With cousin Robert Gossett      

With Jonathan Silverman and LA Mayor Villaraigosa

May 30, 2006: Lou celebrates the big "70" with his grandchildren.... (Left to right Mycah, Olivia, Malcolm, Brionne)...picture from Jet Magazine....

May 11, 2006:  Lou sat down with Tavis Smiley on PBS. Their conversation:

Tavis: I'm pleased to welcome Louis Gossett Jr. to this program. The Academy Award-winning actor has starred in seminal films like “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “The Josephine Baker Story,” and “Roots.” This summer, you can catch him in the new movie, "All In.” And he continues in his role on the popular sci-fi series “Stargate SG-1.” Mr. Gossett, nice to have you here, sir.

Louis Gossett, Jr.: Oh, it’s great to be here. It’s a great pleasure.

Tavis: It’s a great pleasure to have you on the program. Since I last saw you, you had - many of us read about this - had a major health challenge that you appear to overcome, 'cause you look as healthy as ever.

Gossett: I have never been this healthy in about 30, 40 years. Not since "Officer and a Gentleman.”

Tavis: Yeah.

Gossett: Yeah. But the preparation - I get thorough examinations twice a year. When you get over 50, I highly recommend everybody to do that. And so they're looking like a fine-toothed comb, and they found, during a sonogram, something suspicious. (Laughs) And I knew something was wrong when the doctor came to me at 9:00 at night with a therapist. (Laughs)

Tavis: (Laughs) That might give it away, doesn’t it? When your doctor shows up with a therapist in tow…

Gossett: (Laughs) At 9:00 at night, at my house.

Tavis: And says, “Mr. Gossett, we need to talk.”

Gossett: Yeah, we need to talk. And so the heart started pounding and stuff, and they said, “Well, we found something on your kidney, and you’re gonna have to have surgery.” And I kind of took it well. But I have adopted a thing called ozone therapy, so I do a healthy regimen anyway. So I just started to think, okay. This is – okay. Let’s go find out what’s the best place to do it. I have some friends in Toronto, Canada, Boston had the - Massachusetts had one.

I said, “Wait a minute, the National Kidney Foundation.” When I met Dr. Lily Barber, a very good friend of mine now, and she introduced me to my hero. And that’s Alec Gershman, who was at Cedar-Sinai. Born in Russia; probably number one in the practice. And he did the examination. And in the meantime, I was getting myself healthy, as I try to do on a daily basis. And then I went in, I think, about the sixteenth of February. He removed a kidney. And the eighteenth, I was home. The operation took 35 minutes.

Tavis: I was gonna say, that’s pretty quick.

Gossett: I woke up and I said, “Well, when are we gonna go?” He says, “I'm finished.” So it was almost like an appendectomy, because I guess the pre-preparation of the rest of the body - they weren’t gonna do it until everything in the body was strong enough to take the shock. So my heart, blood pressure, everything else was pretty strong. So, it was a minimal kind of operation.

What do they call it? Arthroscopic, which is a tiny little incision about that big. And afterwards, maybe by the following Monday or Wednesday, I was home in less than 48 hours. And I was active by the following Monday. And I'm working out now; and I'm getting ready to do another movie. I've done two since then. And I've never felt better. It’s like cleaning up a car’s engine. There’s no hiccups; there’s nothing.

Tavis: How can you say you feel better, though, when you’re missing one kidney?

Gossett: Because we can operate on two. One kidney takes over the responsibility of two. And it overcompensates, especially if everything else in the body is clean and healthy. I've never felt better in all my life.

Tavis: Yeah. Let me go back a few minutes, here, to the moment that the doctor comes into your room, and he has this therapist in tow, as we mentioned earlier, and you have to prepare yourself for this conversation. From that moment through surgery, were you at all scared? Did you think that…

Gossett: Of course.

Tavis: Yeah.

Gossett: Of course.

Tavis: Yeah.

Gossett: But reality is really a good teacher. Conscious contact with God is a good teacher. And he didn't keep me on this planet to let me go now. So in an operating room, there’s nothing there but you, the surgeon, and God. And in the preparation, that’s all there is. And so you get as clean as possible on all kinds of levels. You do the right things. Your thought process follows suit. So it’s not bravura; it’s from deep.

A kind of peace hits you. A philosophy hits you. And so there was fear, but there was realistic consciousness. A realistic one. This is not the death sentence. Because it’s so early. But I had a choice. A transplant was never mentioned. Everything else is so strong that they could get rid of this. They considered partial. But then there’s a chance for it to spread.

So I said okay, let’s just take it all. And I didn't know what it would be like to have one, but that’s incredible. The rest of the body has kicked in; the blood pressure is down. My energy. It’s like a clean engine. It’s incredible. I highly recommend people, when they get past 50, to do thorough examinations. Prostate, liver, kidney, heart, blood pressure, cholesterol.

Tavis: I would suspect, particularly for Black men.

Gossett: Especially African American men.

Tavis: Yeah.

Gossett: There’s a lot of hypertension there. So when they get up to that age, have it twice a year; and have them do thorough. Not just that little 15-minute thing, but everywhere. And look for signs. The signs that happened to me - as I've been around the world in so many different locations, I thought maybe I'd gotten some - I had some parasites from Africa, and I also got them again in Mexico.

And they got all kinds of stuff, skin diseases and stuff that I've overcome. I figured it was the accumulation of travel. But in my home, there was a 10-year slow drip, and my house was full of toxic mold. And it went straight to my kidney. So the house is clean, but I had no idea.

Tavis: It’s amazing. So you’ve been all around the world, contracted all this other stuff, but what really infected and impacted your kidney was in your house.

Gossett: Airborne toxic mold.

Tavis: Wow.

Gossett: So I'm concerned with Louisiana for that reason.

Tavis: Yeah.

Gossett: I practice a thing called ozone therapy. It’s in the water and in the air and in your body. And its origins started in early Egypt. But we have a country that’s a little wrapped up in pharmaceuticals in that sense. But I'm a living example that that works, also. And it’s working. And those people who know, use it; and it works. So I wanna bring that process down to Louisiana when I go - I'm gonna speak at the graduation of Southern University and Baton Rouge Community College - as a suggestion.

Tavis: Well, I'm sure they’ll be happy to hear that. 'Cause you’re right, they're dealing with a lot of environmental challenges right about now; breathing all kind of stuff down there. Let me take you back to something you said a moment ago. You made the remark that you feel as good now as you did during your days of filming "An Officer and a Gentleman.”

Now, I remember that film. We all do. As a matter of fact, we don’t just remember it; we see it every other night (laughs) on some channel somewhere. So you ain’t got to go back 20 years to get that. You can go back 20 minutes in either direction and see "An Officer and a Gentleman” on television somewhere. That said, you really were in the best shape of your life. In that uniform, you looked awfully handsome.

Gossett: Well, I did the 30 days of basic training down in San Diego.

Tavis: You actually went through it yourself?

Gossett: Yeah. I said either I was gonna do this or die. I didn't die. I went up there with the Marines, and I was a Marine until it was over.

Tavis: Take me back to that film, and tell me how you processed - this is a tricky question, forgive me, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Take me back to "An Officer and a Gentleman” and tell me how you processed your winning the Academy Award for that film. And I wanna ask you that question in this specific regard. Whenever an African American wins an Academy Award, it unleashes a new round of hope.

Gossett: Hope, of course.

Tavis: Inside of Black America.

Gossett: Of course.

Tavis: This is the breakthrough. When Lou Gossett wins, this is the one. When Whoopie Goldberg wins, this is the one. When Denzel wins, oh, we know we there now. Halle gets it. All right, it’s gonna be on. And you get past that, now we got Jamie Foxx, and while there are more opportunities for African Americans in this business, a lot of us put our hopes on that one win being the one that’s really gonna open up the door.

So we knew Lou Gossett’s career was gonna soar after that. And that’s how a lot of friends of mine, when we had these conversations, processed these moments. But this ain’t about me, it’s about you. How did you process that win?

Gossett: I processed it with a celebration. I had also got the Emmy for “Roots.” Emmy for “Roots.” (unintelligible)

Tavis: Or Golden Globes.

Gossett: Golden Globes. I've got four People’s Choices, three Emmys, and stuff. I just thought it was all over. That I could call the shot, and I could not call the shot. I didn't work again for about a year, and “Roots,” thank God for television, because of the commercials, and then you have to sell a product. So I did a lot there. But I learned a whole thing, that I could give advice to everybody who thinks they're successful with a pocket full of money and a big house, is happiness is inside.

And you have to stick with that. That never changes. A conscious contact with God, or something that never moves. So that when you get this whipped cream, the money, this fame and success, there’s always gonna be a disappointment out there. But you'll never get disappointed with your internal spiritual consciousness. There is a disappointment, but it can’t be life-threatening disappointment.

It can't be a shattering of dreams disappointment. And the ultimate thing, when an African American wins, we need to get back together. Because it is a tunnel vision kind of business, and a very fickle business. And we represent - the African American public alone is larger than the economy of Spain. We are the number one…

Tavis: And a bunch of other countries.

Gossett: And a bunch of other countries. And we’re the number one consumer. But everyone else has their own, and we have not kind of gotten cohesive yet to flex some muscles.

Tavis: Still consumers and not producers.

Gossett: Professional consumers and not producers, and we have the wherewithal to make any kind of change overnight. And that’s part of a foundation I have. It’s called Eracism, because only one kind of consciousness, because of history, is running things. And we now have a world and a country where we need all of the consciousness to get an equal, one nation under God, indivisible, kind of mentality.

Tavis: I say this all the time, and to your t-shirt and your foundation, Eracism, I say all the time on this show, to keep reminding people that we now live in the most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever. Tell me why you need a program like Eracism, and the challenge it takes for a program like that to get traction in an environment that is so multiethnic, multiracial, and multicultural. It would seem to be easy work.

Gossett: It’s not easy work, but when you start with six year olds, before they learn anything else – I came from Brooklyn. Predominately Jewish neighborhood, there was Italians and Spanish and all that kind of, but they all had someplace to go other than school. Before school, the Jewish people had synagogues, and they're still my friends today, over a 50 year friendship.

What is the difference? We don’t have that place to go. Our parents, maybe they're a single parent, or maybe they're not available, they're too busy or too tired. They don’t learn those rites of passage the way I did in my house and in my neighborhood. They don’t exist anymore. So there needs to be, I think, I call it a Shamba house of learning. In every neighborhood that’s distressed.

When they come in there, they know their behavior pattern, they respect, voice respect for women, women’s respect for boys. Parental respect. Their culture, all the way back from Africa. Central America, and America. How important they really are on this planet today, and on whose shoulders they have gotten to be who they are. That’s the bottom line everybody else knows. But our children? No.

Tavis: Let me take you back, you just said something that made me think. Let me take you back right quick and try to connect up two things right quick. I wanna talk about "Roots” in just a second. But when you think of you and your role as Fiddler, and you think of "Roots” - what I loved about that series was inside that Haley family, the family we know now was the Haley family, whenever a child was born, you know the scene.

Gossett: Behold the only thing greater than yourself.

Tavis: I love it. See, I love that. (Laughs) You remember the line. Will you say it again?

Gossett: That’s the bottom line. You're supposed to behold the only thing greater than yourself.

Tavis: That’s the line I was looking for. So in every scene, every time there’s a child born in the Haley family, that moment happens. I raise that, because to your point now, I wonder what you think the difference in the Black community would be if there were, in fact, a rite of passage program like we see in the Jewish community and other communities. What would happen?

Gossett: Night and day. Night and day. Because then there’s no anger, there's no resentment, there’s no revenge, there’s no rage. There is a three-dimensional person who can take, then, that power of knowledge and put it into the American pot. Number one, our problem is the salvation of the planet. The global warming; the pollution of the air and the water, and not enough food.

What are we doing? Fighting. It’s kind of like everybody in a 747 at 30,000 feet plummeting to the ground, and people inside the plane are arguing about who’s gonna be in first class. That’s ludicrous. We need to do this.

Tavis: "Roots” has to be, I would assume, I can’t speak for you, at the top of your list of the high quality work that you’ve done in your career.

Gossett: Well, it’s number one. We thought that finally, we could get to see what we have to say. We don’t care if anybody watched. But everybody watched. (Laughs)

Tavis: Everybody watched. (Laughs) Exactly.

Gossett: Everybody watched.

Tavis: Yeah. Did that blow you guys away?

Gossett: It blew us away. It blew us away. We stopped the movie industry for a week. So, that’s divine providence.

Tavis: Yeah. And then of course in the Midwest, I grew up in the Midwest, right around the time "Roots” premiered, I'll remember this as long as I live, one of the worst winter storms blankets the east coast, the Midwest, in the history of the country.

Gossett: Yeah, so you had to stay home and watch.

Tavis: And people were stuck at home anyway.

Gossett: We planned it that way.

Tavis: Ya’ll planned it that way?

Gossett: Yeah. (Laughs)

Tavis: It’s all them Black folk talking to God.

Gossett: Yeah. (Laughs)

Tavis: What’d you call it? That conscious connection?

Gossett: The conscious contact, brother. (Laughs)

Tavis: There you go, yeah. (Laughs) Lord, send a snowstorm.

Gossett: (Laughs) Keep them home.

Tavis: Make everybody stay home.

Gossett: Don’t mess up the cable. (Laughs)

Tavis: Yeah. (Laughs) It all worked. So tell me about, you’re working on a couple of movies already. You got a couple things coming out this summer.

Gossett: Yeah, I got one called “All In.”

Tavis: “All In.”

Gossett: The background, of course, is what’s most popular. All-in poker. But it’s just a background for a relationship between a father, daughter, and the best friend. That’s Michael Madsen, Dominique Swinn, and myself. And I just started rehearsal today with my buddy Bill Duke. And it’s called “Cover,” and something, another important thing, and that’s AIDS.

Tavis: Yeah.

Gossett: HIV positive. And who has it, who gets it, which is gonna be a surprise, and who does not. But in that Shamba Foundation, it’s not the curing of AIDS that I'm interested in. It’s the prevention. The (unintelligible) changing of lifestyle to what’s more important. If you get to six years old, maybe in a generation or two, things might be able to get a little bit better. You have to unteach somebody to put something else in there. So, at six, there’s something else. And that’s been successful.

Tavis: and all these years later, Lou Gossett’s still doing high quality work. What a pleasure to have you here.

Gossett: Thank you, sir.

Tavis: Nice to see you. Stay healthy.

Gossett: Not to worry.