Martian Luther King Jr. celebration CAAM- California African American Museum Yvette Cason-Kings Birthday 2007 celebration- Dreamgirls Interview film TV Show
DAWNN LEWIS always seems to be “doing something”! Maybe that’s because, she is!! More often than not she’s either doing one or any combination of the following: performing, composing, singing, voice-overs, commercials, producing or speaking to youth groups around the country. The poem “Am We Still Dreaming she wrote and performed at California African American Museum here in Los Angeles for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration. Dawnn Lewis- talk2me@dawnnlewis.com,
California African American Museum – http://www.caamuseum.org
Blaze-Out
Evelyn Killebrew (1948–1951) (divorced)
Betty Jean Harris (1956–1975) (divorced) 1 child
Yun Chi Chung (1976–1981) (divorced)
Ka Ho Cho (1991) (his death)
In the 1940s, he was an associate of Malcolm Little, later known as Malcolm X. In Malcolm’s autobiography, Foxx is referred to as “Chicago Red, the funniest dishwasher on this earth.” Foxx earned the nickname due to his reddish hair and complexion. His stage surname was taken from baseball star Jimmie Foxx. Foxx used illegal methods to dodge the draft during World War II.[citation needed]
Foxx gained notoriety with his nightclub act (considered by the standards of the time to be raunchy). His big break came after singer Dinah Washington insisted that Foxx come to Los Angeles, where Dootsie Williams of Dootone records caught his act at the Brass Rail nightclub. He was signed to a long term contract and released a series of comedy albums that quickly became cult favorites.[2]
Foxx achieved his most widespread fame starring in the television sitcom comedy Sanford and Son, an adaptation of the BBC series, Steptoe and Son, which premiered on the NBC television network on January 14, 1972, and was broadcast for six seasons, the final episode airing on March 25, 1977. Foxx played the role of Fred G. Sanford, while Foxx’s co-star Demond Wilson played the role of his son LaMont.
Photo from the premiere of The Redd Foxx Show, 1977.
In 1977, Foxx left Sanford and Son, after six highly successful seasons (and the show was canceled solely due to his departure) to star in a short-lived variety show, but by 1980 he was back playing Fred G. Sanford in a brief revival/spin-off, Sanford.
Foxx appeared to be making a comeback with the 1991 series The Royal Family, in which he co-starred with his long-time friend Della Reese.
Redd Foxx was married four times. His first marriage was to Evelyn Killebrew in 1948, but was short-lived and ended in divorce in 1951.
His second marriage was to Betty Jean Harris, a showgirl and dancer, who was a colleague of LaWanda Page, who would later be known as Foxx’s TV rival Aunt Esther on Sanford & Son. The couple wed on July 22, 1956. Foxx adopted Harris’ daughter Debreca Foxx, who was about nine years old at the time. The marriage ended in divorce in 1975.
Foxx then married Korean-American Yun Chi Chung in 1976, but the marriage was again brief, ending in 1981.
At the time of his death in 1991, Foxx was married to Ka Ho Cho, who used the name Ka Ho Foxx.[3]
According to People Magazine, “Foxx reportedly once earned $4 million in a single year, but depleted his fortune with a lavish life-style, exacerbated by what he called ‘very bad management'”. Contributing to his problems was a 1981 divorce settlement of $300,000 paid to his third wife. In 1983 he filed bankruptcy, with proceedings continued at least through 1989.[4]
The IRS filed tax liens against Redd Foxx’s property for income taxes he owed for the years 1983 through 1986 totaling $755,166.21. On November 28, 1989, the IRS seized his home in Las Vegas and seven vehicles (including a 1927 Model T, a 1975 Panther J72,[5] a 1983 Zimmer, and a Vespa motor scooter) to pay the taxes which by then had grown to $996,630, including penalties and interest. Agents also seized “$12,769 in cash and a dozen guns, including a semiautomatic pistol,” among some 300 items in total, reportedly leaving only Foxx’s bed.[6][7][8] Foxx stated that the IRS “took my necklace and the ID bracelet off my wrist and the money out of my pocket . . . I was treated like I wasn’t human.”[9]
It has been reported that, at the time of his death in 1991, Foxx owed more than $3.6 million in taxes.[3]
On October 11, 1991, during a break from rehearsals for The Royal Family, he suffered a fatal heart attack on the set. Reportedly, co-star Della Reese and the rest of the cast and crew thought he was doing his classic “I’m coming, Elizabeth!” fake heart attack routine he made famous on Sanford and Son, even going as far as collapsing to the floor, although that was not part of the usual act.[10] However, this heart attack was real, and Foxx did not regain consciousness.
A few years after Foxx’s death, several buyers of his home claimed his property was “haunted” by him.[11][12] Some people have even gone as far as claiming Foxx faked his death because he still owed the IRS money. Martin Lawrence poked fun at these claims on the pilot of his sitcom Martin. He said, “The man faked it. If you owed 16 billion dollars in taxes, what would you do?”
Foxx is buried in Las Vegas, at Palm Valley View Memorial Park. In 1993, his mother Mary Carson (1903–1993), who outlived Foxx, died nearly 17 months after Foxx’s death, and was buried just to the right of her famed son.
Comedian Chris Rock cites Redd Foxx as an influence. An episode of his show Everybody Hates Chris shows young Chris Rock overhearing his parents’ Redd Foxx albums and getting started doing stand-up through retelling the jokes at school.
Actor Jamie Foxx chose the Foxx surname as part of his stage name in tribute to Redd Foxx.
In the first season of In Living Color, in reference to Foxx’s financial troubles, Foxx was portrayed by Damon Wayans, who is making a public service announcement to encourage people to pay their taxes.
In the animated television series Family Guy parody of Star Wars episode “Blue Harvest“, Redd Foxx appears very briefly as an X-wing pilot. When his ship is shot down, he cries “I’m coming Elizabeth!” before dying. In addition to this, he has been parodied on Family Guy as his Sanford and Son character, as have other characters of that show, some shown in the form of Peter Griffin.
Foxx was meant to be featured in the MTV show Celebrity Deathmatch, advertised at taking on Jamie Foxx in the episode “When Animals Attack”. Instead of Red Foxx though, Jamie Foxx fought Ray Charles.
In the Boondocks episode “Stinkmeaner 3: The Hateocracy” he is portrayed as Lord Rufus Crabmiser, one of Stinkmeaner’s old friends coming to kill the Freeman family. Childhood friend and Sanford & Son co-star Lawanda Page is also portrayed in the same episode as Lady Esmeralda Gripenasty.
Redd Foxx appears as a minor character in the 2009 James Ellroy novel Blood’s a Rover. He gives a bawdy eulogy at the wake of Scotty Bennett, a murdered rogue LAPD detective including the line “Scotty Benett was fucking a porcupine. I gots to tell you motherfuckers that it was a female porcupine, so I don’t see nothing perverted in it.”[13]
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