Carver High School’s basketball team improbably had just advanced to the Los Angeles city championship game, and it was time to celebrate.
The typical television fare of that era simply would have rolled the credits upon such a feel-good Hollywood ending, but four decades later, it remains abundantly clear that the groundbreaking drama “The White Shadow” was anything but the typical television series.
One of the team’s players, Curtis Jackson, left the postgame party to purchase some more wine for himself and his teammates.
One scene later, he was murdered, gunned down in cold blood when someone else attempted to rob the liquor store he was patronizing.
The shock waves were immediate and undeniable. Not only for a diverse cast that recalls with pride the sensitive subject matter the show’s producer, Bruce Paltrow, tackled practically every week, but for a loyal and almost cult-like fan base — from the inner cities to suburban Long Island to outposts as remote as Turkey — that positively reveres the show to this day.
Long before a recent generation of sports fans enjoyed and devoured “Friday Night Lights,” viewers were introduced each week to Coach Reeves and Ms. Buchanan, Coolidge and Salami, Thorpe and Hayward, Go-Go and Goldstein, and the myriad problems they and their families encountered with drugs and teen pregnancy and domestic violence and countless other issues involving their personal lives in inner-city LA.
The Post caught up with several stars and family members associated with “The White Shadow” — which ran on CBS for just three seasons from 1978 to 1981 — to discuss the critically acclaimed, but short-lived, show’s impact ahead of its 40th anniversary this week.
“It was very ahead of its time, man. We did so many things that were shocking, unheard of things on TV in the ’70s,” said Thomas Carter, who played authority-challenging guard James Hayward and now is one of three former Carver players to go on to successful careers as Hollywood directors. “I really liked that the show from the start didn’t want to be simply a show about basketball, but was going to be daring and ambitious enough to try and say important things and make a difference.
“It really made you think about where these kids, many of them African-American, really live. What kind of things do they have to deal with every day? What are the consequences, what are the costs, of their environment? So much of it, I don’t remember it being done before anywhere on television.
“Honestly,” he added, “groundbreaking really isn’t a strong enough word to describe it.”
On the pilot episode, which aired 40 years ago on Monday, Nov. 27, 1978, longtime Chicago Bulls player Ken Reeves — played by 6-foot-6 Long Island product Ken Howard — suffers a career-ending knee injury and accepts an offer from his former Boston College teammate turned principal at dilapidated Carver High, Jim Willis, to coach the school’s basketball team.
The opening episode concludes with Reeves telling his team on the court following its initial victory: “Vacation’s over, now we really go to work. I’m gonna be leaning on you guys and I’ll be behind you every step of the way.”
Wisecracking guard Morris Thorpe, played by Kevin Hooks, smiles and replies, “Yeah. Like a white shadow.”
Howard, who died in 2016 after a distinguished acting career, first earned that moniker from teammates as the lone white starter at Long Island’s Manhasset High School in the mid-1960s. He moved on to play at Amherst College, before acting pursuits led him to work with Paltrow’s wife, Blythe Danner — yes, they are Gwyneth’s parents — multiple times in the 1970s, specifically the movie “1776,” in which they portrayed Thomas and Martha Jefferson, and a short-lived sitcom, “Adam’s Rib.”
A few years later, Howard pitched an idea based on his former Manhasset coach and mentor, Fritz Mueller, to Paltrow, who shopped the script before eventually landing with MTM Enterprises, Mary Tyler Moore’s production company with her husband, Grant Tinker.
It soon became the first major network show for Paltrow, who later went on to create and produce the acclaimed hospital drama “St. Elsewhere” for NBC before he died of complications from oral cancer and pneumonia in 2002. Howard even insisted the fictitious team’s uniform colors — orange and blue — be the same as those at his former high school.
“ ‘The White Shadow’ meant the world to Bruce and to Ken. Even if it was never a huge hit in the ratings, it definitely made a big impact,” said Danner, who portrays Robert De Niro’s wife in the “Meet The Parents” franchise. “Bruce was a real fighter. He went head-to-head all the time with the network fighting over the subject matter on that show.
“I don’t think anybody could even talk before on TV about birth control, venereal disease, domestic violence, gun violence, so that was all very revolutionary. There also was tremendous satisfaction for him over the composition of the cast and the fact he helped so many people, including minorities and women, with their careers after the show ended.”
Indeed, Carter describes the set of “The White Shadow,” which is available on DVD and can be streamed on Hulu, as “based in a high school but truly was like a classroom for a lot of us” from both sides of the camera.
According to Carter, Paltrow embraced and encouraged his interest in learning all aspects of the business “on the days I wasn’t really on the call sheet,” even trusting him to direct three episodes in Season 2.
Carter moved on to direct several episodes of “Hill Street Blues” and Paltrow’s next show, “St. Elsewhere,” as well as popular movies such as “Coach Carter” and “Save The Last Dance.”
Hooks also has directed hit shows “NYPD Blue,” “Lost,” “24” and “Prison Break,” while Tim Van Patten, who played tough-talking Italian-American Mario “Salami” Pettrino, went on to direct “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game of Thrones” for HBO.
“Basically, without Bruce Paltrow, I’d be mixing cement somewhere,” said Van Patten, who, like Howard, hails from Long Island. “I was the youngest guy in the cast, right out of high school myself, so I think Bruce was just trying to encourage me to act like a professional most days.
“It only occurred to me later after seeing Thomas and Kevin go on to directing careers that maybe I could have that, too. Bruce facilitated that. I basically had just gotten out of Massapequa and it was like going back to school and learning something about the business on both sides of the camera every day.”
Cameos on “The White Shadow” famously featured the likes of Mickey Mantle, The Harlem Globetrotters, Red Auerbach and former NBA stars Bill Russell and Elgin Baylor.
In a stroke of future YouTube genius, a cameo for Van Patten even was written as an inside joke into “St. Elsewhere,” where the immensely popular “White Shadow” character Warren Coolidge, played by 6-9 Byron Stewart, had moved on to a recurring role as an orderly.
“Hey, Salami, it’s me, Warren,” Stewart’s Coolidge says excitedly when they cross paths in the hospital.
“You got the wrong guy, pal,” Van Patten replies dismissively, as the elevator doors close.
“Apparently an actor dropped out or got fired, and they called me and said ‘Hey, we have a fun idea for this scene,’” Van Patten recalled. “Bruce and those guys were always big on inside jokes on both of those shows. It was just a natural. And Byron played it perfectly, as usual.”
Stewart, who grew up in what he described as a “mostly white, affluent neighborhood” in Marin County in Northern California, played basketball at Santa Barbara City College. He claims he drew Division I interest from Rutgers and other schools before suffering an injury in a dirt bike accident and moving to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.
“I remember someone saying ‘That’s a great read, Byron, but can you be more black?’ You’re too articulate and speaking too clear. I knew what they were saying, but it was kind of effed up, too,” Stewart said. “I was just a normal dude, man. I remember Bruce Paltrow once telling me that I was getting the most fan mail on the show, and that blew me away.
“Everywhere I’d go, it was ‘Hey Coolidge!’ Even from the Lakers players at their games. I even met Burt Reynolds once and he told me he would rush home to watch ‘The White Shadow’ when it was on.”
New York-bred actress Joan Pringle still gets recognized as vice principal (and in Season 3, principal) Sybil Buchanan, the authoritative foil for Coach Reeves and the hoops squad at every turn.
“When I auditioned for it and read the role, I immediately thought: ‘Wow, this is just wonderful.’ It was the role of a very strong, educated woman, yet very caring and compassionate. You didn’t see very many roles like that for black women on TV,” Pringle said. “Obviously, the show meant a lot to people and still stands up today with all that’s going on in the world.”
So why didn’t “The White Shadow” last longer, especially considering it was nominated for an Emmy for Best Drama Series twice during its three-year run?
“CBS didn’t know what they had. They moved it a couple of times on the schedule and put it in places where it didn’t work,” Carter said. “Today, they’d figure out how to program around it and there are so many more networks now where it definitely would have found a better home.
“I’ve always regretted what I felt was a missed opportunity by the network, but at the same time, they put it on to begin with and let Bruce do a lot of things that just weren’t done at that time.”
Of course, not all of the feedback from different patches of America was positive.
“I don’t know if anyone else has told you this, but we got a lot of hate mail, too,” Stewart said. “Some of the subjects were real touchy. But for us, those messages were so important.”
Still, for the third season, actors playing five of the eight players were written out of the series. As Stewart joked, “It was a show about a high school, guys couldn’t be there for 17 years.”
Erik Kilpatrick also believed the focus of the show shifted after Season 2, when his character, Jackson, was killed.
“After the first two years, the show became very light, fluff, almost comical. I’m almost glad that I wasn’t involved in some of those episodes,” Kilpatrick said. “I think it was the network pressuring Bruce to lighten things up after so many serious topics we tackled early on. But that’s what made the show what it was.”
Ken Michelman played the team’s lone Jewish player, Abner Goldstein. He briefly was basketball teammates at the University of Denver with the comedian Sinbad (then known as David Adkins), but Michelman suffered a serious ankle injury and eventually landed at upstate Skidmore College. The New York native learned years later his character was modeled after a young Paltrow.
“Even so, they weren’t going to have the Jewish kid be the star player on the team,” Michelman says. “In fact, there was one scene they wanted Goldstein to miss a layup, which is fine. But they wanted me to miss it by a mile. So finally after about 20 takes, I missed it by a mile, as a joke, and of course, that’s the take they printed.”
The hardwood scenes actually were choreographed by a coach from a local state college, but the show never was intended to be strictly about basketball, even though the inspired Carver squad went on to capture the city championship after Jackson, their teammate, had been murdered at the liquor store.
“Maybe that happened on ‘Hill Street [Blues]’ at some point, but that rarely happened to regular cast members on TV,” Van Patten said. “Gosh, I’ve gone on to kill a lot of regular cast members [on HBO], but it was so shocking to read that script. Devastating, really.”
Kilpatrick insists he didn’t feel that way, although many of his castmates privately believed he was crushed about his character getting offed.
“Bruce told some of us we wouldn’t be back the next season. He came to me and said we want to try something that we think will probably be very shocking,” Kilpatrick said. “I actually agreed with it, because as an actor, I wanted to do older roles.
“A lot of people were shocked. But that’s what the premise of the show was from the start. It was real life, what people in LA were dealing with every day. It can happen any day at any time. You can see that’s what’s going on even now in the world, in different communities. To put that on the air in that way, at that time, you didn’t see that on TV.”
Hollywood stuntwoman Linda Fetters didn’t know Ken Howard while the show aired. They met nearly a decade later and she became his third wife in 1991, spending a quarter-century together until his death two years ago.
Linda Fetters Howard admittedly had never seen an episode of “The White Shadow” until a vacation in Hawaii celebrating Ken’s 50th birthday in 1994.
“He was asleep and the show came on some random channel. I sat there and laughed and cried and thought, ‘Wow, that was just terrific.’ At that moment I thought, ‘Oh, now I get it,’ ” Linda Howard said. “Because everywhere we’d go, I mean everywhere, people would come up to Ken and constantly say how much that show meant to them.
“It was striking to me. We were in an airport once and a couple from India came up to him and said how much they loved the show. He turned to me and joked, ‘I’m even bigger in Turkey,’ where the show apparently was huge.
“There were so many times, I can’t even tell you, where we’d walk by someone and they’d just say, ‘Hey, Coach.’ He’d always smile, every single time. He never got tired of that, never took it for granted.”
Ken Howard appeared in dozens of movies, was a regular on several TV shows, won a Tony and an Emmy Award. He later became the president of the Screen Actors’ Guild and was instrumental in facilitating the landmark merger or the SAG and AFTRA unions.
But the nickname Howard picked up at Manhasset High School deservedly stuck for the rest of his life.
“Up until SAG/AFTRA, he’d definitely say ‘The White Shadow’ was the most meaningful thing he’d done in his career,” Linda Howard said. “He never got tired of being associated with something that was so positive and thought-provoking and ahead of its time and meant so much to people. The fact that people are still talking about it 40 years later really says so much.”
Where are they know?
As “The White Shadow” turns 40, a look at how notable members of the cast and crew spent the next four decades:
Bruce Paltrow
Producer, writer, director
Also produced the hospital drama “St. Elsewhere” for NBC, and was nominated for nine Emmy awards. He died in 2002.
Ken Howard
Coach Ken Reeves
Appeared in dozens of movies and was a recurring cast member on “Melrose Place,” “Crossing Jordan” and “30 Rock.” Won a Tony and an Emmy and was president of the SAG/AFTRA union until his 2016 death.
Joan Pringle
Sybil Buchanan
A working actress for nearly 50 years, also appeared in series such as “Friends,” “ER” and “JAG.” The CCNY grad also has taught acting and currently lives in Georgia.
Thomas Carter
James “Hollywood” Hayward
Directed episodes of “Hill Street Blues,” “St. Elsewhere” and “Equal Justice” and several movies, including “Coach Carter.” Developing a mini-series about the Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield “Bite Fight.”
Timothy Van Patten
Mario “Salami” Pettrino
Directed several HBO shows, including “The Sopranos” and “Game of Thrones.” Won an Emmy for directing “Boardwalk Empire” and is developing a remake of the mini-series Shogun.
Kevin Hooks
Morris Thorpe
More than 90 directing credits include “NYPD Blue,” “Lost,” “24,” “Prison Break,” “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.,” and most recently, “The Good Cop” and “911.”
Byron Stewart
Warren Coolidge
Reprised role as Coolidge on “St. Elsewhere” and acted on television until 2002. Is a grandfather of five and retired in Riverside County in California.
Ken Michelman
Abner Goldstein
Most recently appeared on “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2013. Has coached high-school basketball, does stand-up comedy and spends six months a year in Sweden teaching public speaking to medical professionals.
Erik Kilpatrick
Curtis “CJ” Jackson
Mostly does regional theater work and teaches at his family’s acting school in Los Angeles. Also recently shot a movie with Eddie Murphy and an episode of “The Cool Kids” sitcom.
Ira Angustain
Ricky “Go-Go” Gomez
According to castmates, Angustain, who left acting in 1986, is working as a preacher in California.
Nathan Cook
Milton Reese
Was also a regular cast member of the TV drama “Hotel” from 1983-88, when he died at age 38 due to a severe allergic reaction to penicillin.
Source: Read Full Article