A year ago, Jasmine Guy auditioned to play writer Alex Haley's great-grandmother in the television miniseries "Queen." The author of "Roots" died the same week.
"I was wondering who and what would be in charge of quality control in the production," said Guy. "Any question I had was assuaged by the thought that Mr. Haley would be around. He was the reason I wanted to be involved."
After Haley died, she turned to the show's director. "I talked to John Erman," she said. "He was now the caretaker of the piece. He and the writer, who had worked with Mr. Haley, would be in charge. He was moved to tears."
John Erman had had lunch with Alex Haley the day that he died.
"I had no idea, nor did he, that he was ill," said Erman. "In retrospect, there were symptoms that could have been put down as a symptoms of a heart attack. I thought he had flown to California from Tennessee and was suffering jet lag. He had only flown from Washington State and was sweating, uncomfortable from the temperature in the room.
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"As we were embracing and saying good-bye, he said 'I'm sorry, I have to excuse myself,' and he left for the rest room. I heard on the news the next day that he had died."
Erman got a major career break when he was named one of the directors of "Roots," the 1977 landmark television series based on Haley's book of the same title and his search for his African ancestors.
"Roots," book and miniseries, made Haley a living institution, not only for black readers and viewers interested in their heritage, but for anyone with a serious sense of family. He died before completing "Queen" as a book and before its filming began.
"It was doubly important to me to try to do this in a way he would want it done," said Erman. "The original 'Roots' was a turning point in my career, and I had done the sequel, 'Roots: The Next Generation.' That was another joyous experience.
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"Alex was enormously generous. He always said, 'Find the good and praise it' -- the motto was on his letterhead. He gave me a sense I had not had before as a director. He had been over my shoulder, helping, talking to actors about the way things really were.
"Fortunately, I took notes that day we had lunch. I had lots of questions about things that weren't quite clear. He was wonderfully accurate and helpful in many ways."
"Queen" tells the story of Haley's paternal grandmother, Queen Haley, born into slavery of a white father and slave mother. For six hours over three nights (9 p.m. Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday on CBS), her life and times unfold.
Episode one covers the pre-war period, with the fair-skinned Queen rather awkwardly finding her place in the film's well-portrayed plantation life. For the duration of the piece, Queen's identity crisis is a major theme. She's light enough to pass for white -- sometimes -- but she never finds permanent acceptance among whites and encounters occasional hostility from blacks.
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Guy, as Easter, Queen's mother, is a major player in part one, with Cosby-kid Raven-Symone surprisingly strong in a brief dramatic role as the very young Queen. Her acting is tested, for instance, in a scene in which Guy gives her over to be raised in the big house.
Share this articleShare"Raven did a beautiful job," said Guy. "She was quite professional and emotionally in tune with what she was doing. So was the crew impressed that she was so focused. She is 6 years old. I think her father and mother talked to her and gave her a lot of background. She also had a coach on the set, knew her lines and had her dialect down. She stayed in character until the scene was through."
A centerpiece of part one is its treatment of the wedding of a slave belonging to President Andrew Jackson. The president's son and daughter-in-law plan the event to be attended by blacks and whites, a shocking idea at the time.
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"It was a great scandal," said Erman. "It went down in history as the black and white ball. But Alex was vehement about making a change when he read the script. The script had Andrew Jackson literally hosting the ball himself," said Erman, as some historical accounts have it. "'No,' Alex said, 'Andrew Jackson could never have been there because it would have taken 29 days to get there from Washington, and he would not have done that for a social event.' He suggested using Jackson's son and daughter-in-law as hosts. That would be credible."
The second night finds young Queen, played by series star Halle Berry, leaving the relative security of the plantation to make her way in the world. The hostility of the post-war South is as extreme as her naivete. A highlight of the piece is the work of Sada Thompson and Elizabeth Wilson, who play two fanatically religious women who take in Queen.
The final installment brings Danny Glover to the fore as Alec Haley, Alex Haley's grandfather. It also brings Queen to madness, with jarring suddenness. Handling this part of the story, Erman said, is one of the times he wished Haley were there, once again looking over his shoulder.
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The idea was "particularly enticing when Queen's paranoia began to surface," said Erman. "Alex had talked about his childhood memory of her. The note I made over lunch was, he described her as covert. He also said she used to go around saying, 'They're after me, they're after me.' But I wanted to know more about the early signs of her illness. I had to delve into that with some psychologists, who explained how when people are forced into emigration, when people are made to leave their homes, they can develop seeds of paranoia that bloom later on.
"Queen was forced to leave {her plantation home} because when the chips were down she wasn't white. She had been raised in a cocoon: They didn't have to go anywhere, the plantation was self- sufficient, and she had been treated as a little white girl until she was thrown out. That, psychologists tell me, is what produced the genesis of her madness. Just when life was getting good, she began to disassemble."
A key, Erman said, is a scene in which Queen takes her children back to visit the plantation, only to be reminded by her father's wife that she does not belong there. "That's the beginning of the bad times for her," said Erman. "From there on, nothing could have saved her."
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A fire pushes her over the edge. "I tried to use fire through the second and third shows as a motif that would lead up to that," said Erman. "One of the things Alex told me about is the incident at the beginning of show two when she was chased by rednecks with torches. Alex said she talked about that a great deal. I tried to use fire as a linchpin to her unhinging."
Erman was helped in his effort by screenwriter David Stevens, who spent some 18 months working with Haley. Stevens, Erman said, will complete the book version of the story.
But the last lunch with Haley loomed large in Erman's mind. "I felt a commitment stronger than the one I'd had before, to not only cope but to try to excel for him," said Erman. "I knew this was his last legacy. Strangely, the day we had lunch he talked about another project, 'Amazing Grace,' that he wanted to do with me. I felt I had sort of a mission. I knew there would be no 'Amazing Grace' or anything else."
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