George Jefferson......RIP

[BB]

Awesome tale of a prime Sherman Hemsley -



http://badassdigest.com/2012/07/24/sherman-hemsley-had-an-lsd-lab-in-his-basement/ -


“It was 1978 or 1979, and Sherman Hemsley kept ringing me up. I didn’t know him from a bar of soap because we didn’t have television in Spain (where I was living). He called me from Hollywood saying, ‘I’m one of your biggest fans and I’m going to fly you here and put flying teapots all up and down the Sunset Strip.’ I thought,  ‘This guy is a lunatic.’ He kept it up so I said, ‘Listen, can you get us tickets to L.A. via Jamaica? I want to go there to make a reggae track and have a honeymoon with my new girlfriend.’ He said, ‘Sure! I’ll get you two tickets.’


I thought, ‘Well, even if he’s a nut case at least he’s coming up with the goodies.’ The tickets arrived and we had this great honeymoon in Jamaica. Then we caught the plane across to L.A. We had heard Sherman was a big star, but we didn’t know the details. Coming down the corridor from the plane, I see this black guy with a whole bunch of people running after him trying to get autographs. Anyway, we get into this stretch limousine with Sherman and immediately there’s a big joint being passed around. I say, ‘Sorry man, I don’t smoke.’ Sherman says, ‘You don’t smoke and you’re from Gong?’

Inside the front door of Sherman’s house was a sign saying, ‘Don’t answer the door because it might be the man.’ There were two Puerto Ricans that had a LSD laboratory in his basement, so they were really paranoid. They also had little crack/freebase depots on every floor. Then Sherman says, ‘Come on upstairs and I’ll show you the Flying Teapot room.’ Sherman was very sweet but was surrounded by these really crazy people.

 

We went up to the top floor and there was this big room with darkened windows and “Flying Teapot” is playing on a tape loop over and over again. There were also three really dumb-looking, very voluptuous Southern gals stoned and wobbling around naked. They were obviously there for the guys to play around with.

[My girlfriend] Maggie and I were really tired and went to our room to go to bed. The room had one mattress with an electric blanket and that was it. No bed covering, no pillow, nothing. The next day we came down and Sherman showed us a couple of [The Jeffersons] episodes.

 

One of our fans came and rescued us, but not before Sherman took us to see these Hollywood PR people. They said, ‘Well, Mr. Hemsley wants us to get the information we need in order to do these Flying Teapot billboards on Sunset Strip.’ I looked at them and thought they were the cheesiest, most nasty people that I had ever seen in my life and I gave them the runaround. I just wanted out of there. I liked Sherman a lot. He was a very personable, charming guy. I just had a lot of trouble with the people around him.”

.

[Dr Dutch]

I only know him from All in the Family. Wasn't he the father of the guy who fooled around playing a stupid black to Archie ? 

[Tito24]

jefferson airplane

[Dr Dutch]

jefferson airplane

But now he's more like a Jefferson Starship...

[Gregzs]

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2012/08/29/sherman-hemsleys-burial-delayed-by-will-dispute/?cid=hero_media

Sherman Hemsley’s Burial Delayed by Will Dispute

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The embalmed body of actor Sherman Hemsley, who became famous for his role as television’s George Jefferson, will be kept in refrigeration at an El Paso funeral home until a local court rules on the validity of his will.

In the will Hemsley signed six weeks before dying of lung cancer July 24 he named Flora Enchinton, 56, whom he called a “beloved partner,” as sole beneficiary of his estate, which is estimated in court documents to be more than $50,000.
The will is being contested by Richard Thornton, of Philadelphia, who claims to be Hemsley’s brother and says the will might not have been made by the actor.


Enchinton told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she had been friends with Hemsley and had been his manager for more than 20 years. Over the time she, Hemsley and Hemsley’s friend Kenny Johnston, 76, lived together, she said he never mentioned any relatives.


“Some people come out of the woodwork — they think Sherman, they think money,” Enchinton said. “But the fact it that I did not know Sherman when he was in the limelight. I met them when they (Hemsley and Johnston) came running from Los Angeles with not one penny, when there was nothing but struggle.”



Mark Davis, listed in court documents as Thornton’s lawyer in El Paso, did not immediately respond to messages left at his office.

There is no date set for the case to be heard, court officials said. Enchinton said she hopes it will all be cleared in court.


The Philadelphia-born Hemsley played Jefferson in the CBS sitcom “All in the Family,” then starred in the spinoff “The Jeffersons” from 1975 to 1985. It was one of TV’s longest-running and most successful sitcoms, particularly noteworthy for its predominantly black cast.


Hemsley made George Jefferson — the bigoted, blustering Harlem businessman — one of TV’s most memorable characters and a symbol for urban upward mobility