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Five Dollars And a Dream: The Story of Eric Monte
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Five Dollars And a Dream: The Story of Eric Monte
By Mark Skillz

Eric Monte exploded on the Hollywood scene in 1971 and created not one, not two, but five TV sitcoms at a time when there were no Blacks behind the scenes in Hollywood. His creations were all hits; the impact of his influence is still felt today – three decades after the heads of the major television studios conspired to beat him out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Down but not out, I caught up with him recently to hear one of the most amazing true Hollywood stories ever told, which started on the South Side of Chicago with five dollars and a dream.

"When I left Cabrini Green in Chicago for Hollywood in 1965, all I had when I left was five dollars and a suitcase. Do you hear me? Not, five dollars, a ticket and a suitcase -but five dollars and a suitcase", said Eric Monte pioneering black sitcom creator.

The name Eric Monte probably doesn't ring a bell with most people, that's because most of us know who the stars are in front of the camera - no one really knows who the person is behind the scenes that creates the characters, we just know that we either love or hate their creations. So back to Eric Monte, what characters did he create? Ok, let me run them down to you: George and Louise Jefferson, the show "Good Times", the movie "Cooley High" and it's spin-off "What's Happening" as well as the "Cosby Show". Yep, they all came from one guy, Eric Monte, former Chicago hustler and high school dropout.

With five dollars in his pocket he hitchhiked his way to L.A. arriving there three years later, “I stopped off along the way and had a good time”, laughs Monte “I met a woman in Las Vegas and stayed with her for a year”. That was the 70’s you could hitchhike back then.

Mark Skillz: So, when you created the character George Jefferson, was there some upwardly mobile but arrogant person that you came up around that you based that character on?

Eric Monte: "Son, you have to understand something. I came from Cabrini Green in Chicago. At that time whenever they talked about violence in the inner cities of America, they were talking about one of two places: Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn or Cabrini Green in Chicago. There were no "upwardly mobile" people in Cabrini Green."

"I created those characters from my mind. George Jefferson reflected the anger that a lot of black people felt. That's where he came from."

When Monte arrived in Los Angeles in 1968 word soon spread about a fantastic, new, young black writer on the scene. “Every weekend I would have people over who would listen to me read my writing.”

In 1971 when word got to L.A.C.C. acting student Mike Evans about this fantastic new writer he immediately set out to hook up with him. Evans had a small walk-on part on a then, new, TV sitcom on CBS called “All in the Family”. Evans played a character named Lionel Jefferson, he noticed that people were coming into the show and were being paid to write scripts so he struck up a deal with Monte: “You write the script, I’ll put both of our names on it and we’ll split the money.”

Upon reading the script that Monte and Evans submitted Norman Lear the creator and producer of "All in the Family" immediately sent for Monte.

"The first thing out of his mouth when I walked through the door was "America will never go for a Black man calling white people 'honkies' on television." I told him they would if it's funny. He couldn't say anything then."

Lear hired Monte as a writer and told him that he wanted to do another show, one that was a re-make of a sitcom in England called "Steptoe and Son", which was a story about a junk man and his son. Monte recommended a man who was a legend in the black community but virtually unheard of in greater white America, his name was Redd Foxxx.

"At first they didn't want the show to be a black show, because the show in England was white, they were dead-set against it. But I told them, "If you want it to be funny, get Redd Foxxx." They finally agreed and that was the start of "Sanford and Son". I don't think Redd Foxxx ever knew that I had recommended him for that job."

But Lear wasn't done he wanted to create a sitcom with an all-black cast; this task fell to Monte and Evans. Monte had had an idea for a show called the "Black Family", it was to be set in the projects in Chicago, they were a family, they're names were: Thelma Black, Michael Black, James Black Jr., and their parents. But there was one problem...

"From the very first meeting I had with Norman Lear about the show I got one note, and it said: "Get rid of the father. We cannot have a strong black father in a sitcom it will not work."

"I fought with them tooth and nail over there being a father on that show. They did not want to budge. It was 1971 when I pitched that show."

In 1974, the late actress Esther Rolle, who played a recurring character named Florida Evans on the hit sitcom "Maude", was given her own spin-off show centered on her character. That's when the Monte project 'The Black Family" was given another look. Rolle insisted that her character not be a single mother, but that she have a husband.

"You have to understand something, until James Evans came along, there were no black fathers on television. The networks were not going for it. Especially a strong black father, they didn't want that on television."

Out of the 'Black Family' came the Evans Family and the show was called "Good Times".

"From the very first day I fought with the writers of that show, they wanted to portray black people in a very degrading and stereotypical manner."

Mark Skillz: How so, in what way did they want to portray us?

Eric Monte: They had a part in the script that said 'I'se be wantin' to go down by da ribba".

Mark Skillz: No @#%$?

Eric Monte: I kid you not

"The writers knew absolutely nothing about black people, they were so committed to writing stereotypes that they couldn't see or hear about anything else. I told them that in no uncertain terms were they going to degrade black people and get away with it. Not with my name on the show."

"John Amos, Esther Rolle and Ja'Net Dubois would all be enraged when they would get the script every week. They detested the stereotypes. I would present the cast members my ideas for the show and they would love them, so we would film what I wrote. Not one week did any of the scripts that Allan Mannings and the rest of the staff wrote get on air. But they tried. And every week they were resoundingly vetoed. The cast backed all of my ideas up. That was why I was soon labeled as a troublemaker. I fought them at every turn."

Mark Skillz: One of my favorite episodes of “Good Times” is the episode with the “Black Jesus” painting, did you write that?

Eric Monte: No, I didn’t write that. Another brother wrote it.

Mark Skillz: There were other Black writers on staff on that show?

Eric Monte: Yes, but I can’t remember his name…wait a minute…it was Bob Peete, he wrote that.

During the period that "Good Times" was on it was hailed as a revolutionary shift in television programming. At last there was an intact black family on television, which reflected a broader scope of Black people than what had previously been seen. However, there was trouble brewing...

Mark Skillz: So, at what point did you notice the J.J. character getting out of hand?

Eric Monte: When I left. Before I left, there was some rumbling from the cast, in particular from Esther Rolle and John Amos. But after I left is when it got really crazy.

Soon after Monte left Norman Lear fired John Amos from the show labeling him as “hard to work with and a troublemaker”. That is when the show took a nose-dive quality wise.

A young comedian named Jimmy Walker played the character of J.J., the show was originally to be centered on the character of Florida Evans, but the J.J. character soon became the breakout star of the show, much like Henry Winkler’s “Fonzie” character on “Happy Days”. With his skinny frame and colorful clothes Walker as J.J. became the “Clown Prince of Comedy”. However, many people took issue with the clown part. After a while his trademark phrase “Dy-no-mite” became a rallying cry for those who saw the show as exploitive. But by then the shows creator had been long gone.

Monte left to do the semi-autobiographical movie "Cooley High" which was set in Cabrini Green, the cast was full of young and up and coming actors: Denise Nicholas, Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Garrett Morris, Steven Williams, and a really quick walk on by a young Robert Townsend.

Mark Skillz: I was always curious about the characters in that movie, so were they based on real people?

Eric Monte: Yes. Definitely.

Mark Skillz: Ok, then let's go through a few of them and you tell me about the real people...

Eric Monte: Ok

Mark Skillz: Stone and Robert?

Eric Monte: Oh man, how are you going to ask me about people I haven't seen since I was 17 years old? You have to understand something, I've had six strokes and my memory is not good, so there's just certain things I just can't remember...especially folks from 40 years ago!

Mark Skillz: Ok, hey man I'm sorry about that, here's something easy...who was the character of 'Cochise' based on?

Eric Monte: His name was Richard Moye and he was my best friend.

Mark Skillz: So he was a basketball star and the whole nine? Did Stone and Robert really kill him?

Eric Monte: Yes they did! They had stolen a car and had gotten busted for it, and he got released before anybody else did, they thought he snitched on them, and, by the rules of Cabrini Green: you snitch, you die.

Mark Skillz: So this happened while you were in high school?

Eric Monte: No, I went into the Army and two months after I got home is when they killed him.

Mark Skillz: So, how did you two get to be friends?

Eric Monte: He was two years older than I was; I noticed he was trying to get at my sister, who was even younger than I was. I told him that he was too old to be going around my sister. He told me that he was really trying to hang with me. In shock I said, “You ain’t gay or something are you?” He said no but that he noticed that I was doing the same thing that everybody else was doing [hustling] but that I wasn’t getting caught and going to jail. He liked that, because he was tired of going to jail. So we became fast friends after that.

Mark Skillz: In the movie you two had a falling out over a girl, did he really mess with your girlfriend?

Eric Monte: No. You see, back then we didn’t play that girlfriend stuff. We would just mess with any girl we wanted. As a matter of fact, he had several girls that he was seeing that I @#%$ and there were girls that I was seeing that he @#%$, so no we didn’t fall out over that.

Mark Skillz: Every time I watch that movie, I look at some of the actors and say to myself, "These can't be actors - they look like regular folks from off of the street, especially the guys that played "Stone" and "Robert".

Eric Monte: You are correct, those people came from the South Side of Chicago and most of them were not actors. I think the guy that played Damon had some acting experience but the rest ...no.

Mark Skillz: Garrett Morris played a character named Mr. Mason, who was he based on?

Eric Monte: Herman R. Tucker, my elementary school teacher. If it wasn't for him, I would not have made it out of elementary school, he worked with me and got me a triple promotion so that I could go to junior high school, and I was an absolutely terrible student. I was horrible.

Mark Skillz: Steven Williams played one of the most interesting characters in that movie, he played the hustler Jimmy Lee, who was he for real?

Eric Monte: Jimmy Lee was my cousin, and he was one of the best hustlers in the city of Chicago. Back then there were all kinds of gangs like the Vice Lords, the Cobras, and the Black Stone Rangers they had rules: Vice Lords can't go in this building; Cobras can't go in that building; Blackstone Rangers can't go in there. My cousin Jimmy didn't have to worry about any of that. He went anywhere he wanted. Nobody messed with him. Not only was he a hustler but also he was a killer. He was about 5'8 and 160 pounds, man believe me, nobody messed with Jimmy.

Cooley High was a watershed moment in black cinema and soon Hollywood called to have it made into a sitcom. Monte saw it as a golden opportunity to finally do an all-black show correctly and without all of the hassles he had went through with the producers of “Good Times”, the show was to be called “What’s Happening”.

“I met with the head of ABC studio his name was Michael Eisner, I told him that I wanted to produce the show myself because I didn’t want any of the drama that went on at Good Times. He said ‘Fine’, but that I had no production experience, so he hooked me up with two guys: Saul Turtletaub and Bernie Orenstein. After I hooked up with them, I looked at a cover of the script and it said ‘T.O.Y. Productions’. I said to myself, “Whose T.O.Y. Productions? That’s not the name of my production company.”

“I found out that T.O.Y. Productions was Turtletaub, Orenstein and Yorkin (who was a partner of Norman Lear’s) they had formed that production company behind my back and my agent Bernie Weintraub had negotiated the deal.”

Mark Skillz: So it’s at this point that you pitched the ‘Cosby Show’ in 1976 right?

Eric Monte: Yes, see what happened was when I went to go see Michael Eisner he sent his assistant down to talk to me, a woman named Marcy Carsey. [Marcy Carsey was one of the executive producers and creators of the Cosby Show]

“When I talked to her I told her that they were going to mess that show up because all they knew how to do were stereotypes. She said that they would have to be the same kind of professional that I was. I told her that they had already messed up by hiring a fat woman to play the mother [Mabel King]. I asked her how come when you see a white mother on television she is good-looking and slender, but when you see a black mother on television she is fat and misshapen? I told her that even though I don’t reflect it, my mother was a very attractive woman. I told her that what was needed was a show where the mother was good-looking and intelligent, and the father was successful and he was always having trouble with his son who although he was intelligent was always messing up in high school. Now, you tell me what show that sounds like?

Mark Skillz: The Cosby Show, all day and night.

Eric Monte: Thank you.

Mark Skillz: So, ok you went to all of the civil rights organizations and they said what?

Eric Monte: They said they would not help me to fight the networks! And I had all of the evidence on my side.

Mark Skillz: All of them said this?

Eric Monte: Every last one of them. I went to C.O.R.E., SNCC, NAACP and others and they all said the same thing.

Mark Skillz: What about Jesse Jackson, did you go to him?

Eric Monte: Yes, and he turned me down to.

Mark Skillz: Wait, why? Why would they say that, after all they talk about the images of blacks on television, I don’t understand?

Eric Monte: Homeboy that is what they told me. I have not been political ever since then. Although my new book “Blueprint for Peace” is political, as far as I’m concerned, that mess that those organizations talk [NAACP, CORE] is bullshit.

Mark Skillz: I agree.

Mark Skillz: Out of curiosity, how has Black Hollywood treated you? There was that period in the 90’s when it looked like Black Hollywood was making real strides, how have they treated you?

Eric Monte: Like @#%$. The only one that reached out was Robert Townsend; it was when he was writing “Five Heartbeats” he wanted me to do it with him. I told him no because I was writing my own Five Heartbeats type story, he got mad at me and hasn’t spoken to me since.

Among the people in Black Hollywood who have reached out to help him were the producers of the show “Moesha” and the “Wayans Brothers”, “They wanted to write a “Good Times” movie but after I saw an episode of their show where they re-made “Good Times” I said no way, it was too degrading. As a matter of fact it was more degrading than the original show had ever been.

Mark Skillz: So back to the Cosby Show, it’s 1976 when you pitched the show to Marcy Carsey and by 1983 or ’84 when the Cosby Show debuted you were blackballed, you say you went to Marcy and asked for a staff writing position and she turned you down…

Eric Monte: Flat!

Mark Skillz: Ok so then why didn’t you go to Bill Cosby and say “Hey bro, it’s me Eric Monte, I created “Good Times” and “Cooley High” can I get a writing gig on your show?

Eric Monte: I didn’t know at the time. I didn’t know Bill Cosby, and I doubt if he knew who I was. So I never thought to ask. His creations were all hits; the impact of his influence is still felt today – three decades after the heads of the major television studios conspired to beat him out of hundreds of millions of dollars. As a matter of fact I don’t think that Bill Cosby to this day knows that I originally pitched that show!

During the time that “What’s Happening” was going on the air, is when Monte sued the networks: ABC, CBS, Bud Yorkin, Michael Eisner, Saul Turtletaub, Bernie Orenstein, Bernie Weintraub, and Norman Lear. He instituted a class action suit against them for hundreds of millions of dollars. Ironically, he was surreptitiously maneuvered into settling the case out of court for what could be described as the robbery of the decade:

“My agent and lawyer conspired with them against me. Yes they did. I was put into a position where I had to settle for one million dollars and 1% of Good Times and What’s Happening – and not even retro-actively.”

Today, Monte has an option to do a Good Times movie. He also has a new book on the market called “Blueprint for Peace”; according to Monte, “It is the best book I’ve ever written.”

“I gave a copy of the manuscript to Dr. Randy Blazak who is a Professor of Sociology at Portland State University, and he recommended my book to the faculty, he told them that it is a comprehensive micro-study about crime, and the dangers of a poor economy on our society.”

You can get a copy of the book at his web site: awpublisher.com/introduction.html as well as read in-depth his story about his battles with the networks, awpublisher.com/heroes.html , awpublisher.com/rogues.html

During our conversation Monte admitted to me that he is stubborn and pig-headed; I had to wonder if he regrets fighting with the networks like he did. The way I phrased it was: “Do you ever say to yourself, if only I would’ve gone along to get along?” To which he responded, “All the time.”

But in my view we need more Eric Monte’s in Hollywood than what we have now, because, as the very funny comedian Dave Chappelle once said, “I don’t want to see another show about niggas in spaceships.”