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Life & Times Transcript

01/26/06

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

Donating an organ can be a gift of life. Why are so many people reluctant to give it?

Eunice Gibson>> If I'm African American and I come in with a gunshot wound, the doctors are going to kill me and take my organs and give them to someone that's rich and famous or white.

Val Zavala>> And then, Stepin Fetchit made a career playing a lazy, shiftless character. Why are scholars taking a second look at this controversial actor?

These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.

Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val Zavala>> The revelations about the mismanagement of the organ transplant program at UC Irvine are troubling. That program is now shut down, but a major challenge remains for nearly all organ transplant programs and that is finding enough donors willing to donate their organs. As Toni Guinyard tells us, in some communities, the barrier isn't so much medical as cultural.

Toni Guinyard>> Eunice Gibson talks a lot about second chances and she speaks from experience.

Eunice Gibson>> I never gave in to the fact that I was going to die, even though I had one doctor tell me that.

Toni Guinyard>> Gibson is a nurse. She built her career around helping people. In what seemed a cruel twist of fate, the Los Angeles resident was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, lung disease.

Eunice Gibson>> It didn't really hit me. I think I was in denial because I thought I'm going to go home and take some herbs and I'm going to get acupuncture and I'm going to get massages and I will be okay. I'm a nurse. I'm going to be okay.

Toni Guinyard>> The only thing that could save her life was finding a donor and getting a double lung transplant. She was placed on the waiting list in September 1999. After two false alarms --

Eunice Gibson>> I was called to the hospital on two occasions and each time there was only one lung that was viable.

Toni Guinyard>> Gibson's second chance at life came on February 7, 2002.

Eunice Gibson>> I didn't have a chance to say, if I don't make it, any instructions. If I don't make it, I love you. Nothing. I said I'll see you later. I was fortunate enough to get lungs, but my donor wasn't African-American. White, female, forty-nine years old. You know, had I needed organs from my own ethnic background, I probably wouldn't be here today.

Toni Guinyard>> Gibson agrees with surveys and studies showing that fear of the medical community is just one of many issues keeping minorities from considering organ donations.

Eunice Gibson>> Others believe that, in ER, they're just going to be helped, that if I'm African-American and I come in with a gunshot wound, the doctors are going to kill me and take my organs and give them to someone that's rich and famous or white.

Toni Guinyard>> Beliefs that Dihiana De Francisco and Edith Gonzalez have heard before. De Francisco is the Hispanic communications coordinator for One Legacy. It's one of four nonprofit, federally designated organ procurement organizations in California. Gonzalez serves as an ambassador for One Legacy. On a daily basis, both confront misconceptions about organ donations.

Dihiana De Francisco>> I'll be a donor, yet I won't be considered for a transplant. That's just not true.

Edith Gonzalez>> My mom used to say, well, what explanation are you going to give God when He calls you the day of Judgment Day? You know, your soul is not going to find your body.

Toni Guinyard>> Gonzalez was faced with separating fact from myth. Her husband died after suffering a massive stroke. She decided to donate his organs, giving seven people the gift of life.

Edith Gonzalez>> One lady was from Pomona here in California. Another gentleman was from Long Beach. He received the heart. There were other recipients in Minnesota, Florida, Colorado.

Toni Guinyard>> Through a complicated process protecting the privacy of donor family and transplant patient, Gonzalez went through One Legacy to contact recipients of her husband's organs. Pete responded and then they met.

Edith Gonzalez>> Wow. It was a meeting full of emotions, mixed emotions. Everyone hugged me and thanked me and cried, but just seeing how happy this family was, you know, what changes it had made in their lives by having donated the lung or the organs that he got, it really made a difference. Trying to describe the emotion and the feeling that I felt when I was hugged by him, by the person who bears my husband's lungs, it's indescribable. It's so overwhelming and indescribable.

Dihiana De Francisco>> Because of a lack of donors, seventeen people are dying every day. People that are waiting for transplants are dying every day because they do not receive the transplants that they need.

Toni Guinyard>> Death and organ donations are not easy topics to talk about, but they're being discussed in hospitals every day for good reason. Consider this: more than eighteen thousand people in the state of California alone are currently listed on transplant waiting lists. Is it difficult talking about death?

Dihiana De Francisco>> In my culture, yes, it is very difficult talking about death because, if you talk about it, that means it's going to happen.

Antonio Molina>> "Hi, this is Antonio Molina, one of the transplant coordinators with One Legacy."

Toni Guinyard>> When brain death is imminent and confirmed by two doctors, an organ procurement transplant coordinator is contacted to talk to the family about considering organ donation.

Antonio Molina>> "I'd like to speak to the liver coordinator on call, please."

Toni Guinyard>> Antonio Molina is part of the team of the coordinators in Southern California who gets the call.

Antonio Molina>> They're looking for hope and this is when the option of organ donations is the only positive outcome of such a tragedy.

Toni Guinyard>> The viability of an organ for transplant decreases with each passing minute, yet Molina does not and will not rush a decision. It's not unusual for him to spend hours with one family.

Antonio Molina>> My job is to make sure that I can honor that patient's wishes, that family's wishes. Once a family tells me we would like to donate, we would like to help others and give the gift of life, then my job is to make sure that happens.

Toni Guinyard>> Louisa needs a kidney.

Louisa>> I'm optimistic. I am not rushing it or being anxious. I'm not anxious. I'm just optimistic that I'll be called eventually.

Toni Guinyard>> She asked that her last name not be used, but is willing to share her story. Louisa was placed on the transplant waiting list in August of 2004.

Louise>> My blood type is AB 2 Positive, which is very rare. But for that reason, I am waiting hopefully, patiently, that I'll get one. I don't really consider myself sick for the fact that I have an option. Dialysis has been an option for me to keep going and living my life in a normal everyday way and, for that reason, I am optimistic about it. Since I know exactly what they're doing for me, I know what my kidney does and what a normal kidney does in your body, so because of knowing what a normal kidney does, I know what my kidney is not doing.

Toni Guinyard>> Louisa has been on dialysis for nine years, three times a week, three hours and forty-five minutes each day. You aren't afraid of much, are you?

Louisa>> No, not really (laughter). I've been through a lot, so I guess it makes me stronger. It makes me a stronger person.

Toni Guinyard>> So she waits for a living donor.

Eunice Gibson>> You know, I'd like to increase that too. Families can give to families. You can function off of that one kidney.

Toni Guinyard>> Gibson is telling anyone willing to listen about California's new online organ donor registry. Donatelifecalifornia.org allows you to choose what organs and tissue you are or are not willing to donate, allows you to consider giving the gift of life.

Eunice Gibson>> When I wake up in the morning, every morning I wake up, it's like I'm awake again and I constantly feel my chest because of the incisions. It's an awareness, so every day it's not like I forget. I can't forget that these lungs belonged to someone else.

Toni Guinyard>> And she won't forget about others waiting for their chance at a second chance. I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, plus transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org, scroll down the page and click on "Life and Times".

Val Zavala>> He was a comic genius and the first black actor to become a millionaire, but he was also very controversial and eventually reviled by his own community. His name was Lincoln Perry, but you know him best as Stepin Fetchit.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> In the annals of Hollywood history, there are few more controversial actors than Stepin Fetchit. He played the slow-talking, bug-eyed, dimwitted sidekick based on a character he created for vaudeville called "The Laziest Man in the World".

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> He earned millions of dollars in the 1930s, but in the 1950s, his career eroded and, during the civil rights era, he was denounced for portraying negative stereotypes. Now a new book by Mel Watkins takes a second look at this fascinating life in "Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry". I talked with actor and producer, Wren T. Brown, who organized the conference re-examining black images in the media with the focus on Stepin Fetchit.

Wren T. Brown>> Lincoln Perry is his actual name. His character was called Stepin Fetchit. He was born in 1902 in Key West, Florida of Bahamian and Jamaican parents and his father was a performer. So he worked for many years on medicine shows and minstrel shows and was a part of the TOBA, Theater Owners Booking Association, which was a vaudeville tour. So then he found himself in Hollywood and he came and did "In Old Kentucky" in 1927 and then the major motion picture that he was a part of in 1929. We've gone from the silent films now to the talking pictures with a film called "Hearts in Dixie" where he played the role of Gummy.

Val Zavala>> And that was the big breakthrough for him?

Wren T. Brown>> That was the big breakthrough for Lincoln Perry's Stepin Fetchit. It's suggested that he got the name from a horse called Step and Fetchit, but then he had a partner who was called Step and he was Fetchit. They never designated who was who, but eventually one night, his partner didn't show up, so he went on as Stepin Fetchit and it stuck.

Val Zavala>> So Stepin Fetchit was originally created and performed for black audiences and then later crossed over to white audiences. How did the two audiences perceive this character differently?

Wren T. Brown>> Well, black audiences because he was on shows where a doctor would be presented, a lawyer would be presented and other kinds of comedy, you know, jugglers and acts of all kinds. So within that context, no one was looking into denigrating you. No one was looking to besmirch your image, so within the context and confines of black people, it was well received. But, again, now that it has come before a dominate culture in all of America, white America began to again treat black people who were walking through life on an everyday basis like the characters that they had seen on television the night before. Unfortunately, it was a low opinion of black people.

Val Zavala>> Now I'm going to use this word very carefully. The coon character that he played had some interesting levels to it. Describe that for us.

Wren T. Brown>> Well, you know, again, Jim Crow which is an American apartheid was a minstrel character. So a lot of these characters had come out of minstrels. The coon, the mammy, the Tom, all of these characters, unfortunately, have been associated disproportionately with black people. But it was written about most eloquently by Donald Bogle with regard to these historical tropes, if you will. It's a character, again, that was dictated by dominant culture. That's what they wanted to see and artists who desired to be employed did what they had to do in a time where they would not have worked otherwise.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> He wasn't just this lazy character. It was more subtle.

Wren T. Brown>> Oh, no. There was sophistication there. You know, trying to send very, you know, very subtle messages through the work and that's where the artists were very clever. They were very clever in the presentation, trying to hold on to some degree of humanity, all the while kind of smiling and winking a bit and sending out a message, so to speak.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> So Stepin Fetchit was enormously successful and very well off. He was, what, the first to make a million dollars, black actor to be a millionaire. But what eventually happened with his career?

Wren T. Brown>> Well, unfortunately, he became greatly destitute after many, many years because he was hated in this country. He was put upon terribly because people, again, were so seeking a balance. We hadn't arrived, so to speak, as a people and so we wanted the images to be better. So he was put upon terribly. As I said, he found himself destitute and very ill in his last years. But this was a man who, in 1967, said, "I came through the back door so Sidney Poitier could come through the front door." As a great irony, in 1967, Mr. Poitier was the number one box office star in the world.

Val Zavala>> And in his later years, he also forged a very interesting friendship with Muhammad Ali. Tell us about that.

Wren T. Brown>> Oh, yes, he did. Muhammad Ali had such great respect for the fact that he had a militancy about him. He would negotiate with heads of studios, so he was a maverick kind of guy in that way, a great trendsetter. He didn't have an agent per se. He represented himself and he was a wildly successful man.

So all of the wisdom of those years, born in 1902, coming to the 1960s and the turbulent times, certainly Vietnam and the black power movement and the civil rights movement all coming together, he was one who was able to get into Cassius Clay's, then Muhammad Ali's, camp and really encourage him from a perspective of wisdom and to really encourage him to be precisely who he was being. So he played a vital role during the years he was associated with the Champ.

You know, that's kind of the life. You know, you go from this fabulous wealth. He also was a man of great musical consciousness. He wrote a column in the Chicago Defender, the great black newspaper, for years on the black entertainment scene across this country.

Val Zavala>> What eventually happened? How did he pass and how do you think he'll be remembered?

Wren T. Brown>> He died, you know, in a very unfortunate way. He was alone. He had taken very ill. But, you know, Hattie McDaniel just yesterday was honored with her own stamp, so the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had a wonderful affair for her yesterday. So we need to recognize that we literally stand on the shoulders of Stepin Fetchit Lincoln Perry, Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers, Ethel Waters and these great artists of the halcyon days of Hollywood and the theater.

Val Zavala>> Wren T. Brown, thank you so much for your thoughts on Stepin Fetchit and the book is called "Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry".

Wren T. Brown>> Thank you very much.

[Film Clip]

Val Zavala>> Stepin Fetchit is the focus of a weekend conference here at the Nate Holden Center. There's also a one-man show featuring Roscoe Orman. For information, you can go to the website of the Black History Education and Resource Center at bherc.org or give them a call.

Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org.

Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week is "Nanny McPhee". It stars and was written by Emma Thompson.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by critics Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor and Lael Loewenstein of Variety. Peter, what did you think of "Nanny McPhee"?

Peter Rainer>> I liked this film. Emma Thompson stars as Nanny McPhee and she also wrote the screenplay, which is not too outlandish if you recall that she actually won the Oscar for Best Screenplay for Ang Lee's "Sense & Sensibility" in the 1990s. This is a nice little movie. Emma Thompson plays a character who is made up to look almost like Jimmy Durante. She has this really bulbous nose and she has warts and a snaggle tooth and she's almost unrecognizable.

She is the newly-hired nanny of a brood of seven kids whose father, the widower, played by Colin Firth, kind of has his hands full with these kids because they've disposed of the previous seventeen nannies, I believe, and now we have Emma Thompson as the eighteenth. But she really is first-rate in this and gives the movie not just a lot of comedy, but soul. And Angela Lansbury, whose first movie this is in about twenty years, is terrific as the kind of villainous aunt.

Larry Mantle>> Do you agree, Lael?

Lael Loewenstein>> Absolutely. This is kind of an interesting inversion of the whole "Mary Poppins" story, having a really kind of hideous sort of scary nanny show up to take over these kids who are just unruly and the best argument for contraception that I've ever seen (laughter). You know, it's just tremendously accurate if you think about the cast that she was able to bring together, Emma Thompson, I assume, with her connections. You know, you've got Colin Firth, you've got Angela Lansbury, Derek Jacobi, Imelda Staunton in a small part. I mean, just really a fantastic cast.

It's just a wonderful little fairy tale. I actually was quite moved at the end and almost felt myself kind of tearing up. It just takes these kids from the point of being unruly, horrible little brats through these various five lessons that they learn and gradually they become quite manageable and charming. It's a really wonderful little fairy tale.

Larry Mantle>> Our second film this week is from writer-director, Steven Soderbergh. "Bubble" is being released on home video, also on cable television, and in a theatrical release this week.

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Lael, what did you think of "Bubble"?

Lael Loewenstein>> Well, I really liked "Bubble" and I have to hand it to Steven Soderbergh that, you know, when you can do something like an "Oceans 11" or "Oceans 12" and then walk away from that and do something small like a "Full Frontal" or something like this which is just a remarkable experiment in small-scale, understated filmmaking, it's great. This is a story of a bizarre kind of relationship triangle that takes place in a small town at the Ohio-West Virginia border. It takes place among these characters who work in a doll factory, which already has sort of an inherently creepy quality to it.

Larry Mantle>> Twilight Zone-esque (laughter).

Lael Loewenstein>> (Laughter) Exactly. You watch them putting these dolls together. It's a story between Martha who's an older woman in her early forties, and Kyle who's a younger man, and Rose who's a girl who comes into the story and sort of takes Kyle's attentions away from Martha. It wraps up with a bizarre sort of murder and it becomes an interesting mystery that has to be solved. The actors are all unprofessional. They're not trained, so there's a real quality of realism that permeates the film. It's quite gripping, I thought, for that reason.

Larry Mantle>> Peter, what did you think of "Bubble"?

Peter Rainer>> It's a good movie. It's very low-key, very economical direction. I think that Soderbergh sort of overdoes a bit the banality of these peoples' lives as if, you know, kind of being working-class and all means that you're kind of dull. But there are some terrific moments and it's from the actors who are not actors, you know, as Lael mentioned, particularly Debbie Doebereiner who plays Martha who's the one that's sort of the most suspect of the three. She spent many years working at Kentucky Fried Chicken and now she seems to have a new career (laughter) as a non-actor actor.

Larry Mantle>> Taking wing, so to speak.

Peter Rainer>> Yeah. It's a good little movie and, you know, it also represents something about the industry that this film is going to be released theatrically as well as on cable and, four days later, on DVD. This is an experiment that's being tried with this film that, if it succeeds, will be a milestone in theatrical release.

Larry Mantle>> And finally this week, a film from Hungary set in the death camps of World War II, "Fateless".

[Film Clip]

Larry Mantle>> Peter, your thoughts on "Fateless"?

Peter Rainer>> "Fateless" is a really good movie. It's a first feature by acclaimed Hungarian cinematographer, Lajos Koltai, and it's based on a novel by the Nobel Prize-winner, Imre Kertesz, who also wrote the screenplay. It's based on his own experiences as a boy in the concentration camps and Marcell Nagy who plays the young boy in the movie is a remarkable young actor. Koltai seems to really focus on his face to the extent that you think it might get boring after a while, but there's so much to discover in it.

In his exploits in the camp, he's taken from his home in Budapest and placed in Auschwitz and Birkenau and then returns at the end to Budapest after the war. It's a new twist on a holocaust theme which you think might not be possible anymore, but what you get from this film is really the sense of this kid living through an experience and, in a sense, triumphing because he realizes he's still very much alive. It's a terrific movie.

Larry Mantle>> Lael?

Lael Loewenstein>> I wouldn't give the kid that much credit at the end of the film. I thought visually from a kind of a cinematographic point of view and just in terms of the kind of historical documentation of the holocaust, it was stunning. The color is de-saturated throughout the film, so you feel like you are in a black and white world even though there's still just little bits of color throughout, so that was quite remarkable.

The problem I had with it was that the kid was so passive throughout the film that narratively it kind of left me behind. I didn't really feel that much of an identification with him because he just sort of lets events wash over him. On the other hand, I will add that the very last portion of the film is quite remarkable because it shows him returning to life outside of the holocaust and he's unable to integrate back into that world. So that was really interesting.

Larry Mantle>> Well, we thank you for joining us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Lael Loewenstein of Variety and Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor. Please join us again next week at this same time for the next FilmWeek on Life and Times.

Val Zavala>> And, of course, you can hear a full hour of FilmWeek every Friday morning at eleven a.m. on KPCC public radio. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you tomorrow.

Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Sponsored in part by:


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