: I changed my name to mister T. And I tell people,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want to be disrespectful to the
Speaker 3: Mohican Indians, even though we call it a mohawk. Truthfully,
Speaker 3: it is called a Mendinka cut because as a tribe
Speaker 3: in Africa called a Mendenka warriors in the West coast
Speaker 3: of Africa and country of Mali, they were they have
Speaker 3: this weight.
Speaker 2: Following Hurricane Katrina in two thousand and five, mister T
Speaker 2: retired his massive gold chains because, as he said, I
Speaker 2: told myself, no, tea, you can never wear your gold again.
Speaker 2: It's an insult to God. Mister T substituted the chains
Speaker 2: with the stars and stripes Spandana. Here's why don's this
Speaker 2: patriotic headgear and what lever he pulls at the ballot
Speaker 2: fox wa.
Speaker 3: The stars and stripe because it's my way of paying
Speaker 3: the veterans back. Is my way of aren'ting the veterans.
Speaker 3: And I'm I'm a veteran myself. You know, I'm in
Speaker 3: the nation. I was in the National Guard, military Police.
Speaker 3: I got four brothers, uh through, one in the Marine,
Speaker 3: three in the army. See, like the people joke me,
Speaker 3: this is who I vote for, I said, I voted
Speaker 3: for I voted for Jesus. Because you can't vote to
Speaker 3: me and can't vote them out because it's a politics.
Speaker 3: They're gonna say one thing, all of them black and white.
Speaker 3: Whatever politics. My mother told me, she said, son well
Speaker 3: man staying dependents on where he sits. So I've seen
Speaker 3: politicians come vote for me, this and that I'll do.
Speaker 3: Everybody gonna promise a good game, but in reality they don't,
Speaker 3: you know. So I'm gonna stick with God. When mother,
Speaker 3: when I was raised, when I was a little kid,
Speaker 3: mother told me to pray. And I've been praying ever
Speaker 3: since then, you know, and it ain't it ain't failed
Speaker 3: me yet. I prayed when to get me out to ghetto,
Speaker 3: prayed to be a good kid, prayed till I don't
Speaker 3: get involved crime and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: I go to the hospital's mother asked me to pray
Speaker 3: for their children. They don't ask me because I'm a celebrity.
Speaker 3: They know, because I believe in God. I serve God
Speaker 3: to fully act with me. I don't get with God
Speaker 3: to try to impress somebody, to fool somebody like a
Speaker 3: lot of selevirities. Do you catch him doing wrong? Didn't
Speaker 3: he want to get the Bible? And all I've been
Speaker 3: with the Bible, I've been taking food down to the homeless.
Speaker 2: Simply said mister t is the real deal and a
Speaker 2: man of his word.
Speaker 1: And a terrific job on the production editing and storytelling
Speaker 1: by our own Greg Hengler. And you heard from mister
Speaker 1: T in his own voice, and who knew? I didn't know.
Speaker 1: And I follow this stuff, and I'm always looking for
Speaker 1: those hidden faith stories that are out there that are
Speaker 1: pure gems. Faith playing such a central part of American
Speaker 1: life and often ignored completely by storytellers around the country,
Speaker 1: not here in our American stories. When faith is a
Speaker 1: part of your life, it's gonna be in the story,
Speaker 1: by the way, when it's not, it's not. But my goodness,
Speaker 1: he starts as a bouncer, and what does he do
Speaker 1: with his winnings from this bouncer contest National twice? He
Speaker 1: gives the money to his pastor. And my goodness, I
Speaker 1: love what Sylvester Stallone said because we just experienced it.
Speaker 1: He said that guy's different when he was listening to
Speaker 1: all the audition reels, and he can talk, and my goodness,
Speaker 1: can mister T talk. But what he talked about just remarkable,
Speaker 1: talking about his prayer life, how we prayed to get
Speaker 1: out of the ghetto, how we prayed just every step
Speaker 1: of the way, the story of mister t here On,
Speaker 1: our American stories