Life Beyond Measure (18 page)

With James Baldwin at the 1963 March on Washington for Civil Rights

With Harry Belafonte at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington for Civil Rights

With Thurgood Marshall, a man I greatly admired, whom I had the honor to portray in the 1991 movie
Separate But Equal

With Nelson Mandela, a “person of courage” whom I had the honor to portray in the 1997 movie
Mandela and De Klerk

My great-granddaughter Ayele in her flower sunglasses

He demanded, “What are you doing in here?”

I thought it was obvious since I needed paper, and I asked him again.

He said, “You get out of here,” and he turned and walked out.

After I left the bathroom, I went directly to the office of the studio manager. I said, “Look, I’m not a troublemaker, and I know the conditions under which I am here: I am here as an indentured laborer because that’s the only means under which we could be brought into the country to work. But I want you to know what just happened in the bathroom.” I told him I didn’t want him to fire the kid, but I wanted him to call the kid in and explain to him that if he saw me in the “white” bathroom again—because I was not going back to the other one—it would be best for him not to say anything to me and I would say nothing to him.

The studio manager said not to worry about it; he would take care of it.

During the next six or seven weeks I used the “white” bathroom and I had no problem. About two weeks before I finished work, I came into the studio, and sitting on a wall at the front entrance was this same kid, and he was making nice. He said, “Hello, how are you?”

I said hello, but I was a little skittish about him, because I knew what he was. He said, “You’re leaving next week, I hear.”

I said, “Yeah.”

I later told my driver, Dickie Niaka, about my dubious conversation with the kid, and Dickie, immediately suspicious, said, “I’ll take care of that. I’m going to take you to the airport.”

I, along with several of the other black actors, was staying at a farmhouse twenty-six miles outside the city, in accordance with apartheid law. When Dickie came to pick me up, there were two
other cars with him. Dickie put me in his car, explained he would drive between the two other cars, and handed me a gun and gave instructions on how to use it.

I asked, “What’s up?”

He said, “Just in case.”

So we headed out to the airport, a forty-five-minute drive. Soon after we hit the main highway, a car came out of each side of a crossroad. Dickie floored the gas pedal, and the two cars now following us sped up. Dickie, an experienced driver who knew the countryside, did everything to outmaneuver them, running through cornfields and down narrow, unpaved pathways. Suddenly, we were back on the motorway with Dickie driving ninety miles an hour and the chase cars right behind us, but being effectively blocked off by our other two cars.

We finally arrived at the airport safely, and I offered the gun back to Dickie, but he told me to keep it.

There were British and Jewish families living in South Africa, and although it was against apartheid law for them to interact with us socially in their homes, some of them nevertheless invited Canada Lee and me for dinner. Often, they would suggest that our driver come in to join us, but Dickie politely refused, saying he would rather stay outside and rest. The truth was that he wanted nothing to do with those he saw as, no matter how liberal they appeared to be, part of South Africa’s apartheid system.

What might have happened had either the South African or Mississippi chase cars caught up with us? Certainly nothing good.

I have had one more experience, Ayele, that I must deem a close call, though one of quite a different nature. Many years ago I received a call from Florida. It was my eldest brother, Cyril, calling to tell me
that cancer had been found in his prostate. I told him that I knew of a wonderful doctor, and I advised Cyril to get on a plane and come to California, where I would make arrangements for the doctor to see him.

My brother came, and my doctor sent him to a highly respected prostate cancer expert, who found that Cyril did indeed have the disease, and the only thing he could recommend was to shave it; that is, cut away whatever was on the outside of the prostate that needed to be removed. In fact, the cancer was too far gone for much to be done. The specialist did the best he could. My brother went back to Miami and lived a couple of years longer, and then the prostate cancer took him away. He was eighty-one years old at that time. By then, I had come to terms with the mortality of loved ones, having lost parents and friends, some to old age, others much too early to bear. But Cyril’s passing was tough. He was the firstborn of my siblings, my big brother who kept me anchored to my past and where I came from.

A few years after Cyril died, my doctor told me he noticed from my blood work that the level of my PSA—my prostate-specific antigen, a marker for possible prostate cancer—had snuck up from four to six. Not to worry, he said, but it needed to be watched. Then, a few months later, he found it up to seven or eight, at which point he said, “We have to do something about it.” He sent me to another urology specialist, who ordered a biopsy, the result of which showed no cancer.

Then the PSA went up another notch, and they said, “Well, we’ll do another biopsy.” To make a long story short, they did four biopsies.
Four.

Lo and behold, on the fourth one they found it, and it was embedded.

They wanted to know what I wanted to do about it, and I asked, “What are my options?” If I chose to radiate it, and if that wasn’t successful, it would be too late, they told me, for surgery. My question was: “Why don’t you just remove it?” The doctors agreed that would probably be the best approach. So I said, “Fine, let’s remove it.”

I speak of it casually now, but I was concerned then because Joanna and I have two children, and I didn’t want her to bear the burden of having to bury me. I was not afraid for myself, I really was not, and I was happy to not be afraid, because I have dealt with fear, I have lived with fear, I have been seduced by fear, and I have overcome many of my fears (although certainly not all). So when I realized my concern was primarily for my wife and six children, I was comfortable with whatever the outcome was going to be. I kept telling that to my wife, and she was terrific, she really was terrific. We had to tell Anika and Sydney and their four older sisters, and they all understood after it was explained to them that the cancer was encapsulated and exactly what that meant. Once we had talked with the children, Joanna was at ease with it as much as she could be, knowing the kids had been told the truth.

So the day came and I went to the hospital. I went under a different name, putting together the name of my grandfather and my great-grandfather, but the press found out anyway.

Once the doctors removed my prostate, it was sent out for examination, and it was confirmed that it was encapsulated and nothing had escaped, which was the best possible news: nothing had escaped. I had to go back many times to recheck, just to make sure.

But without the prostate, life was still life. Now it became a subject of concern that I was able to talk about during an interview with Maya Angelou on the Oprah radio network. Maya was under
the impression, correctly so, that a very high percentage of African American males were discovering they had prostate cancer. She wanted me to call in to her show and discuss this, and I did, knowing the kind of person she is and the kind of heart she has.

We discussed the problem quite openly on her program, hoping that African American males would not be reticent, shy, or dismissive about the importance of going in and getting an examination. As a result of my own experience, I tried to deliver to them a message: “If you can afford it, do it; if you cannot afford it, go to a hospital where they will do it for you for free, or if you can go to a hospital or a clinic where you can pay it off on an installment plan, do it. Whatever it takes, go and get an examination for prostate cancer, because it can kill you like it has killed many, many men. The truth of the matter is, if one is a father and his children are still dependent upon him, or if one has hope of fatherhood in the future, it would be sound judgment to check your prostate to be sure to stay on the road to a long and successful life.”

My two oldest children—your grandmother Beverly and your great-aunt Pamela—made a documentary of my experience with prostate cancer for the American Cancer Society not long after I had my operation. And I have been known, I suppose, in many circles to be a prostate cancer survivor. Maya touched on those points and asked me questions candidly, and I answered them as honestly and correctly as I could. I wanted African American men, who die disproportionately of this disease, to take heed of my message—and obviously Maya Angelou’s as well—because many deaths could be prevented. Depending on the tenacity of those who are vulnerable, numerous lives could be saved by their simply saying, “I’m going to find out about this disease called prostate cancer. I’m going to go and get an examination.” Let the doctor say there is nothing
to worry about. Or, if he says there is something to worry about, accept that and do something about it.

I went in and had mine done, and I’ve lived a normal life, normal in every way, and I’m here—fifteen years later, I’m here. I’m fortunate, yes indeed.

There you have it, with all those and other dangers now behind me, my dear Ayele, and I sit here now at the start of my ninth decade, as safe as life and the city permit.