Speaker 1: I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Speaker 1: Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
Speaker 1: about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
Speaker 1: we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
Speaker 1: of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
Speaker 1: join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
Speaker 1: Erica Alexander is an award winning actress, best known for
Speaker 1: her roles as Pam Tucker on The Cosby Show and
Speaker 1: Maxine Shaw on Living Single. She also stars in films
Speaker 1: like the award winning Get Out. Most people who dream
Speaker 1: of becoming an actress, you know, think of having to
Speaker 1: go through many, many years of auditions before they get
Speaker 1: that first role. But your breakthrough came super asked, how
Speaker 1: did that happen? I was attending an arts program, performing
Speaker 1: arts program in Philadelphia in the Freedom Theater. It's called
Speaker 1: New Freedom Theater. It was a six week program and
Speaker 1: in the fifth week movie came to town, the merchant
Speaker 1: Ivory Film, and they were looking for black girls and
Speaker 1: Latina girls to auditions for the film, and so we
Speaker 1: were all encouraged to do it, and so we did,
Speaker 1: and after several auditions and you know, a few weeks
Speaker 1: went by, they made their choice and I was the
Speaker 1: lead in it. And it was a film called My
Speaker 1: Little Girl, and I got um not only a chance
Speaker 1: to you know, being a professional setting, but also get
Speaker 1: a SAG card and gave me healthcare and things like that.
Speaker 1: So there were other opportunities that were connected to it
Speaker 1: that were really consequential for me. But it was just
Speaker 1: a matter of sort of being picked in a big
Speaker 1: open call, which is pretty unusual. And merchant Ivory is
Speaker 1: kind of like the the holy Grail for actors. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's no shabby first all man, you know what merchant
Speaker 1: Tiree is, but most people don't because it doesn't even
Speaker 1: exist anymore. But before Merrimax, it was considered a very
Speaker 1: high toned production company, certainly coming out of England, and
Speaker 1: they did a lot of work with Helen and Bonnet
Speaker 1: Carter and and that type of thing. Very English, you know,
Speaker 1: very polished. But this was unusual. It was a woman,
Speaker 1: Connie Kaiserman, who was making her film debut. This was
Speaker 1: her experience. She was a white young woman who went
Speaker 1: to school in the sort of the higher toned area
Speaker 1: of Philadelphia, and she did a summer program and she
Speaker 1: was very influenced by this young woman she met in
Speaker 1: it and I should say a girl and it was
Speaker 1: called My Little Girl, and so this was her conversation
Speaker 1: about her experience, and it was an opportunity for me,
Speaker 1: but it was her story. What do you really remember
Speaker 1: most about the first film you ever did being chosen
Speaker 1: at all? I guess I remember more being um feeling
Speaker 1: guilty because I had just joined the program and there
Speaker 1: were girls who had gone to New Freedom Theater for
Speaker 1: many years. So it was a summer program that I
Speaker 1: was in, but it was on the year. It had
Speaker 1: girls going all year around. So if you've ever gone
Speaker 1: to ballet school or that type of thing, they might
Speaker 1: have a special summer program, but there are girls who
Speaker 1: are ballerinas who come all the time. And Genese Roderick
Speaker 1: was the person I was up against when it came
Speaker 1: down to it, and everyone kept saying, Oh, Genese is
Speaker 1: gonna get it, Genese is gonna get it. And I
Speaker 1: had no film or television or any sort of background
Speaker 1: with acting that much except for that experience, and then
Speaker 1: I ended up getting it, and Genese was from Philly
Speaker 1: and I was from Arizona. So I felt like I
Speaker 1: was an interloper, and I felt really guilty, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know that that would be the case. I didn't
Speaker 1: think that they picked me. So I remember that an
Speaker 1: overwhelming sense of guilt. And then how soon after that
Speaker 1: did you land on the Cosby Show? Many years went by,
Speaker 1: It seems like many years I did. Then it was
Speaker 1: about after school specials and there were mini series that
Speaker 1: were being done. That was the age of the mini series.
Speaker 1: So I did George Washington to Forging a Nation. I
Speaker 1: played the slave owning with Martha Washington slave who I
Speaker 1: found it later ran away, and George Washington pursued her
Speaker 1: his whole time until he died. He was really limited
Speaker 1: person in that way. And Um. Then I did a
Speaker 1: tour around the world with the Royal Shakespeare Theater. We
Speaker 1: did the movie in Paris. I had already done some
Speaker 1: plays in the public with Joseph pat and that's where
Speaker 1: Camille Cosby saw me. Camil Cosby is the best friend
Speaker 1: of Gloria Foster, and I was at the Public Theater
Speaker 1: playing um Joseph Papp's last play The Forbidden City by
Speaker 1: Bill Gunn and apparently she went home and said to
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby, her husband, You've got to see Gloria in
Speaker 1: this this uh theater pieces off Broadway show which Gloria's
Speaker 1: genius actors. She was the woman who was in the
Speaker 1: Matrix who said, um light skinned woman who said to
Speaker 1: Keanu Reeves, have a cookie, you'll feel writer's reign. She
Speaker 1: was a light skinned woman. She didn't do a lot
Speaker 1: of film work, but she was fantastic and didn't get
Speaker 1: her opportunity. There was amazing theater actress. Apparently he's she
Speaker 1: said to build got to see Gloria and this girl
Speaker 1: I was the girl she was talking about. He never
Speaker 1: saw the play. But I had been auditioning for the
Speaker 1: Cosby Show for years because it was the only game
Speaker 1: in town. If you were black. There weren't that many
Speaker 1: shows for you to be on. If you're black young,
Speaker 1: there were very few things you could be on. So
Speaker 1: maybe Rosanne, maybe Cosby Show, a Law and Order that
Speaker 1: was it, or an after school special. And so I
Speaker 1: was brought in. I was called to his house. Could
Speaker 1: you be to his house in an hour? And Cash
Speaker 1: and director met me there and he created the growth
Speaker 1: of cousin pan for me on the spot. But apparently
Speaker 1: I was a gift for his wife. That's what I
Speaker 1: was told. How has the legacy of Bill Cosby impacted
Speaker 1: you to today? Yeah, you know. It was a fantastic opportunity.
Speaker 1: I mean again, it was the only game in town.
Speaker 1: You weren't going to be cast as an on Jennu
Speaker 1: anywhere except maybe on stage, which was a typical place
Speaker 1: where I was casting a GENUW. But if you were
Speaker 1: young and I was in my team, still they didn't
Speaker 1: place black females in roles that of oh' Juliet or
Speaker 1: damnsel and distress or the object of desire, any of
Speaker 1: those things. Scarlet your hands and or any of these
Speaker 1: people now might be you had to wait to be
Speaker 1: a foster child, as slave or prostitute. Those are my
Speaker 1: first roles. But when I got on the Cosby Show,
Speaker 1: that was the biggest you place you could be. And
Speaker 1: for him to have created a role for me for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, I was told by a stranger that I
Speaker 1: was a gift and he knew he knew a lot
Speaker 1: of details that only somebody very close to one of
Speaker 1: them would know, So I I knew he knew he
Speaker 1: was what he was talking about I didn't know at
Speaker 1: the time that it was perhaps through Camille Cosby conjoining
Speaker 1: him to go to the play, and then maybe as
Speaker 1: some kind of again, I don't know what their relationship is.
Speaker 1: Like he gave her, you know, he said, Okay, call
Speaker 1: this young lady to my house and and and then
Speaker 1: gave me a role. So that's a weird thing. Just
Speaker 1: happens to be a byproduct of it. But it changed
Speaker 1: my life because suddenly I was doing film and theater,
Speaker 1: but I was on the big show in America in
Speaker 1: the last road they created for the show. I grew
Speaker 1: up in an era when the Cosby Show was like
Speaker 1: it right, like I would look forward to Thursdays because
Speaker 1: the Cosby Show is on. And even for me, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to sort of reconcile what I thought of
Speaker 1: as such a highlight, a joyous childhood memory with who
Speaker 1: built Cosby turned out to be? How has that been
Speaker 1: for you? Who was so much more deeply affected by it.
Speaker 1: It's unfortunate that he wasn't who we all thought he was.
Speaker 1: There's almost nothing more to say. If you grew up
Speaker 1: with somebody and they turn out to be, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: have very complicated history with women, and that's being kind.
Speaker 1: And then also the accusations are so profound, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you wonder who you were working with. Here's
Speaker 1: what I can say about that. I'm preacher's daughter, and
Speaker 1: I have always lived in a world of contradictions, because
Speaker 1: who shows up at churches but sinners and people who
Speaker 1: are not always what they seem, including pastors and teachers
Speaker 1: and all sorts of other people. So he's not unlike
Speaker 1: anybody who's in this human condition, who may present a
Speaker 1: false face and then once it's exposed, everyone's a little destroyed. Um,
Speaker 1: he more than most people, had influence of great majority
Speaker 1: of the world because of what he stood for with
Speaker 1: children and his commitment to education and HBC used what
Speaker 1: he did for black people. It's extraordinary. So I come
Speaker 1: to reckon it with it the way everyone else does,
Speaker 1: except that I never thought that anybody was perfect, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who really put people on pedestals. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this is more than just talking about a simple flaw
Speaker 1: or fault. This is talking about assault, This is talking
Speaker 1: about rape. This is talking about using your power to
Speaker 1: put people who are not in the position that you're
Speaker 1: in in a place that not only destroys their self esteem,
Speaker 1: but can affect their lives for a very long time.
Speaker 1: So I think that we talk a lot about Bill
Speaker 1: Cosby because there's been a lot of men with those
Speaker 1: powers that have been allowed to prosper and been a
Speaker 1: propped up by corporations who are making money off of them,
Speaker 1: and um, we should all endeavor to make sure that
Speaker 1: they can't prosper. More importantly, that they can be if
Speaker 1: they've done these things, held accountable because of that contradiction.
Speaker 1: Is there any part of you that that roots for
Speaker 1: him and all of this? What I do is I
Speaker 1: root for the healing of spirit obviously that come from
Speaker 1: a very dark spot. And so I wouldn't be my
Speaker 1: father's daughter if I said here and were rooted for
Speaker 1: his demise. I couldn't be a black person in America
Speaker 1: and not have compassion for our position because we were
Speaker 1: raped and assaulted for hundreds of years on this land
Speaker 1: with impunity, and what did it teach us to hurt others?
Speaker 1: I don't know his entire background. What I do know
Speaker 1: is that he was in a position of learning. He
Speaker 1: was a he was a doctor, he had been exalted,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of ways he could have
Speaker 1: gotten help, But I think that that type of thing
Speaker 1: acting on you, you don't get to help you need
Speaker 1: because you don't know you're sick. I don't know what
Speaker 1: it is. I'm not even qualified to talk about it.
Speaker 1: All I know is he gave me a job, he
Speaker 1: gave me an opportunity, and he was one of the
Speaker 1: most profoundly transformational characters in American history, not black people
Speaker 1: in American history. And how can you root for anything
Speaker 1: except for healing all over? It seems to like throughout
Speaker 1: at least the early years of your career. And I'm
Speaker 1: curious that this is still today. You have been placed
Speaker 1: in an arena of you are a black actress or
Speaker 1: you are a black creator, and that only certain roles
Speaker 1: are available. Is that still? Is that still the industry? Yes,
Speaker 1: it is, it's still the industry. It's hard to talk
Speaker 1: about it without seeing that you're downing things. But colorism
Speaker 1: is real, and so if you're blond and you're blue eyed,
Speaker 1: and you're a woman, they're more likely to be seen
Speaker 1: as something that's again protected and more the ideal of
Speaker 1: what a true American woman is. And then it falls off.
Speaker 1: At that point you know, dark haired white women, you
Speaker 1: know less. So then you go to brown skinned Latina,
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern all that. Then you go to light skinned
Speaker 1: black women, you know, and then you go to dark
Speaker 1: skinned women like me and Biola and Octavia Spencer and
Speaker 1: those types of things. And if you look at what
Speaker 1: the types of roles we typically get to play, and
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about now, there's a little bit more,
Speaker 1: much more variety, but overall, it is the help. It
Speaker 1: is the the nurturer, the caregiver, the nanny. This that
Speaker 1: because those are positions of white people are used to
Speaker 1: seeing us in UM. I think that with that power,
Speaker 1: I think white women haven't done as much as they
Speaker 1: needed to do to create opportunities for characters to do that.
Speaker 1: Thank God for shan To Rhymes she did UM. Up
Speaker 1: until that point, Diane Carroll was the only black woman
Speaker 1: on network TV whoever had a show UM, And that
Speaker 1: to me is unacceptable. There have been white women in
Speaker 1: positions who could have created that. But then again, I
Speaker 1: imagine they might have and they ran into the big
Speaker 1: daddy at the door at the studio that said, no,
Speaker 1: So have we been in positions to do better? Perhaps
Speaker 1: have we had enough power to push through maybe not.
Speaker 1: I mean I try to look at the whole piece.
Speaker 1: There's stomach issues, there's the will, there are people who
Speaker 1: have the will but not the way. And then more importantly,
Speaker 1: there's how comfortable do we feel? As Violet Davis said
Speaker 1: in some clip I saw all the other day with
Speaker 1: her doing E Pray Love, and we need to start
Speaker 1: seeing them essential sexual, powerful people but also complicated, three dimensional.
Speaker 1: The way that we're talking about Cosby is the way
Speaker 1: we should talk about all men and characters. It seems
Speaker 1: optically when you read and you see the data like
Speaker 1: the last couple of years have been sort of a
Speaker 1: racial reckoning in America, where there are more quotas and
Speaker 1: more attention and more interest in diversifying what we see
Speaker 1: on the screen, whether it's TV or film. Has that
Speaker 1: not hit Hollywood? In reality? That more just optics or
Speaker 1: do you feel the change? There's definite change, except the
Speaker 1: optics make it look like there's more change than there is.
Speaker 1: If you ask the people who do the data studies
Speaker 1: that you see l A, they say everything's expanded. All
Speaker 1: sorts of opportunities have expanded. There's more channels, they're more um,
Speaker 1: you know, platforms for people to have um content. But
Speaker 1: then they do the data and the percentage still is
Speaker 1: almost the same. So I think that people are seeing
Speaker 1: more because there's more ways into your consciousness, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that it's having impact or it's as
Speaker 1: much as we think. So I don't want to say
Speaker 1: that there's not real movement there. The almost certainly is.
Speaker 1: And people see one black Panther movie and say, oh, look,
Speaker 1: Marvel did a black Panther movie. Um, and let's give
Speaker 1: props to the great Jack Kim Kirby and and stand
Speaker 1: leave for creating black hero within the Marvel universe. And
Speaker 1: that's cool, But look at how many other Marvel movies
Speaker 1: there are with White Year Roads. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: that's one and that took how many years, like Forever,
Speaker 1: and then, um, people might say, well what about women
Speaker 1: as it? Well, you've got one of the women, you've
Speaker 1: got you know, these types of different things. It's not
Speaker 1: enough going on for women. There's nothing going on for
Speaker 1: disabled people. Well maybe okay, we had their devil who's blind,
Speaker 1: you know, that type of thing. And then what do
Speaker 1: we do for agism? You know, let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many marginalized people and indigenous almost
Speaker 1: they're not even seen. The Asians are stepping up and
Speaker 1: putting a lot of their efforts inside of You see
Speaker 1: crazy rich Aasans, You see you know Shang Chai chi
Speaker 1: going on. It's a powerful transition happening right now. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, there were more children of color being born
Speaker 1: in America than white children. Is certainly gonna be a
Speaker 1: rebrowning of America and the world, which is a majority
Speaker 1: of color. World were now with its own weapons and
Speaker 1: its own entertainment take center state, So you know happen
Speaker 1: well right now as we're seeing it, it's probably not
Speaker 1: as profound as people think. And now a quick break.
Speaker 1: Are you a woman owned business looking for a new
Speaker 1: sales channel. I'm so excited to tell you about our
Speaker 1: newest partner in the W Marketplace. Founded by two women,
Speaker 1: it's a nationwide e commerce site for women entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: the shoppers who support them. It offers favorable terms and
Speaker 1: is a supportive community for female founded companies. With over
Speaker 1: five hundred women owned businesses selling thousands of products and services,
Speaker 1: the W Marketplace might be your favorite new sales channel.
Speaker 1: Intrigued learn more at Join the w Marketplace dot com.
Speaker 1: You grew up in Arizona until you were eleven or twelve,
Speaker 1: and you're one of six kids, one of six? Yes,
Speaker 1: what's your relationship with your family like now? My father
Speaker 1: has passed away, my mother is still here. She's very
Speaker 1: much central to how I think she was. They were
Speaker 1: both orphans and one of six. Um. I always say,
Speaker 1: I spent the first seleven years of my life in
Speaker 1: a hotel called Starlife of Root sixty six. I'm very pragmatic.
Speaker 1: I believe in doing your best right now to help
Speaker 1: a system that only can change if people care enough
Speaker 1: to participate. And UM, I think that that's the real
Speaker 1: difference is that I don't buy into fairy tales too
Speaker 1: much because I haven't seen one yet. And um, all
Speaker 1: I see is hard work and people making sacrifices and
Speaker 1: no matter what they're suffering or enduring, trying to promote
Speaker 1: unity and or love in some kind of real world way.
Speaker 1: So I love my mother. She's UM. If I get
Speaker 1: any of my imagination or any of my sweetness, If
Speaker 1: I have any sweetness, it comes from her. From her.
Speaker 1: She's a very beautiful person and very kind and naive,
Speaker 1: and yet very wise. People call her like black Yoda.
Speaker 1: And my father was a real firebrand. He was charismatic,
Speaker 1: he was handsome in a black way, dark skin, he
Speaker 1: had to go tooth on his front, tooth um. That
Speaker 1: was when it was something that was a prestige and
Speaker 1: status and not some sort of rapper persona. And he
Speaker 1: also was, like I said, when a man of many parts.
Speaker 1: He wasn't necessarily what he always showed himself to be
Speaker 1: the people. He was ridiculously talented and seen as a healer.
Speaker 1: He had been a boy preacher from since he was six,
Speaker 1: and back in the Punecostal tradition, you can be a
Speaker 1: preacher that young, but you're also used in kind of
Speaker 1: because he was so talented, I think he learned the
Speaker 1: wrong lessons and he saw too much of of people
Speaker 1: taking advantage of him. But then he also learned it
Speaker 1: because he was so good. And this is no shade
Speaker 1: to white people. They've never seen anything like him except
Speaker 1: for Martin Luther King and these types of really powerful,
Speaker 1: charismatic black men that were coming out of the sixties,
Speaker 1: and they wanted a little piece of that necesanities. And
Speaker 1: so I think when the Lutheran Church took him up.
Speaker 1: They saw an opportunity to support and have a new
Speaker 1: voice in there in their midst and I think they
Speaker 1: were smart to do so. But I also thought and
Speaker 1: my father took advantage of this sort of crush they
Speaker 1: had on him. And I find that at different times
Speaker 1: in America, we we find these black men and were
Speaker 1: getting we fall in love with them, get crushes, and
Speaker 1: we don't often see exactly who they are, or we
Speaker 1: don't support who they need to be. And I think
Speaker 1: black people are the same way that we have a profound,
Speaker 1: weird relationship with whiteness that's been put on us. So
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming us. I'm just saying that we are
Speaker 1: at odds at it at all times. And it's so
Speaker 1: weird how we're all woven together in this world and
Speaker 1: we don't see that we have each other's blood. We
Speaker 1: have Irish blood and the Scottish, all this stuff. We're
Speaker 1: cousins with cousins through the struggle with cousins through actual
Speaker 1: blood blood, and yet we sat here and fight and
Speaker 1: have all these deformities in psychological mental incapacities, and um,
Speaker 1: we really are in UM. I just think America is
Speaker 1: so much there's so much for our future that we
Speaker 1: could learn from each other, but we can't if we
Speaker 1: see each other's is not family, and we are profoundly family.
Speaker 1: Speaking of how much there is to do in the world,
Speaker 1: how do you choose where to put your efforts? There's
Speaker 1: only one of you, so which causes and which efforts
Speaker 1: have you chosen? Uh? As as the place is to
Speaker 1: put your attention, I put my attention mostly on women
Speaker 1: and girls. I think that women are an example of
Speaker 1: sustainable future for us all. I think that they always
Speaker 1: make the village better. I was the most traveled surrogate
Speaker 1: for Hillary Clinton, and she sent me around the world
Speaker 1: to learn from people and be around people who I
Speaker 1: could have a template for in a blueprint. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: to her for that. She because of that, I was
Speaker 1: around uh John Lewis and got a chance to produce
Speaker 1: her his his documentary Good Trouble. Because of her, I've
Speaker 1: met Maya Angel, Louin Um, Jana van Zandt, and Stephanie Tubbs,
Speaker 1: and Sheila jack Jackson Lee. I just did a reparations
Speaker 1: documentary that follows Sheila Jackson Lee with HR forty and
Speaker 1: Reparations and Robert Rue Simmons, the all the women who
Speaker 1: passed the first reparations bill in American history, and we
Speaker 1: watched that in real time when it never happened again,
Speaker 1: but she did it. These are women, and I've met
Speaker 1: amazing women running Google with all these diversity and diversity positions.
Speaker 1: I've met you, I've met Amy. I think I've I'm
Speaker 1: most likely drawn to strong women because I don't believe
Speaker 1: that they get enough help. People think that they have
Speaker 1: a lot of power and have it all together because
Speaker 1: they're so massively um able. What they're often the least supported,
Speaker 1: and people are scared of. Often strong women, I'm not UM.
Speaker 1: I see them as being profoundly vulnerable, and um, if
Speaker 1: we're going to win this world, I'm going to help
Speaker 1: the people who I feel like will be the most
Speaker 1: attacked and could use hopefully the strength and how I
Speaker 1: see them to shield them a little bit from the
Speaker 1: world and say I see you, and what can I
Speaker 1: do to help talk to us about finding Tamika. I
Speaker 1: was sometimes speak at I don't know events or for causes,
Speaker 1: but um, I was speaking somewhere in Alabama, and there
Speaker 1: was a black man named David Person who I stayed
Speaker 1: in touch with him, when do you kind of touch
Speaker 1: with me? And said, Erica, there's this woman that I met.
Speaker 1: Her name is Rebecca Howard. Her nice went missing in
Speaker 1: two thousand five, Tamika Houston and Tonika Houston. UM is
Speaker 1: the poster child for black and missing women and girls
Speaker 1: and this phenomenon that Quinn Eiffel, the great journalist called
Speaker 1: the missing White women's syndrome, and maybe you could do
Speaker 1: something about it in a podcast that would really be enlightening,
Speaker 1: enlightening and UM. I have a partner in Ben arn
Speaker 1: On at color Farm Media, and we have been doing
Speaker 1: film and telling. We call ourselves the Mottown of film,
Speaker 1: television and Tech, and we've been trying to find really
Speaker 1: great partners and we said, why not, We'll take this on.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I didn't think that it
Speaker 1: would get any funding, because it's the hardest thing to
Speaker 1: ever do. We do fun things project by project. But
Speaker 1: we went out with it. And I had just done
Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club with Charlemagne the God and he had
Speaker 1: asked me to do a preparations podcast with the Black Effect,
Speaker 1: and so we didn't a companion piece. Since we were
Speaker 1: doing the documentary. We knew it would take so much time.
Speaker 1: But he said, yo, Queen, remember that other thing you
Speaker 1: pitched me finding Tamika. I just got a deal at
Speaker 1: Audible with Kevin Hard. Why don't you come over there
Speaker 1: and do it there. So that's what we did last year.
Speaker 1: We geared up and we did fighting. Tamika found James T. Green,
Speaker 1: who was a great executive producer. His cousin Chenisia had
Speaker 1: gone missing. A lot of these people had had missing
Speaker 1: women and girls in their lives, and they said, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do the best we can with this project, and
Speaker 1: so we did it. It's a true crimes podcast through
Speaker 1: Audible series. There's ten episodes. And we sent her to
Speaker 1: Mika Houston, who went missing in two thousands for just
Speaker 1: before her twenty five birthday. Um it turns out she
Speaker 1: was killed and murdered buying an acquaintance, UM, a so
Speaker 1: called boyfriend, whether we know that not to be true
Speaker 1: or not. And she kept haunting people and their dreams
Speaker 1: and talking to Sye Gigs psycho who would actually helped
Speaker 1: find the police find her all these years. So with
Speaker 1: her permission, I asked her if she would allow us
Speaker 1: to tell her story and as long as she sort
Speaker 1: of kept a little distance from me because I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether I believe in any of that
Speaker 1: or not, but I know you're talking to people and
Speaker 1: I hear you through them. So if you let me,
Speaker 1: you will tell your story as a true crime story,
Speaker 1: but also as a ghost story and neo noir story.
Speaker 1: They would tell the real, three dimensional version of who
Speaker 1: this girl was. Why was that important? Because if she's
Speaker 1: only seen based upon the most salacious facts around her
Speaker 1: death and demise, she's putting again into um what I
Speaker 1: call the culture ghetto. I wanted her to be a
Speaker 1: non genus. I wanted her to be seen as a
Speaker 1: person who had flaws herself and who it might have
Speaker 1: stepped into a boundary she didn't understand, but who also
Speaker 1: was young and beautiful and had young love and dreams
Speaker 1: and those types of things, and the type of of real,
Speaker 1: generous person she was. So that's what it is. It's
Speaker 1: called finding to people. Finding TMKA is a podcast, it's
Speaker 1: an audio series, and then you also have a graphics
Speaker 1: series that you've done which is now getting into an
Speaker 1: f T is like how do you keep diversifying the
Speaker 1: places and the mediums through what you're making things I
Speaker 1: amy only do that because and I shouldn't say only.
Speaker 1: It's given me an opportunity to build my skill sets.
Speaker 1: But it's because you can't seem to walk down the
Speaker 1: road on a straight freeway, you know, you always have
Speaker 1: to do detours because there's people who say no to you.
Speaker 1: So I have a graphic novel series called Concrete Park.
Speaker 1: We went out me and my ex husband who's also
Speaker 1: a creative partner of mine, Tony per Year. Tony wrote
Speaker 1: is the first African America to write a movie that
Speaker 1: made over a hundred million dollars. He wrote Eracer. With
Speaker 1: all he had accomplished what I had accomplished, we went
Speaker 1: out and we pitched this series or film that we
Speaker 1: were trying to do. We went a lot of places
Speaker 1: and a lot of mostly executives. Actually all of them
Speaker 1: were white, and some of them really took it on seriously.
Speaker 1: But like this is cool because Tony was very visual.
Speaker 1: He had a background as James Patterson's pro jay and advertising,
Speaker 1: so he knew how to lay out things and he
Speaker 1: always had a great eye. He's a really wonderful artist
Speaker 1: that way. But with all that, could not get out
Speaker 1: of that, and we had a really faithful meeting with
Speaker 1: an executive um at a studio who was the president
Speaker 1: of the studio, and we started to pitch our idea
Speaker 1: Comfrey Parker. He said, let me stop you right there.
Speaker 1: He said, black people don't like science fiction because they
Speaker 1: don't see themselves in the future. We looked at him,
Speaker 1: we were wondering why. And he tells us about this
Speaker 1: movie they made and from one comment from an audience
Speaker 1: member when they did the focus test, there was a
Speaker 1: young man in the audience who kept looking at the
Speaker 1: screen after it was over and stayed there and they said,
Speaker 1: do you have any questions, sir, And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to know how that get to Mars. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a story that's being told to us by
Speaker 1: the president of a studio. And well Tony stops him.
Speaker 1: He says, let me tell you something about black people.
Speaker 1: Who says, for black people to past this painful, the
Speaker 1: president precarious, but the future is free. We always live
Speaker 1: in the future. He said, you got your whole American
Speaker 1: future from black people. He said, we're the aliens that
Speaker 1: you took from across the ocean to rock your world,
Speaker 1: to make your planets to world, and that's why you
Speaker 1: have rock and roll in blues and wrap and R
Speaker 1: and B and all these things. And by the way,
Speaker 1: he says, you may not know this, but two of
Speaker 1: the biggest science fiction writers in the world, Samuel Delaney
Speaker 1: and Octavia Butler, And if you haven't been paying attention,
Speaker 1: Will Smith is the number one science fiction star in
Speaker 1: the world at the time. He had done independence in
Speaker 1: a minute, black all that, and this dude to no
Speaker 1: one had ever interrupted his diet tribe or his rant,
Speaker 1: so needless to say, he wasn't gonna be funding our
Speaker 1: thing or take it on. And we were walking out
Speaker 1: of this feeling a little more than a little down
Speaker 1: because we've waited so long and we've gone everywhere. And
Speaker 1: Tony said, oh fuck it, I'll draw it. And he
Speaker 1: taught himself after me how to draw an illustrate comics.
Speaker 1: So then by the end of the year we were
Speaker 1: a dark horse published comic. We were the best American comic.
Speaker 1: But were we trying to be comic book creators? No,
Speaker 1: we were just trying to be filmmakers. But we became
Speaker 1: comic bookmakers. I became a podcast creator to make of
Speaker 1: something about a story that they probably wouldn't tell on
Speaker 1: film and television. I became a director to tell the
Speaker 1: reparation story because I thought it was important and I
Speaker 1: knew the players. So that's what I'm doing. It's building
Speaker 1: out a resume of skills, but it really would be
Speaker 1: nice if I could just act, Like, now a quick break.
Speaker 1: You married the second man you ever dated, and you
Speaker 1: were married for twenty years. What hasn't been like since
Speaker 1: the divorce? He's your creative partner, Like, what's your relationship? Like? Again,
Speaker 1: I'm a preacher's daughter. I didn't go out much. I've
Speaker 1: been working in film and television since I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: I didn't hang out of bars. I didn't go to
Speaker 1: dropped out of college to go on that tour with
Speaker 1: the Royal Shakespeare. So all the places I might have
Speaker 1: met people, I didn't. And then I was working in
Speaker 1: these when he six shows a year with Living Single,
Speaker 1: that's a play a week. You don't get out. And
Speaker 1: my manager calls me and said that an artist wanted
Speaker 1: to paint me. That's all you have to say to
Speaker 1: an actress. Of course, I want to meet this artist.
Speaker 1: And so they set up a dinner at a restaurant
Speaker 1: in Venice, and uh, he insulted me in some way,
Speaker 1: and I remember going, how dare he? How dare he
Speaker 1: insult me? He said something, Um, it was just sort
Speaker 1: of dismissive, and I didn't know. I was pretty vulnerable
Speaker 1: about maybe how I came off and um, but I
Speaker 1: still wanted to let him paint me. So I showed
Speaker 1: up for the photography and he took some pictures and
Speaker 1: the whole time, he says, yapping his butt off and
Speaker 1: talking a mile a minute, and I go, this is
Speaker 1: person knows more than anybody have ever met. I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like this before. And he's talking about Motown,
Speaker 1: he's talking about plants, he's talking about this, he's talking
Speaker 1: about that. He's talking about how the world Internet is
Speaker 1: gonna sho show up. And he's got all these computers
Speaker 1: on his floor and boxes that he's bought with all
Speaker 1: his Eraser money. And he says, I don't know what
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen, Erica, but content will be keen. And
Speaker 1: he was right. At the time, there was dial up
Speaker 1: and all the stuff, and no one knew what the
Speaker 1: web was. And I kept telling person people I was
Speaker 1: dating somebody who was on the Worldwide Web, and people
Speaker 1: are like, what are you talking about? But I thought
Speaker 1: he was the future, not just for me, but in
Speaker 1: his mind and out of his mouth. I was so
Speaker 1: enamored with what he knew. And at the time, I
Speaker 1: think because I hadn't gone to college, that sort of
Speaker 1: pulled me in. I had insecurities about my own knowledge
Speaker 1: and about my own grasp of what the world was.
Speaker 1: I think that was a lot of the attraction. And plus,
Speaker 1: Tony is very charismatic, and I like charismatic strong men.
Speaker 1: And I met his mother. She was a strong woman.
Speaker 1: She had married a black man and had been disowned
Speaker 1: by her own family. And Dorothy was a white woman
Speaker 1: that you did not trifle with. She had estabbed in
Speaker 1: New York Queens Library, you know, the Langston Hughes collection.
Speaker 1: She was a race woman in her own way. She
Speaker 1: was an abolitionist. And I thought, wow, that's a version
Speaker 1: of a type of woman that I hadn't seen except
Speaker 1: for people like Hillary Clinton, and I had seen them
Speaker 1: in the black and and in brown. But I really
Speaker 1: just thought, I I'd like to be her. So I
Speaker 1: fell in love with with his mother and his father,
Speaker 1: and his father was a world too, veteran and classy
Speaker 1: and had been a pullman porter and had done union
Speaker 1: munitions and equipment in UM World War Two, and he
Speaker 1: had a story to tell. But he was also a
Speaker 1: pioneering salesman. I wrote a script that went viral online
Speaker 1: Madman script called Uptown Saturday Night, and it was talking
Speaker 1: about his life Leon Early or Leon per year. He
Speaker 1: was an adopted person too, and so there was a
Speaker 1: lot of things that mapped on. I got married to
Speaker 1: Tony and then I realized we just didn't get along
Speaker 1: right now was great friends, but we didn't get along.
Speaker 1: We weren't necessarily a match there, and so I stayed
Speaker 1: twenty years, twenty years to figure that out. I mean,
Speaker 1: what happens after twenty years that you're friendly, like you
Speaker 1: know what? This is the day I'm just gonna break
Speaker 1: this thing up because I didn't want to survive it anymore.
Speaker 1: I wanted to thrive at something that I thought was
Speaker 1: more in line with who I was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: And we were both miserable and we knew it. Um
Speaker 1: at that point, you're not even being intimate the way
Speaker 1: you need to be. So how can you really say
Speaker 1: that you have a partnership? You can be friends and
Speaker 1: you want the best for each other, and some of
Speaker 1: the wanting the best for each other is admitting that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a match in that way. I had are
Speaker 1: still started to listen to different versions of what love
Speaker 1: could be. Listen to Alan de Botton who's talking about
Speaker 1: romanticism and how we've sort of locked into that as
Speaker 1: opposed to really realizing what partnership in relationships are. I
Speaker 1: had to re learn that this whole thing we're seeing
Speaker 1: on TV was a bunch of bullcrap, and they fed
Speaker 1: it to us wholesale, especially as women, that we're supposed
Speaker 1: to have this thing and we're supposed to be so mates.
Speaker 1: And also the crap they didn't really teach us any
Speaker 1: real skill sets about how to build a relationship and
Speaker 1: what it would look like if it went raw. And
Speaker 1: they say, oh, go to go to therapy, But what
Speaker 1: if the other person doesn't want to get the therapy,
Speaker 1: or what if nothing comes of that, or what if
Speaker 1: you're just misaligned? Is it possible that you're not selling
Speaker 1: out your background? Someone like me saying well that's against God,
Speaker 1: and said, well God's not living with him. I am shoot,
Speaker 1: I mean, what am I supposed to do? So I
Speaker 1: I just did what I thought was best for me
Speaker 1: at the time, and I knew I was a decent person,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to get out of position to not
Speaker 1: be happy when I was at home and not feel
Speaker 1: like I was um also leaning into the worst version
Speaker 1: of myself because I'm taking out my frustration on this
Speaker 1: man and this relationship as opposed to being the really
Speaker 1: up beat person I knew I could be. So we
Speaker 1: parted and and then and um, that's why we're friends, said,
Speaker 1: everyone goes. I can't believe how friendly you are with
Speaker 1: Tony's like, he's never left. I said, he will never leave.
Speaker 1: He's I didn't leave him because he was a bad man.
Speaker 1: I left because I knew there was a better version
Speaker 1: of us somewhere. So we're gonna do the speed round,
Speaker 1: and I will ask the first question, Erica, who leaves
Speaker 1: you star struck? I love politicians, I love people, grassroots organizers.
Speaker 1: I'm star struck by Stacey Abrams. I of course would
Speaker 1: be starstruck if I could be by Harry Tubman and
Speaker 1: Shirley Chisholm, those people. I was star struck definitely by
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, but as I came to know her and
Speaker 1: saw the work that she did and the sacrifice she
Speaker 1: had made. Um. It grounded me and made me realize
Speaker 1: just how human people are, and they can create wicked
Speaker 1: which is out of all of us. But we have
Speaker 1: to find a way to communicate the goodness and the
Speaker 1: humanity and us all. What book are you reading right now?
Speaker 1: I'm reading Cormick McCarthy's um the Uh. It's something about
Speaker 1: a child something child whatever, but a Cormick piccard book.
Speaker 1: I really love him and I think he's a fantastic writer.
Speaker 1: What is your nighttime routine? My nighttime routine is I
Speaker 1: always because I'm an actress, I always washed and take
Speaker 1: my makeup. I always take a shower always. UM. I
Speaker 1: feel like water is healing. I want to wash the
Speaker 1: day off, and it makes me feel fresh in my nest.
Speaker 1: What is your favorite way to spend a day off.
Speaker 1: My favorite thing to do is look through my stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't know that sounds crazy, but I like to
Speaker 1: rummage through and and look through the books or the
Speaker 1: papers on the floor. I see ideas written down that
Speaker 1: I might have gotten to. I see um suggestions that
Speaker 1: people might have given me. I just like to be
Speaker 1: like some sort of free range child, but like I'm
Speaker 1: a free range human and just do whatever I want
Speaker 1: without any conversation about time or any any spills. A
Speaker 1: little reckless, but that's what I like. I like to
Speaker 1: rummage through my stuff. Okay, so Lou Burns is our
Speaker 1: secret weapon. Lou has been listening to this episode and
Speaker 1: he always asks the final and usually the best question,
Speaker 1: No pressure live. I'm just blown away at your perspective.
Speaker 1: It is powerful and I'm listening to you and I
Speaker 1: imagine I'm like they need to put you on like
Speaker 1: the View, you know those type of shows where we're
Speaker 1: where people were talking about things. You have a perspective
Speaker 1: that's just like enrich In like full you know, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you good story about over who I saw last week.
Speaker 1: I had not seen Wipbi Goldberg. And since we did
Speaker 1: Long Walk Home, which was a movie with Sissy Spaceic
Speaker 1: about the Montgomery bussing in Alabama and um I was
Speaker 1: filming the Wu Tang Clan Wu Tang Shout out to
Speaker 1: them and we were in New Jersey and um we
Speaker 1: were filming near her and the woman's house that was
Speaker 1: owned that we were filming filming, and said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: bring my friend over and it was whippy. Goldberg said, Whoopy,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you since then. It was like weird
Speaker 1: because I was like twenty nine when I did that film.
Speaker 1: Octavia Spencer was one of the pas. We all played
Speaker 1: together in the parking lot in Alabama. This is how
Speaker 1: long ago it was. And I said to I said,
Speaker 1: do you see what your effect on me and my dna?
Speaker 1: I said, the Max braids. That's because I had just
Speaker 1: worked with her. That's Whoopie go for, I said, Felicia Rashad.
Speaker 1: I had just worked with her. I was playing a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I kind of was doing my best Felicia rasha but
Speaker 1: in my own funky way. Cecily Tyson. I had just
Speaker 1: worked or met her actually, and she told me, don't
Speaker 1: you ever let anybody tell you what to do with
Speaker 1: your hair. And so I had the strength to do
Speaker 1: these things and move forward. But they were all imprinting
Speaker 1: on me. And I said, I hope you know how
Speaker 1: grateful I am. And I got a chance to say
Speaker 1: thank you, so thanks for mentioning the view. I saw
Speaker 1: the route tank and I never saw you play a
Speaker 1: role like that before. Thank you. You know, you know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing about um Rison, who I call Bobby.
Speaker 1: He said, you know Erica, he said, Arika. In order
Speaker 1: to um you know, have you get that role of Linda?
Speaker 1: Linda did? I had to ask all my brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: you know, if you it was cool. He has eleven
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters. I was like, for real, but I
Speaker 1: I was honored because I said, you mean eleven children
Speaker 1: approved and said she can play our mother. So I said,
Speaker 1: I'll do my best. And then again I asked Miss Linda.
Speaker 1: I said, Miss Linda, your children want to see you.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. They already seeing me,
Speaker 1: so just let me get out of the way and
Speaker 1: I'll do my best, you know, to to show up
Speaker 1: for you because they miss you. And that's what I did.
Speaker 1: It's fun to be on the Hutang clan. I was
Speaker 1: over there playing around Mari VM people's just doing his thing.
Speaker 1: We're doing all sorts of themed episodes on season three,
Speaker 1: so you gotta check that out. And then also I'm
Speaker 1: on The Run the World, which is on Stars playing
Speaker 1: the Great bar Ballot, which co created by Evtney Bowser
Speaker 1: who did Living Single. So all some of the things
Speaker 1: that you think are taken away from you. They're given
Speaker 1: to you tenfold, pressed down and push, you know, falling
Speaker 1: over as they say, and I'm I'm wait before I
Speaker 1: might be the world's biggest Erica Alexander Fan I really
Speaker 1: like her. She's seriously awesome. For sense of purpose is
Speaker 1: very unusual, and you don't see that in a lot
Speaker 1: of people. And I think when you meet her or
Speaker 1: you listen to her, you're like, of course she's successful
Speaker 1: because she's like she's a badass. I would always bet
Speaker 1: on Erica. That is a good way to put it.
Speaker 1: I would always bet on Erica. She is incredibly direct
Speaker 1: and authentic, and it's clear that she's had that sense
Speaker 1: of purpose that you talk about since she was really young.
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting to hear her talk about how
Speaker 1: she has worked not only in TV, Button theater, Button film,
Speaker 1: and then graphic novels, podcasts, activism right gone into all
Speaker 1: of these. A friend Arena I thought one thing that
Speaker 1: was like super honest and very it made me appreciate
Speaker 1: her even more. She was like, I love to act.
Speaker 1: I wish I could just act all the time, but
Speaker 1: because there's not enough roles written for me or creative
Speaker 1: for people who look like me, I've had to become
Speaker 1: a writer, I've had to become a producer and activist.
Speaker 1: I thought that was striking. I think the thing, the
Speaker 1: one thing I would add to everything Erica said to
Speaker 1: us which was incredible, is that she's also really really
Speaker 1: fun in real life, Like she is the most fun
Speaker 1: And to me, I think that's really interesting because sometimes
Speaker 1: the people who are brilliant at their craft and work
Speaker 1: so so hard are not that, but Erica is that. Well.
Speaker 1: When she came to our Alaska Airlines event, like she
Speaker 1: was the life of the party. She really was. She was.
Speaker 1: She was a huge personality. She made everyone feel comfortable.
Speaker 1: She was warm and friendly to everyone, and you don't
Speaker 1: often see that, especially with someone who's had such great
Speaker 1: success like she has. Thanks for listening to What's Her
Speaker 1: Story with Sam and Amy. We would appreciate it if
Speaker 1: you leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: of course, connect with us on social media at What's
Speaker 1: Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with Sam and Amy
Speaker 1: is powered by my company, The Riveter at The Riveter
Speaker 1: dot c O and Sam's company, park Place Payments at
Speaker 1: park place payments dot com. Thanks to our producer Stacy
Speaker 1: Parra and our male perspective. Blue burns,