Denzel Washington’s mother Lynne used to talk about how heroin destroyed
Harlem, the area of New York where she had been raised and where she raised
her family. “Heroin brought the community to its knees,” says Washington.
“She would talk about how people who once stood proud ended up lying on
their backs. I don’t think the people in the community ever really loved any
of the men or women who helped to bring heroin to Harlem.”
What once had been a vibrant area – a heartland for the development of jazz
and blues, the home of the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theatre – had by the
end of the 1960s slipped into decline. There was a severe shortage of social
housing and an escalating crime problem. By the time that her three children
were born, Lynne and her husband, also named Denzel, had moved away; Denzel
Jr was born in Mount Vermont, on the edge of the Bronx.
Among the people who did help to bring heroin to Harlem was the notorious
Frank Lucas. During the early 1970s, Lucas was the most powerful drug dealer
in New York, a chinchilla-clad kingpin who amassed a $50-million fortune by
selling the purest heroin on the market. He imported his narcotics directly
from Vietnam, smuggling them back in the coffins of dead American soldiers.
In building his crime empire, he was personally responsible for many deaths.
This shady individual is the subject of Ridley Scott’s latest film, American
Gangster, in which Washington stars as Lucas, and Russell Crowe as
Richie Roberts, the cop who brought him to justice. In the opening act,
Lucas is seen distributing turkeys to the people of Harlem, like a latterday
Robin Hood. “There has always been a history for those on the other side of
the law, who have made a lot of money from it, to spread the wealth,” adds
Washington. “I don’t know whether people loved Lucas for that, but they took
the turkeys, and in his mind they loved him for it.”
The 52-year-old actor talks knowledgeably about his subject, unsurprisingly as
he talked to Lucas at length about it. Washington has always demonstrated an
eagerness to research his roles – for The Pelican Brief he
spent months shadowing a newspaper reporter; for Glory he trained
with Civil War reenactors; and for Courage Under Firehe attended
the National Training Centre at Fort Irwin, California.
Lucas, now 76, served a shortened sentence after testifying against corrupt
New York police officers. “And he’s a real raconteur,” says Washington. Like
any person, or a star, the further away they get from their heyday, the
bigger the number gets.” He stops and laughs. “He’s very persuasive and a
very good storyteller. I’d like to tell you some of those stories, but I’m
not so good at 9.30 in the morning!”
It is a Saturday morning, on a warm mid-September day in Los Angeles, and
Washington is pottering about in his spacious kitchen. Various breakfast
sounds, whirring, buzzing and chinking, punctuate our conversation. He is in
a cheerful mood. The activity, however, suddenly stops as Washington
considers the question – did he like Frank Lucas?
“I’m not sure whether I’ve thought about it,” he muses. “I suppose I couldn’t
help but think about the past,” he concedes. “It’s what we [[ researched.
But I don’t think he’d do it all again. He has a brilliant young son, about
11, and he lives for that little boy. Frank talked in graphic terms about
how what he saw as a child turned him to a life of crime. It started him off
stealing chickens and then he moved up the chain.”
This key event, recorded in an interview in New York magazine in
2000, inspired Scott’s film and took place when Lucas was only six years
old. One night, the Ku Klux Klan visited the shack in which he lived and
dragged his 12-year-old cousin out. They tied his hands, thrust a shotgun
into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
“Frank spoke to me about that being a turning point,” Washington says. “The
men responsible were figures in authority, and they murdered him for
‘reckless eyeballing’, basically just for looking at a white girl. After
that, Frank was the eldest child and felt an obligation to put food on the
table.” By the time he was 16, Lucas was on the run, a hardened criminal.
His cousin’s grisly fate is referred to in the film, and it is there that
audiences can make their judgment about Lucas. For Washington, however, it
is not so simple.
“It’s not for me to judge him,” he says. “Basically, Frank’s a human being
who’s done some awful things and paid the price for it.” When the New
York magazine writer asked Lucas about the morality of killing people,
selling millions of dollars’ worth of heroin and playing a significant part
in unravelling the social fabric of Harlem, Lucas bristled. “What choice did
I have? I wanted to be on Wall Street, but I couldn’t even have got a job as
a f***ing janitor.”
He entered a life of petty crime before moving to Harlem and finding work as a
driver for one of the neighbourhood crime lords. After his boss’s death,
Lucas took control, importing high-quality heroin direct from Vietnam. He
was eventually caught by detective Richie Roberts in 1984, who figured out
how Lucas was transporting the heroin. The two men struck a deal: Roberts
would ensure that his lengthy sentence was reduced, and Lucas would in turn
give evidence against the corrupt police officers who made money from gangs.
Lucas served a 15-year prison sentence. Washington felt indebted to Lucas
for sparing him so much time, and when the production wrapped, chose to make
him a gift of a house. “Frank wanted me to get him a Rolls-Royce,” he
laughs, “but his eldest son said that he needed a house! So I got together
with Brian Grazer [the film’s producer] and that’s what we got him.”
Those who know Washington would not be surprised by his magnanimity of spirit
and purse. The New York-born actor is famously considerate and courteous. He
is a spokesman for the Boys’ Club of America, an organisation to which he
belonged as a child, and is a supporter of the Nelson Mandela Children’s
Fund and the Aids hospice the Gathering Place. He notes that of his three
best friends in his early teens, one was murdered, one died from an
Aids-related disease, while the third is serving a 25-year prison sentence;
he is grateful for his mother’s careful guidance.
“I believe in positive thinking and being grateful for what’s about to happen.
It’s not what you have, it’s what you do with what you have.” This is an
attitude fostered by his mother, who raised her children alone after she and
Denzel Sr divorced.
Conscious of the environment in which her children would grow up, Lynne
Washington sent her two youngest to boarding school, and Denzel Jr went on
to graduate in journalism from Fordham University. There, he developed an
interest in acting and was soon snapped up by the New York Shakespeare
Festival.
Washington’s first feature role came in the year that he graduated from
Fordham, starring in Wilma, a TV movie about the American sprinter
Wilma Rudolph. On set he met Pauletta Pearson, an actress, singer and
musician. The pair married five years later and now have four children. They
renewed their vows in South Africa in 1995, with Desmond Tutu officiating.
“You need to have a strong woman to tell you that you are full of s*** once in
a while!” he smiles. “You must centre your life around your family rather
than your work.”
It’s a lesson that Frank Lucas has learnt the hard way, although Washington Jr
has high hopes for Lucas Jr: “He’s a straight-A student, and you can see
through him what Frank Lucas might have become had his life gone in a
different direction.”
American Gangster is released nationwide on Nov 16
FROM HIGH-MINDED MEDIC TO CORRUPT COP: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE DENZEL
WASHINGTON RÉSUMÉ
ST ELSEWHERE (1982-88)
Like George Clooney, Washington got his big break in a medical drama, playing
Dr Phillip Chandler in this influential, offbeat series set in a dilapidated
Boston teaching hospital. Juggling the role with film work, he was a fixture
for the show’s entire six-year run. His co-stars included Helen Hunt,
Christopher Guest and Ray Liotta.
GLORY (1989)
Blood, bayonets and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Edward Zwick’s civil
war epic, as a former slave who distinguishes himself in one of the US
Army’s first black regiments. In the same year, he played a modern British
soldier – with a convincing cockney accent – in For Queen and
Country.
MALCOLM X (1992)
Having portrayed the antiapartheid campaigner Steve Biko in Cry Freedom
in 1987, Washington played a more belligerent type of activist in Spike
Lee’s fêted biopic. By turns charming and zealous, his performance secured
his place at the top table. Unwilling to be typecast, he turned down a later
offer to play Martin Luther King.
TRAINING DAY (2001)
Washington relished a rare villainous role, his exquisitely unpleasant turn as
a corrupt cop winning him the Best Actor Oscar. He was only the second black
man after Sidney Poitier to win the award, on the same night that Halle
Berry became the first black woman to be named Best Actess.
