Tavis Smiley is anxious.
He's on a plane flying from Los Angeles to Dulles Airport, and the plane is an hour late.
Smiley simply can't be late. He is the host of an 11 p.m. talk show that is broadcast live across the country. No Smiley. No show. Big trouble.
"Everyone was sweating that one," says Smiley, who, 10 hours later, is looking supremely at ease as he sips an apple juice in the dining room of the Washington hotel he lives in while in town.
He did make it in time to sit in the host chair, conduct an interview with Pentecostal Bishop T. D. Jakes and take on-air telephone calls. The show is called "BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley." A mix of politics and entertainment, it is only part of who Smiley is.
Besides doing the BET gig, Smiley is a hugely popular commentator on the nationally syndicated "Tom Joyner Radio Show." Heard locally in the mornings on WHUR-FM (96.3), the show has a primarily African-American audience of about 5 million, plays top hits and includes a cast of characters including Joyner, Smiley and comedian J. Anthony Brown.
When the radio show goes on the road, hundreds of audience members -- OK, mostly female audience members -- scream "Tavis, Tavis, Tavis!"
Part of Smiley's gift, say the people who know him, is getting people excited over politics in a down-home way they can relate to.
His take on the "R" -- as in racism -- word on one of his radio commentaries: "There are times when we get a little footloose and careless throwing the 'R' word at random. We would do well to remember that the 'R' word can make like a boomerang and come back to bite you in the behind."
And on Hollywood:
"Will somebody tell me what Samuel L. Jackson has to do to get nominated for an Oscar? We all know they played Jackson in 1994 opposite John Travolta in 'Pulp Fiction.' Gave him a nomination for best supporting actor, when he was on screen more than John Travolta. And I love John Travolta, but how you going to play Samuel L. Jackson?"
Smiley has written three books, all political commentaries. The latest is "The Best of Tavis Smiley" (Pines One Publication, 1998), a collection of commentaries from the radio show. Part of the proceeds goes toward a scholarship fund for students at historically black colleges.
He is a sought-after speaker. He's a guest commentator on CNN and CNBC. In 1994, Time magazine selected him as one of America's 50 most promising young people, along with Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey.
Smiley declines to disclose what he earns from his various enterprises. But it's been reported that it is somewhere just under the million-dollar mark -- and that was before the new BET contract he just signed.
He turns 34 Sunday.
Negotiations at BET, he confides, were a little rough, but he is happy things worked out.
So are the people at BET.
"Tavis is very bright, inquisitive and well-read," says Deborah Tang, the show's executive producer. "He's a good listener. And as a young man who is well-rounded, he makes a very good talk-show person."
There will be changes on the show, primarily its location. Half of the shows will be taped live from Washington; the other half will be live from Los Angeles. This lets Smiley spend more time at home.
"I live in L.A., and I really never wanted to do the show from Washington," says Smiley, who is 6 feet tall, single but dating. He is handsome with a direct gaze and a stocky build that he keeps in check by running and working out.
"Now that I have been in Washington, I appreciate having the show here," he says. "The show is about entertainment and empowerment. But empowerment turns me on the most, and Washington is a good place to be for that."
Two points to remember
Anybody who is the least bit familiar with Smiley understands these two things about him. He loves empowering people, and he respects his mama.
One of his opportunities for empowerment came when Christie's, the New York auction house, was scheduled to hold an auction of slave items. Smiley got wind of it. What really irked him was what he saw as unequal treatment: Christie's has a policy of not auctioning items related to the Holocaust. Instead, they are donated to museums and other educational institutions.
Smiley took to the airwaves on "The Tom Joyner Radio Show" to express his outrage.
His commentary that day was, in part: "Christie's has a house policy to not sell any paraphernalia related to the Holocaust. Now where, I ask, is the moral consistency here? How does an auction house decide to not sell paraphernalia from the Holocaust, a decision which I applaud, by the way, but instead decided that it's OK to sell slavery paraphernalia?"
Smiley implored his 5 million listeners to call Christie's to voice their feelings. He gave the telephone number -- twice -- on the air. The auction was set for the very next day.
"There was a 24-hour gap, and I was afraid we couldn't pull it off," Smiley says. "But an hour and a half later, Christie's called and said, 'Please stop the phone calls!' " Later, Smiley and the president of Christie's got together, and the items were donated to museums. That, says Smiley, was one of his finest radio moments.
Another commentary was about a year-old internal memo from an advertising agency that was reported in the New York Daily News a few months ago. The memo warned the agency salespeople against buying too many ads on minority radio stations because "advertisers want prospects and not suspects."
Joyner and Smiley talked about the memo on the air and urged listeners to contact the agency's parent company, Katz Radio Group. The memo came from Amcasts, a subsidiary of Katz. Stu Olds, president of Katz, called the radio show, apologized to listeners and outlined a plan to educate employees. He also agreed to spend more ad dollars on minority radio stations and to hire interns from traditionally black colleges.
Smiley has had everyone from President Clinton to rapper Snoop Doggy Dog on his BET show. He was also the first person to get Geraldo Rivera and attorney Johnny Cochran to stop disparaging each other long enough to sit down and talk. First, they appeared on his show, and the following morning on the "Today Show." They credited Smiley with getting them together.
"I am friends with both of them," Smiley says. "Really, they actually have a lot in common."
Grounded in family
Smiley's experience in getting people to work out their &r; differences and talk to one another probably has much to do with his background. He grew up in a small-town Indiana trailer park, the eldest of 10 siblings.
His mother and father, however, weren't the biological parents of 10 children. When Smiley was in the third grade, his aunt -- who had four children -- was murdered. "The children were going to be split up and sent to live in foster homes," he says.
At the time, Smiley lived with his parents and one brother. His mother was pregnant with her third child. "My parents decided to take the kids in," he says. "Overnight, we went from a family of two and a half kids to a family of six and a half kids. It was a big adjustment. It was rough for them. It was rough for us. And I know it was rough for my parents. My father had to work four or five part-time jobs in addition to his regular Air Force job."
The members of the family finally felt comfortable together and soon considered themselves as brothers and sisters as opposed to cousins. "We were all treated as equals," he says. "Nobody got more. Nobody got less. We even all got equal butt-whippings."
His ailing maternal grandmother came to live with the family, and after his mother had more children, there were 13 people living in the three-bedroom trailer.
It was a poor upbringing that he laughs about now. "You know, you always hear comedians -- black comedians -- joke about white trailer trash?" That was, he says, his life.
"I know about cardboard and shoes," Smiley says, meaning the practice of putting cardboard in old shoes that have worn soles.
"But fortunately for me, since I was the oldest boy, I got to wear the clothes first, before they were passed down."
His parents shared one bedroom. His grandmother slept with two of his sisters in another bedroom. He slept with seven brothers in the third bedroom.
He remembers how his parents tried to make the cramped arrangements work. They bought one king-size bed for all the boys.
"We all got in the bed, and it immediately collapsed from the
weight." So his parents placed the box spring and mattress on the floor.
To this day, in his Los Angeles town home, Smiley sleeps on a king-size bed with the box spring and mattress on the floor.
"Every time I get in that bed, it reminds me to stay humble. To be grateful. To be vigilant, to remember the ways I am blessed and to always thank God for it."
Early on, Smiley knew that education was his ticket out of poverty. He worked his way through Indiana University, where he had a debate scholarship that covered some of the cost.
"It was rough all the way through," he says about financing his education. At the end of his junior year, two siblings were also at the school, and things were so tough he nearly dropped out.
A political post
"I was really burned out about going to school. I thought I had made enough connections from being involved in national student conferences to get a job, and I was emotionally distraught about my parents getting a divorce."
He took some time off, did an internship with then-Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and then went back to Indiana University, where he graduated in 1987 with a degree in political science.
Smiley returned to Bradley's staff, eventually becoming a top aide. He loved the political life and decided to run for city council with Bradley's support. Though he lost the election, he gained name recognition and was offered a chance to do radio commentaries. They were so successful that a year later, he was nationally syndicated.
A few years ago, Joyner and Smiley were at a White House conference for minority journalists and broadcasters. "The president introduced us," Smiley says.
"He talks fast!" says Joyner, joking about why he hired Smiley. "He gets his point across in under four minutes, and I said: 'OK. We got a four-minute window. I can work with that.'
"He really has a knack for getting people interested in politics," Joyner adds. "He's not an actor. Not a singer. Not a professional athlete. He motivates people."
Speaks for disenfranchised
Smiley's political bent is liberal, and he's proud of it.
"I am an advocate for the people who are disenfranchised," he says. And if you don't concur with his opinions, he can handle that. "It's not about people agreeing with everything I am saying. I tell people all of the time that my mama doesn't agree with everything I am saying!"
Smiley peppers a lot of his conversation, both on air and off, with references to his mother, who is a Pentecostal preacher.
"With all due respect to my father, she has had unequaled impact on me," he says. "Three things sustain all of us: faith, family and friends. My mother was instrumental in helping me to build and grow my faith."
Smiley knows his mother always watches "BET Tonight." On the television show, supermodel Tyra Banks once presented him with frilly underpants to give to his lady friend. One of his most embarrassing on-air moments was when Banks held up the thong.
"I'm sure my mother never even knew what a thong was!" he says.
If Smiley quotes someone and uses a curse word, he first apologizes to his mother or says, "Ma, plug your ears." While interviewing Jakes, Smiley disagreed with something he said. But first, he apologized to his mother.
Smiley recently bought his mother a brand new car, a Cadillac, and he sends her money every month. "I get joy each month when I sign her check," he says. He jokes that she was especially relieved to learn he had re-signed with BET. "That means mama is going to get a cost-of-living raise!"
His politics may be liberal, but Smiley is conservative with money. He drives a 1975 Datsun (the same car he had in college) and a 1986 Oldsmobile. He hasn't bought a big house, although he could well afford it. He's put some of his siblings through college, signs his own checks and says he invests wisely.
There are nice perks that come with the BET job. The Washington hotel he lives in while in town and the car and driver at his disposal are two of them.
However, money is not his motivation. "I love what I am doing so much, I would do it for free. But, hey. Don't tell Tom Joyner that."
When he can, he relaxes over dinner with friends. And he is a Scrabble fanatic.
But, most of all, he loves connecting with people.
"I say what a lot of people wish they could say. That's why I feel people can relate to me," he says. "The response I get from them is 'Right on,' 'Amen' or 'Word,' depending on what generation they are in."
While Smiley is glad the BET negotiations were successful, he doesn't want to be pegged.
"I don't want to be limited to that black guy on that black network. That's cool, but I want more. I am grateful, but it is not, by any means, a crescendo. I don't know what the next step is, but I know I haven't peaked yet. At least I hope I haven't."
Pub Date: 9/09/98