Overwhelmed by his own popularity

Aug 07, 2012

GEORGE Jefferson was one of the most loved characters in television history. He featured in the much loved sitcom The Jeffersons, entertaining Ugandans from the late 1980s to the 1990s.

 By Elizabeth Namazzi
GEORGE Jefferson was one of the most loved characters in television history. He featured in the much loved sitcom The Jeffersons, entertaining Ugandans from the late 1980s to the 1990s. 

This role was played by Sherman Hemsley, who died at his home in El Paso, Texas, aged 74.
 
The Jeffersons ran for 10 years, and Hemsley’s performance as Jefferson earned him both an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination.
 
Born in Philadelphia, Hemsley first played George Jefferson on CBS’s All in the Family before featuring in the The Jeffersons. When the sitcom was popular in Uganda, viewers watched it with the same zeal today’s viewer has for soaps. 
 
Like Norman Lear, producer of The Jeffersons and All in the Family said after learning of his death:
 
“He was a love of a guy” and “immensely talented.” Off screen, Hemsley was nothing compared to the rude and arrogant George Jefferson.
 
The son of a printing press-working father and a factory-working mother, Hemsley studied acting and started his career in New York workshops and theatre companies. He also served in the Air Force and worked for eight years as a clerk for the postal service. 
 
For years, he worked at the post offIice by day and acted by night until he made his Broadway debut in a 1970’s musical, Purlie Victorius.
 
Talking about his role as Jefferson during a 2003 interview for the Archive of American Television, he said: “All of it was really hard ... because — rude, I don’t like to be that way but it was the character, I had to do it. I had to be true to the character.
 
If I was to pull back something, then it just wouldn’t work.” After The Jeffersons, Hemsley starred in the sitcom Amen as a fiery Philadelphia church deacon, Ernest Frye.
 
One of his longtime friends, Jackee Harry, narrated that she once took a walk with him along a Manhattan sidewalk during the era of The Jeffersons.
 
Many Ugandans will recognise Jackee Harry as the ultra-feminine Sandra in the sitcom 227.
 
“Passers-by went wild. He got mauled and mugged and said, ‘What’s all the screaming about?’ He was so popular and he didn’t even know it,” Harry said.
 
She described him as “a very private person unlike George Jefferson. But he was very kind and very sweet and generous to a fault.”
 
During his evening years, Hemsley showed up as a guest on sitcoms like Family Matters, The Hughleys and, in a voice role in Family Guy. Twice, he appeared as his famous Jefferson character on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and on award winning Tyler Perry’s House of Payne in 2011. 
 
He also acted in several films, including the 1979’s Love at First Bite, Stewardess School and Ghost Fever in 1987.
 
It can be said that he is one of the few who lived their dreams. As a child, he told his mother that he wanted a job “where I could have a lot of fun and have a lot of time off.”
 
When she asked him where he would find such a job, he answered: “I don’t know, but it’s out there.”
 
The world is lucky that he found that job and spent his life doing it.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});