Q 13

PLAYBOY: You didn't dance in Venice. How'd you get back to it?

Gregory Hines: By 1978, things weren't going so great for me in California. I couldn't find work as a musician and songwriter; Pamela was supporting us--and I felt terrible about that. What's more, my daughter had moved East to be with her mother, and I felt horrible that I was losing touch with her. It was a real down time. So in January 1978, my brother said, "Come back to New York; you can live with me." My mother even bought me a plane ticket. I kissed Pamela goodbye and said, "I'll send for you as soon as possible." The day I got to New York, my brother got me an audition for a Broadway-bound musical, The Last Minstrel Show. Which, in fact, was what it was--the play closed out of town. I did get the part, though, for $750 a week, and my career was back on course. After years of not dancing, it was agony to get in shape again, but it all paid off. The Last Minstrel Show led to Eubie!, which led to Sophisticated Ladies, which led to my movie career.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: And now, after 36 years in show business, you're finally making it as a film star. Is it worth the wait?

Gregory Hines: I'm glad it didn't happen earlier. Being real famous can be weird. When I was a kid, I wanted to be famous, because that was a way to get more work--I never figured it meant that I couldn't have an argument with my wife in a restaurant without a stranger's butting in with, "Hey, you were great in Beverly Hills Cop."

Q 15

PLAYBOY: Movie-star status can make a man vain--are you?

Gregory Hines: Well, making movies can give you an unhealthy feeling about yourself. When I see myself in a film, I'm so big--it's impressive. Happily, my wife keeps me down to earth. Once, I was doing interviews every day and I'd go home and all I'd want to do was talk about myself: how I felt about this issue, what my future plans were, what I liked and what I didn't. Finally, Pamela said, "Honey, I love you a lot, but let's talk about anything but you."

Q 16

PLAYBOY: What was the sexiest situation you've been in--without having sex?

Gregory Hines: The love scene in The Cotton Club with Lonette McKee. She's a lady with a really sexy way about her. I had to fight to get that scene in the movie. As soon as I got the part, I kept saying to Francis Coppola, "You've got to write a love scene into the black story line." It would be a real breakthrough for audiences to see a black man and a black woman relate to each other in a romantic way. You don't see that much in movies. When I was a kid, I was just dying to see a black cat up there kissing a black woman, a Chinese woman, a white woman. I was a black boy who was going to be a black man someday, and I wanted to see me--I mean, you didn't see a lot of black men in the movies in the first place, and you certainly didn't see a lot of warmth and real loving from them.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: Which black roles wouldn't you do?

Gregory Hines: I've turned down pimp parts. I wouldn't play a drug dealer, either--not unless the story had other dimensions. I once read an interview with Charlie Mingus, and he, at some point, had women working for him. Now, Mingus might have been a pimp, but he was also a great jazz player. If someone wanted to do The Charlie Mingus Story, I'd play a pimp then--but I wouldn't play Charlie the pimp. You see, what I'm concerned with is doing what hasn't been done before--breaking the stereotypes. In Cotton Club, I tried to present a vulnerable black man: a real man who was frightened in a frightening situation, aroused in an erotic one, confused, happy--the whole human range. If I'm trying to say anything with my characters, it's "Look, there's more to the black experience than what you've seen."

Q 18

PLAYBOY: Any particular reason you wear three earrings in your right ear and none in your left?

Gregory Hines: The whole thing started when I was living in California. I was in an elevator and Lyle Waggoner, from The Carol Burnett Show got on; he had this earring, and it looked great. So, about a week later, I asked a friend to pierce my ear. Then I started collecting earrings. And soon I pierced some more holes. People are always asking me, "What does it mean?" The answer is, "I saw this guy with an earring and it looked great and this was the first time I'd seen a guy with an earring who wasn't a sailor in a movie."

Q 19

PLAYBOY: Will Gregory Hines go to any length to get a part? We hear you danced on producer Robert Evans' desk in order to get cast in The Cotton Club.

Gregory Hines: On his coffee table. I was just trying to describe to him the potential of my character. You know, sometimes people who make decisions in Hollywood don't have a fantastic imagination, so you have to show them stuff concretely. Now, it happens that Evans does have a good imagination, but I really wanted that part. Evans really wanted Richard Pryor. So I kept calling him up, meeting with him, bugging him. I hounded him. He actually got angry with me a couple of times. But, I mean, it wasn't as if I scratched his furniture or anything. I wasn't wearing taps. I was just showing him my art.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: Do you believe in reincarnation?

Gregory Hines: Absolutely not. About ten years ago, I flew to New York for the funeral of a childhood friend who had been murdered and went to the place where he was laid out. I couldn't believe he was really dead--so I reached down into the casket, squeezed his arm as hard as I could, dug my fingers into him. I kept expecting him to scream, to say, "Hey, stop it--you're hurting me." Of course, he never did. He was dead, and that was all there was to it. When I worked on Cotton Club, Coppola asked me what I wanted to name my character. I said, "Delbert," because that had been my friend's name. That was one way to make him live again. It was about the only way.