Exclusive: 20 Years Later, Robert Townsend, Michael Wright And Leon Talk ‘The Five Heartbeats’by Wilson Morales
March 29, 2011
With the recent announcement of a remake of the 1976 ‘Sparkle,’ there are some films that shouldn’t be touch because of the magic it created with fans. While there have been some black films centering around the music industry that have done well for Hollywood, such as ‘Dreamgirls’ and ‘Ray,’ there are a few that, despite its lackluster performance at the box office, became a urban classic over time.
Twenty years ago this week (March 29), ‘The Five Heartbeats’ was released in theaters.
Directed by Robert Townsend with a script written by Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans, the film starred Townsend, Michael Wright, Harry J. Lennix, Leon, Tico Wells, Diahann Carroll, John Canada Terrell, Harold Nicholas, Hawthorne James, Chuck Patterson, Troy Beyer, Roy Fegan, Carla Brothers, Paul Benjamin, Theresa Randle, and Tressa Thomas.
Set in the 60’s when so many musical groups were out, a quintet of hopeful young African American men form an amateur vocal group called The Five Heartbeats. After an initially rocky start, the group improve, turn pro, and rise to become a top flight music sensation. Along the way however, the guys learn many hard lessons about the reality of the music industry with it’s casual racism and greed while the personal weaknesses of the members threaten to destroy the integrity of the band.
Playing in just 862 theaters across the country, and after receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film didn’t do well at the box office. It grossed $8.5 million dollars, but through VHS sales, and bootleg copies, it found a new fanbase that has continued to grow over the years.
The soundtrack, with its hit songs ‘Nights Like This,’ ‘Nothing But Love’ and ‘A Heart Is a House for Love’ was also a contributor to the film’s popularity.
Blackfilm.com exclusively spoke with director/ actor Robert Townsend, and cast members Michael Wright and Leon, who played Eddie Kane, Jr. and J.T in the film, respectively.
Townsend, who played Duck in the film and had previously scored a hit four years earlier with his directorial debut ‘Hollywood Shuffle,’ wanted his next film to be about the music industry.
“I grew up with a lot of the singing groups from the ’60s, such as The Temptations, The Dells, and The O’Jays. I always loved music. When The Temptations broke up I took it personally. “Why did they break up?” It came out of that, and then after ‘Hollywood Shuffle’ I told Keenen (Ivory Wayans) the second movie I want to do is about singing groups and what they go through. That’s how it started.”
Unlike his previous film, the Chicago native didn’t go through the motions of having auditions. He went after those he knew would fit the parts.
“This was the first movie that I didn’t have auditions. I just met with a lot of actors and would just talk to them. No one read a script. Harry Lennix, who played Dresser, he was in Chicago doing theater. Leon had just finished doing the Madonna video ‘Like a Prayer.’ Michael Wright who played Eddie King was the only actor I knew I wanted ’cause he was in a movie called ‘Streamers’ and I just loved him as an actor. Tico, who plays Choirboy, he came to a big cattle call in New York City and I did improv with him for about fifteen minutes, then said, “He’s gonna be Choirboy!” It was such a different process.”
Michael Wright, who was already in another cult favorite film, the 1979 film, ‘Wanderers,’ and had appeared in the 1983 NBC sci-fi miniseries ‘V,’ and the 1984 sequel ‘V: The Final Battle’ and on ‘V: The Series’ as Elias Taylor, had no singing skills when he took on the role of the drug addict-reformed leader of the group.
“It’s extraordinary, because I had absolutely no qualifications whatsoever to be part of anybody’s singing group. All I was was an actor. To this day people ask me, “Do you sing like that?” I say, “No I act like I sing like that.” When we all came together even though I was playing the lead singer in the film I was probably the least musical of all those guys. Because of my craft, I just came up to speed and learned how to become the lead singer of a rock n’ roll group, and now I’m not just a movie star I’m a rock star!”
While the New York native has continued to work on and off the screen in films and plays, he’s thankful that this film is the one that he will be best remembered for.
“I would say this and another film, ‘Sugar Hill,’ but this film in particular I could describe as my magnum opus, if you will. Actors are very fortunate if they can have one or two films they’re remembered for, which take on a kind of longevity. I never expected it, but Townsend and I were always creeping around this word “classic.” I never expected it to hold up this long, but it has become, arguably, a favorite film of African Americans in the way that when I was a kid I used to watch ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ watching the tin soldiers and stuff. This is a film that every African American family watches collectively on holiday, and there are people that tell me they’ve watched it 50 times, or every day. That’s incredible.”
Leon, who prior to the Madonna video, had numerous film credits under his belt before taking on the role as J.T, Duck’s pretty boy brother in the group. The New York native had starred with Tom Cruise in ‘All the Right Moves,’ Matt Dillon in ‘The Flamingo Kid,’ and co-starred with Oprah Winfrey, Lynn Whitfield, and Robin Givens in ‘The Women of Brewster’s Place.’ The chemistry between him and Robert on-screen felt genuine and neither had known each other previously.
“I didn’t know Robert before then and didn’t have to audition either. Robert didn’t have auditions. He went after the people he wanted and put them in the roles he wanted them in. He saw me at the MTV awards with Madonna. He told me he saw me in the her video ‘Like a Virgin.’ I think Kenan Ivory Wayans was supposed to play the role in the film but he got ‘In Living Color’ and he couldn’t do it. Before that happened, Robert wanted me to do the film.”
His friendship with Townsend has last over 20 years as they continue to work together on other projects.
“We’re on the web series ‘Diary of a Single Mom.’ I’m on the show with Monica Calhoun, Valery Ortiz, and Richard Roundtree. It’s really doing well on the internet. The third season just finished.”
When told about the film’s anniversary day, each of them couldn’t believe that the film’s popularity has lasted this long.
“It’s a really good feeling… somebody sent me a link the other day and one of these historical black colleges were playing “A Heart Is A House…” at their homecoming, and they played it with the whole band, it was wow! It freaked me out, they all sang it together. I had never seen anything like that with one of my films. It’s kinda touched me in a way, and made me realize ‘The Five Heartbeats’ is part of the American fabric,” stated Townsend.
Leon, who also sings as the lead vocalist for his band, Leon & the Peoples, has been seeing the charts as he spoke about the film’s status as a classic.
“Last year when AOL BlackVoices put their poll of the top 25 African American films and I saw that ‘The Five Heartbeats’ was at the top, it was amazing because we knew how amazing the film was. People were going crazy and everyone wanted a copy, and it was interesting to see a poll and to actually have us finish on top and ahead of some films that grossed over $100 million dollars. ‘The Five Heartbeats’ is what people watch over and over again. To be part of that and part of Robert’s dream is great. He wanted the film to be a classic and it tested higher than ‘Home Alone,’ which was 20th Century Fox’s big film and grossed way more than our film, but twenty years later, we’ll still about the movie that people love. I feel very blessed.”
Wright, who continues to work in films and plays, spoke about the film’s popularity and not wanting to see a remake of this or other films.
“Nobody cares about any of those films. The only film they care about is ‘The Five Heartbeats’ for reasons that I don’t quite understand. Nobody remembers those films. Nobody wants to see a remake of ‘Boyz In The Hood’ or ‘New Jack City.’ ‘Dreamgirls’ was a Broadway play and, okay, they made a film of it, and Jennifer Hudson got an Oscar for it, but nobody wants to actually see those movies and nobody loves those characters in the way they love those five guys who love each other. That was the driving force of the narrative, the fact that these five black men from some generic inner city went on this incredible journey, and at the end of the day they were restored. It’s an incredible thing. I was just going through YouTube today looking at these ‘Five Heartbeats’ things and seeing guys playing me! I leave my house every day and if I just open my door and walk on the street I’ve got people honking their horn, yelling this that and the other, who know my lines better than me. I don’t mean to sound egotistical but it’s just mind numbing how incredible this movie’s connection is with the viewer. I never imagined it would hold up so well, particularly since it was a box office disaster. People don’t know that, we only made about 7 or 8 million dollars, but it took on life on cable or VHS and people began to scarf the thing up, largely with bootleg copies. Every household had a copy of this thing, and they wore it out.
