The Legacy of Rerun

People in show business love to tell certain kinds of stories that are true (or "sorta true") in order to explain how the field works. Fred "Rerun" Berry, who just died at age 52, starred in the TV show, What's Happening?, and in two separate series of show business stories. Some of the stories were about how his career started, the rest were about how it ended, and both kinds have served as valuable lessons to actors craving stardom in Hollywood. He was an oft-cited example of how every so often, you can get a starring role even though you're all wrong for the part.

When What's Happening? was first casting, the breakdowns described the character of Rerun as a skinny and slow white guy. The producers couldn't find that person but they saw Berry, who was an energetic, overweight black guy known primarily for his dancing, and they decided he had star potential. So they asked the musical question, "Well, why couldn't Rerun be a heavy-set black kid?" and then wrote that description and some breakdancing scenes into the script. This kind of course-correction only occurs about once out of every five thousand times an actor is considered for a part but it does happen, and agents and actors love when it happens because they want to believe that no job is ungettable; that if you're short, elderly and female, someone might still hire you to play Tarzan. Once, I observed in a class where a casting director was giving tips on how to audition. He told a roomful of wanna-be DeNiros, "Never think you're wrong for a role," and he related the Fred Berry story to suggest that if you don't fit the part, they'll change the part to fit you. Like I said, it does happen…just not very often.

The other kind of object lessons that have prominently featured Mr. Berry have to do with thinking you're a big star with infinite prospects when all you are is a flash-in-the-pan novelty. That's not as foolish as it may seem since there are flash-in-the-pan novelties that manage to stay around and make good money for many years. But again, we're talking about exceptions here…and this time, Fred Berry wasn't an exception. Whatever loot he made on the original What's Happening? went to bad investments and badder cocaine dealers. The way the story has been told — and I'm not saying I know this to be a fair assessment — he figured he was a superstar and that when his first series ended, there'd be another and another, plus movies and other gushers of cash. This did not happen.

There was very little demand for his services after the show went off in 1979. In fact, he didn't have another steady job in television until What's Happening? was revived in 1985. Though that version lasted a few years, Berry did not last with it. He felt he was underpaid and took to the pages of the tabloids to complain — and this was actually how he put it — that it was grossly unfair that he was almost 35 years old and not yet a millionaire. I'm not sure if he quit because they wouldn't make him one or if he was fired because he kept complaining but either way, there's a lesson there about actors who have an inflated idea of their own indispensability. Since then, when a kid on a series decides he's the new Travolta, someone will often take him aside and tell him the story of Fred "Rerun" Berry…and maybe he'll even listen.

There's probably more to these anecdotes than I've heard, but this is the way they're usually recounted. It's a shame Berry couldn't have received a residual payment every time one of them has been told. If so, he would have had that million dollars…and more.