SUCH A DEEP SCAR

He was a sitcom-dad in Kenan & Kel, he played Charlie Altamont in Rob Zombie’s THE DEVIL’S REJECTS and Big Joe Grizzly in Zombie’s HALLOWEEN, he worked with Brian Yuzna twice, he had a bit part in THE WANDERERS and a bigger part in THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL-STARS AND MOTOR KINGS. But to horror fans all over the world, Ken Foree will forever be Peter Washington, the level-headed hero of DAWN OF THE DEAD. After George Romero had cast Duane Jones as Ben in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, he again cast a Black actor as the lead in the sequel. Whatever Romero’s intentions, to Ken Foree the roles of Ben and Peter were infused with Black awareness. Not in the least because Duane Jones and he were part of the same activist community in Harlem. Roel Haanen talked to Foree in April 2022, via Zoom, about growing up in Indianapolis, almost playing pro-basketball and how racism and social activism shaped his most famous role.

What was life like for you as a child? Did you already have artistic aspirations?

I will tell you about my life. I was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. An industrial city. RCA, Chevy, Ford, many factories. There was a large Black community that had migrated from the South to the Midwest. Most of them came from Mississippi, Georgia and Kentucky. And if they didn’t stop in Indianapolis for jobs, they went on to Chicago and Detroit and even to Canada. My father’s mother had eleven siblings and she was the first to come to Indianapolis. She married and then provided a way for the rest of her siblings to come up. So, that’s my father’s side. My mother’s side came up from Georgia. I’m a product of that migration.

I was the oldest of four boys. I also have a half-sister who’s one year older than I am. We lived in a housing project called Lockefield Gardens. My father worked security there, one of three jobs he worked. Lockefield had triangles of five story buildings with courtyards that consisted of swings, sliding boards, teeter-totters, sandboxes and monkey bars. There were six to eight complexes on one side of Lockefield and six to eight complexes on the other side. Separating them was a grassy patch of land.

Directly south of the large complexes was a huge playground with a full-court and half-court basketball section, about sixty yards of gravel-paved play area, a grade school, and again the monkey bars, sliding boards, swings, teeter-totters. Except these were the gigantic! Enough to terrify most kids.

The basketball courts were known as the Dust Bowl. The guys who played basketball there were people like Oscar Robertson. He was considered the best player in the NBA. He lived right off of our block. He honed his skills there, as did a lot of other famous players. A guy named Bruiser Gaines organized the Dust Bowl tournament there. And if your team was lucky enough to win the championship, you received five dollars. If your team placed second, you got a pie baked by Bruiser's wife. I would sell Kool-Aid to the basketball players during the summers with my friend Linda. We would set up a card table and sell these cups of Kool-Aid for five cents.

In 1922 the Klan decided there were too many Black students going to white schools. They didn’t want to see Black students enjoying glee clubs or any other extracurricular activities where white students would also be. So, they had the city build an all-Black school called Crispus Attucks High School. They thought it was doomed to failure, but it became an institution that produced scholars in many fields, doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and politics. All of my father’s sisters and brothers and my mother’s sisters and brothers went to Attucks, as did all Black kids from Indianapolis. It was overcrowded, but everybody knew everybody. In the Black community in Indianapolis, families knew each other, because of Attucks. And this is not a small town.

Did you go there as well?

No, I wanted to. But my mother and father wanted to give us the best education possible. So, I went to Catholic schools. My Catholic grade school was just a hundred yards from Crispus Attucks. This was all really close to each other. For example, right outside of Lockefield, on the northside, just a step across the street, was Indiana Avenue. Every nightclub was there for the Black community. Count Basie played there. Lena Horne, Billie Holiday, Hoagy Carmichael. Every famous jazz player came to Indiana Avenue. Madam C.J. Walker had her theatre at the end of the Avenue. So, all of this was in walking distance of each other: Lockefield, the Dust Bowl, Indiana Avenue, Crispus Attucks, my Catholic grade school. This was my world, my community.

The way you tell it, it sounds like this was a world on its own. You just mentioned the Ku Klux Klan. Were there times when racism invaded your world?

You know, I didn’t know that much about it when I grew up. I didn’t see many white people. You might see a white guy coming to your house trying to sell a vacuum cleaner. I knew there was a hatred of white people. It was always there. It was talked about in the Black community.

I would spend weekends with my cousins Dennis and Terry on the northside of the city. We would to go Riverside Park to play. To go the park you would pass an amusement park. We would look through the fence and see all the rides you could think of. We’d see white kids having a great time. Black people weren’t allowed to enter. And this was next to a Black neighborhood. If you lived there you would pass it every day.

One day we were coming back from the park, my cousins and I, and there were two white guys with us. Big guys. My cousins were not fighters, but I was. I was a Lockefield kid. We did occasionally have some fisticuffs. And for some reason this white guy started using the n-word. As a child, I grew up watching Superman, Roy Rogers and other heroes. I thought I was one of them. I was one of the good guys. I could do anything. And this guy was calling me the n-word. It affected me like nothing else. I kept looking around me as we walked, for a brick or a two-by-four, something to hit this guy with. I couldn’t beat him with my fists, because he was so much bigger. But if I had found something, I would have tried to kill him. That’s how deeply it hurt. As far as I can remember that was my first real taste of racism. I’ll never forget the frustration of not being able to hurt this guy back. I think it ate away at me. How dare you say this to Superman?

How old were you?

Eight or nine. [Pauses.] Yeah. It was only later that I found that were positives to white people.

So, as a kid, what were your interests?

Mainly basketball. My father was making too much money, so we had to move out of Lockefield. We moved to the mid-northside of the city. Not too far from Riverside Park. I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s house. Opposite my grandmother’s house a neighbor had built a basketball net over his garage. Not just a net either, but a regulation ten foot high backboard. So, the alley between the houses became a basketball court. The ground was flat. It was perfect. Everyone from the northside would come to play there.

I was just a kid and I wanted to play, but the older guys wouldn’t let me. So, as I stood by my grandmother's garage and a game would end, I would call "next", which meant I had the right to choose a few players and challenge the team who had won. Each time I called "next" I was ignored. Finally, I told them that if they used my grandmother’s garage by tapping their foot on it as out-of-bounds for any foul call, then I had a right to play on this court. They still ignored me and I got my aunts involved. One day, as my aunts were arguing my case, it got so bad that they had to cancel the games and everyone went home. Another morning I was walking down that alley with a friend going to buy some candy and two of the older guys were coming our way. One bumped into me and turned me around and the other guy punched me in the mouth. I thought: That’s how it’s gonna be?

I pleaded with my aunt to buy me a basketball and I began to practice a game called Around the world. I had to make the same shot five times in a row before I could move to the next circle I had drawn in the dirt with a stick. I would play every day before the older guys would get there. I became very proficient. I’d play with my friends, but I would easily beat them. So, one day, the older guys let me in the game because they were a guy short. They threw me the ball and I hit the basket. They threw me the ball again and I hit the basket again. So, from that point on I played with grown men. I played basketball well enough to be on the farm team of the New York Knicks. If certain things hadn’t happened, I would have become a pro basketball player. But that’s another story.

Now I’m intrigued. How close did you come to playing pro?

I’m in New York working as a photographer. And I wanted to get back in shape, so I start playing at a gym right across the street from where I lived at 14th street and First Avenue. One day, Dick Barnett, who was a famous basketball player from Gary, Indiana, walks in to watch the game. So, I go over to shake his hand. I couldn’t believe this championship winner was walking into our little gym. He watches me play and afterwards he asks me if I want to make some money playing basketball. I say: Sure, why not? He asks for my number. I thought he was talking about the church leagues, you know? You could play these around the city and make about eighty bucks a weekend. I get a call from a guy who says: Dick Barnett told us to call you, so you can try out for the team. Can you come over? I said: Sure, where is it? He said: Allentown, Pennsylvania. I catch a bus out there and I still don’t know what this is about. There were thirty, forty guys there. I get into the game and immediately I hit a jumper. I’m having a great time. Because these guys could play and I was used to playing with guys at the Y. After we got something to eat, there was another practice. But now, only about twelve guys are left. Afterwards I got all these coaches around me, smiling, shaking my hand. I get back to New York. Three days later I get a call from a guy who tells me I made the team. I said: What team is that? He said: You don’t know? It’s for the New York Knicks and New York Nets farm team. He told me to expect a call in about a week to discuss the contract. Now, that same week the Knicks had let go of two players. One of them was Larry Fogle, the other I don’t remember. I got the call from the guy. He  says: I’m sorry, Ken. We can’t take you. The Knicks released Larry Fogle and he has a guaranteed contract, so we have to take him. I said: Okay, man. I didn’t think much of it.

Why not?

Because I was already acting at that point. I had saw dust in my lungs. What I probably should have done was get a list of other farm teams and try out. From the response I got from that one game I played, I know that if I had gotten my legs under me, I could have made the NBA pretty fast.

Any regrets about not pursuing a pro career?

No, because I wrote a six hour miniseries about that whole era. About Attucks, about basketball, about race. I’m shopping that series around at the moment. It’s historical and it tells the story of this magnificent community. It tells that story through the ages. For example, when Attucks opened in 1927, the Klan marched through downtown Indianapolis. They could hear the drums all the way up to Attucks.

Why did they march? They campaigned for a Black school, right?

They did. But it was like: Don’t forget who you are! What better way to screw up the psyche of Black people? It was a way of saying: We are still here. We still control you.

My god… Okay, let’s get to the acting. How did that start?

I had lost my photography studio in New York City when it was burglarized. Lost my darkroom, my Leica’s, a lot of money. I was thinking about what to do with the rest of my life. I was having tea at my friend’s house, Cheryl Carter, who was an actress. She’s no longer with us. I have to thank her, because she helped me a lot. Anyway, Cheryl asked me to come along with her to an audition on 42nd Street. It was an old theatre, in an old building. It was probably going to be condemned a year later. It was that rundown. But the people there… There was a great atmosphere. I was immediately intrigued. Because I was looking for something to do, I thought I might be able to get a May I Take Your Coat, Madam?- type of role for a couple of weeks. Just something to do before I decided what to do with the rest of my life. I went up there, read the lines and I got the main role in an off-Broadway play. I got good reviews. That was the beginning of my acting career.

Never had any training?

Not until later. Things were moving so fast. Before I knew it, I had appeared in several plays and had a guest star role on television, plus a major studio production. I did join Michael Schulman's Performing Gallery. He was formerly with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. People have told me that I should say I studied at Julliard or something like that. That it was smarter to say that than to tell the truth. But I was never that smart.

You were honest. What was that theatre world like?

Oh, I met some really interesting people. I just thought of a funny story. I was doing a play in a bar. It was a Christmas play. I played God and Harvey Fierstein played one of my angels. (Laughs) He's probably trying to forget that ever happened, and now I'm bringing it up.

As I mentioned, the first big lead role I got was in Blues for Mister Charlie, a play by James Baldwin. After each rehearsal, we would stop at a bar for drinks. A week later I said to myself: I can't hang with these people anymore. I'll become an alcoholic! (Laughs). But they were dedicated artists who gave everything in pursuit of a career in this business. I did a series of plays at the Hazel Bryant Theatre which was a few blocks from Lincoln Center. She was very supportive and her staff made it work. I loved them and that theatre. We made about fifty or sixty bucks a week as residents if it was even that... I have a special place in my heart for people whose dreams might not come true, but they still give everything to small, independent plays.

So, how did that lead to your first movie role, THE BINGO LONG TRAVELING ALL-STARS AND MOTOR KINGS?

I was doing a play with Marlene Warfield, who was in NETWORK. She played the revolutionary. Taurean Blacque, who was one of the two Black guys on Hill Street Blues, also starred in that play. I was playing a heavy. And John Badham and Rob Cohen came in, looking for actors who could play a heavy. They offered me the part. Before that I had only done an episode of Kojak. I had never been on a Hollywood set before. So, I jumped at the chance.

This movie was filmed down in Georgia. Now, my mother’s father was from Macon, Georgia. And he would take me and my two cousins to baseball games. The Indianapolis Indians, which was a farm team for the Cubs and sometimes the Cincinnati Reds. Every summer he would take us to see the Indianapolis Clowns, who were similar to the Harlem Globetrotters. They did fantastic things. Really magical. And they were funny. I grew up watching them every summer. So, I get down to Georgia to do the movie, and the Clowns are there! I’m starting my film career, in my granddaddy’s home town, with his beloved Clowns.

What was it like to work with such established actors, like James Earl Jones and Billy Dee Williams, and someone as revered as Richard Pryor?

It was great. They all had fantastic stories. Billy and I went to the same haberdasher in New York, called Sir George. I didn’t know him, but I knew of him. When I did get to know him, he was a true gentleman. James Earl and I had some good conversations. We hit it off, I liked him. And Richard Pryor and I had a connection. I’ll never forget him. I was there for two months and there was something interesting happening every day. I was trying to get close to the Clowns, but they didn’t get it. I said: I adore you guys! I grew up with you! [Laughs]

So, it wasn’t a coincidence that Pryor later cast you in JO JO DANCER, YOUR LIFE IS CALLING.

No, Richard wanted me to play the father. I had met Richard’s father, his aunts and his grandmother on the set of BINGO LONG. I spent a lot of time talking to them in their room. Without Richard there. So, Richard auditioned me three times for the part of the father, but it didn’t work out. I’m sorry it didn’t. He got me another part in the movie though.

It's one of the funniest scenes in the movie.

Yeah. The actress who played the prostitute in that scene was BeBe Drake. She’s still a very close friend of mine. Richard was looking for an actress who could say motherfucker. He knew BeBe and stopped the shoot and told casting to get him BeBe Drake Massey. No one can say motherfucker like her. If she says motherfucker, you’ll feel every bit of it. And it’s true! She’s great.

I adore Richard Pryor. His talent, his humanity, his courage, his truth. You know? [Pauses.] Good man.

Let’s talk about DAWN OF THE DEAD for a bit.

Let me just back up for a second. Someone sent me a screenshot of SUMMER OF SOUL and there was someone in the crowd that looked like me. They asked if it was me. Now, my friends and my wife all say it’s me. Same hair, same jawline. And it very much could be. I did wear the same kind of dashiki. That was 1969. Around the corner from where that was shot was the National Black Theatre. Duane Jones and I were in that group together. It was an activist theatre group. The year before, when NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD came out, I was with Duane. We were in the loft of our theatre and I told him that I just saw his face all over the marquee. He wanted to keep it quiet. Duane and I were part of the civil rights movement, the Black movement. We were influenced by everyone from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, CORE, Stokely Carmichael, the Last Poets, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, the Sunni Muslims, Al Sharpton, Pan-Africanism. All of these groups were trying to affect change in the lives of Black people. So, when you see me in that photograph of SUMMER OF SOUL, Duane Jones and I were being shaped. And when you’re seeing Duane Jones as Ben in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, you are seeing a lot of that. It was part of who he was. He brought that to the part. We were being inundated with all of these things we didn’t know before, that made us take a second look at who we were, that made us realize that Black is beautiful, made us wear our hair natural, made us wear dashiki’s, made us proud. So, when I took on the role of Peter, I brought all of that to the character as well.

I didn’t know that there was this throughline from Duane Jones’s Ben to your Peter. That’s quite remarkable.

Yeah. And it also goes back to that first guy who called me the n-word. To this day I cringe when I hear that word, even when it’s said by my own people. I just cringe. Because I’m still that kid who wants to pick up that brick. It’s such a deep scar. I’ll never get over it.

If it led to the way you portrayed Peter in DAWN OF THE DEAD… I mean, when I was a kid and I watched DAWN, Peter is the guy you aspired to be. He’s smart, strong, keeps his wits while everyone is going crazy around him, takes charge and has a quiet dignity about him. If you could draw from that pain you experienced for your art, then you were also able to transform it.

Well, I used Bruiser Gaines as a model, but yes, after reading the racial statements in the script, it certainly brought back the experience of being called that name, so I used it as a tool. Growing up in Lockefield, plus those years of re-education and inspiration, I brought that to the strong character that was Peter. The same could be said for Duane Jones' Ben. What you saw in that character – a smart, educated Black man who was obviously destined for good things – that was exactly what happened to him.

George Romero has famously said that he didn’t write Ben as a Black character, but that Duane Jones was simply the best actor he could find. But Peter Washington was written as a Black character. Do you know why Romero chose to write the hero as a Black man?

You know something? Someone mentioned something to me and I don’t know if this is true either way. Because I don’t know what was in George’s head. But someone said that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, for various reasons, played longer in the Black community theaters and thus made a significant contribution to its financial success. So, when it was time to launch DAWN, why mess it up? If it's not broken don't fix it. But I don’t know if that’s true. I have no idea why he chose Duane and why he chose me ten years later. And why he chose Terry Alexander for DAY OF THE DEAD and Eugene Clark for LAND OF THE DEAD. I just don’t know. We’ll never know for sure. I think George would say: Figure it out, fellas. And when we do think we've figured it out, we'll continue to try to figure it out a bit more. He played a cruel joke on us [Laughs].

But you did talk to him about the character, right?

Yeah, I did. He gave us room to explore and, you have to admit, there was a lot to work on within this story. We were all on the same page, thankfully. That’s why we all nailed the characters. It’s why the movie works as well as it does.

I believe that’s true. The four protagonists make us believe in what’s happening. I mean, exploding heads will only get you so far.

Yeah, you gotta have something more than that. This is a great story of survival, compassion, and decadence with slapstick humor added at the right moment. It's more than exploding heads.

Back then, movies could take a much longer time to become a success, because they weren’t released everywhere at the same time. So, when did you realize that DAWN OF THE DEAD was becoming a phenomenon?

In the beginning I knew something was happening because we were number one, number two and number three in grosses in Variety. A low budget horror movie like this? About zombies? We also got good reviews from Siskel & Ebert, Rex Reed, Rona Barrett, Gene Shalit – all these major film critics on TV gave us thumbs up. I saw the movie spread across the country. Now, you’d expect a film like this to turn up at midnight shows, on 42nd Street and in drive-ins. They were easy to get into. But DAWN played in major movie houses, in upper crust areas. The Embassy Suites on the eastside of New York City for example. Those kinds of places. It was all over the country. I rode it, I came out to California with it. After a while it died down. I stopped paying attention because I was working, doing a lot of television at the time. I thought it was part of my past. I didn’t realize until later how big the movie still was.

Just recently I was on an airplane to Nashville. I forgot my earplugs and couldn't watch a movie or use the internet. So, I started searching old files to past the time. I found a file titled Dawn of the Dead Memorabilia with over four hundred links. Posters, mugs, lunchboxes, T-shirts and so on. After an hour and a half I hadn’t gotten through it all. I realized there are more posters of this film than any other, except for STAR WARS. Posters from Spain, Turkey, Japan, everywhere.

But you’ve done a lot of conventions over the years. Didn’t you notice how big the movie is with fans?

Well, first time I went to a convention was when Fangoria invited me to come to New York. I noticed that fans were constantly lined up at the elevators. On my last day I became curious and followed the fans as they departed the elevator on the second floor. I wanted to see where they were going, so I followed them. Suddenly, people are whispering: Ken Foree is here! So, I get to this hotel room and there’s a guy with a card table. And – I kid you not – he’s got Ken Foree statuettes all lined up on his table. He says: Mr. Foree! How are you doing? Would you like one? I said: Yeah, give me two.

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This talk was edited for length and clarity.