Father of Django Unchained: Don Pedro Colley talks about the Legend of Nigger Charley

Quentin Tarantino's hypnotic Django: Unchained, like all Tarantino films, makes one consider the movies that influence his work. Media attention has focused on spaghetti westerns like the film's namesake Djano (1966), but for those savvy with the seventies, it is the forgotten genre of slave vengeance films, an offshoot of the Blaxploitation craze, that comes to mind. Movies like Mandingo (1975) and Drum (1976) made enormous sums at the box office. For all the chatter about the liberal use of the N-word in Django: Unchained, it doesn't come close to the audaciousness of its motion picture brethren of the 1970s that used the word in the actual title.

Today we speak with the man who starred, alongside Fred Williamson and D'Urville Martin, in the 1973 slave vengeance western - The Legend of Nigger Charley. He is one of the most prolific African-American actors of the last forty-five years, Mr. Don Pedro Colley.

Kliph Nesteroff: You became a steady character actor pretty quick. You did so many western television shows early on.

Don Pedro Colley: If you’ve ever looked at photos of old cowboys, of any old group in a bunch, there's always a Black person or two in that group.

Kliph Nesteroff: Let's talk abut a western film you starred in... the Legend of - you know what - Charley.

Don Pedro Colley: Well, the Legend of Nigger Charley is an authentic piece of history. It was based on a real person, a real story, from real life. It was very hard because the people that put it together were not concentrating on the story. They were busy playing Hollywood producer. There were girls around everywhere. Five girls at a time (laughs). “Girls, you go over there and sit. I gotta get in front of the camera!” Well, we’re supposed to have been riding through the desert for days and days and days, escaping from a plantation, yet our star looks like he just stepped outside of a shower! “Yeah, of course. I’m me. I’m too pretty. All that dust and shit? Give that to Don Pedro. He can have it.”

Kliph Nesteroff: Clearly you're referring to your co-star Fred Williamson, who was a staple of 1970s Blaxploitation. I've heard there was some kind of issue about the contracts with this film. Things were being done in a shady way or slipshod manner...

Don Pedro Colley: Well, it is a big challenge when you want to put out a project and Paramount is backing you and the project is named The Legend of Nigger Charley. It’s based on a real story. Even today people get a mouthful of gumballs and don’t know how to deal with the title, which is quite interesting. We were preparing to leave Hollywood and one of their representatives shows up at my house with a contract. Quickly scanning through it – it didn’t feel right. It didn’t look right. It wasn’t a type union contract, which was standard fare. I said, “Listen, my agents need to see it first before I sign it.” “God, you’re going to hold up production? Just sign the damn thing.” I said, “Man, I can’t. These are the people that get me work, my agents. All you have to do is send it to their office! I’ve never heard of a representative coming to my house with a contract.” That’s not the way show business is done and I was the bad guy because I was playing it straight. We get to New York and I’m there to participate in the casting of the film. I was already getting queasy feelings. I do not like to be associated with junk. It puts extra strain to overcome the junk around me and still salvage something. We were in New York, finished casting the rest of the people and I meet the director for the first time and the full nine yards. “Okay! We’re leaving by train to go shoot in Richmond, Virginia. Hurry up and sign this piece of paper. It’s your new contract.” "New contract? Send a copy to my agents.” “We don’t have time for that!” I said, “I can’t do that, man!” This was Paramount Pictures! We get to Richmond, Virginia and we go out to the plantation in Chester, Virginia. We get two whole days of film in the can. I’m in almost every scene. They come storming to my motel room. “Now you either sign this contract or we’re going to replace you.” This was the producer. He was in the hallway yelling at me. Larry Spangler. Jesus Christ, I can’t believe it. He’s trying to showboat me on the set and I was the only one there with motion picture experience on the bloody thing. Cast and crew had only done commercials in New York City. Making a motion picture is a whole different story. So he’s screaming at me that they’re going to fire me. He realizes in his bluff that he can’t because they’ve already spent so much of the budget in those first few days on location. It’s already in the can and can’t be redone. Paramount is queasy about the budget.

Kliph Nesteroff: And the title? It blows me away that Paramount was okay with the title.

Don Pedro Colley: Well, in the interim the local newspaper gets a hold of the title of our movie. Agents from the NAACP came down to our location – to shut us down – because we were making this “totally offensive movie.” I finally got away from this idiot and I’m in my motel room and I can relax for a little bit. Phone rings. “Don Pedro. We need you down in the lobby! Quick! Hurry! The NAACP is down here and they’re trying to shut us down!” I thought, “What? This is a historical piece of Americana that we’re trying to get down on film! How dare these people?” I went storming down to the lounge where there were a group of these people with their briefcases and their goggle glasses. Black folks. I stormed into the room and said, “What the hell is this all about?” Their eyeballs pop. I said, “How dare you! This is a piece of American history. We don’t have to be proud of it, but we should support it so that we don’t ever have to go back there again! How dare you try to shut us down?” They said, “We felt this is Hollywood trying to exploit. We want to make sure…” I said, “Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control.” It was about that time that the Paramount Pictures front office called me in my motel room and said, “Don Pedro Colley. Listen. You will be our eyes and our ears on the set until we get our financial officer over there. Okay?” I said, “Thank you, sir. I will do that for you.” About three or four days later, by that time we were in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I remember he had red hair, the financial officer representative from Paramount Pictures. He had two secretaries with him. I had more trouble before the fella showed up with our assistant director from New York. This hot shot crew. It wasn’t a class A crew. None of them had shot anything more than commercials. So they were moaning and groaning when we were in Virginia about everything. “We gotta film in this fuckin’ jungle, blah, blah.” Typical New York crap. We flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico – wide open spaces. Within thirty seconds everyone of them had cowboy shirts and cowboy hats and cowboy boots and chrome tips on the end. It was pitiful. So two-faced. I was watching all this shit happen. This assistant director who wanted to prove he knew more than anyone else… he can’t call the shots, but that’s what he was attempting to do. He was trying to take it over from Marty the director. Marty would look kind of puzzled because he wrote this script. He wasn’t sure how to step up, while this assistant director is getting more and more powerful he thinks. It became disruptive. He had a group of cronies patting him on the back for being so bold in doing what he was doing. He had the audacity to shout at me one day to hurry it up because I’m holding it up. I’m on my horse, ready for this scene and nobody knows what the fuck is going on. I had just had it with him. I called him out by name. “You will never disrupt this set again. You are not the director. You are the assistant director. Please assist the project or get the hell off of it.” The star and the producer stopped cold and looked at me. This was what needed to happen because it was harming the production. "Damn that Don Pedro!" It just pissed me off beyond belief to work with these rank amateurs who were trying to look for quick glory. None of them earned it.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was writer - director Marty Goldman like?

Don Pedro Colley: A very nice fella. He was a writer and he had some director’s ability and ideas that worked very well. He was kind of easily persuaded by outside forces that a director shouldn’t allow.

Kliph Nesteroff: And working with Fred Williamson and D’Urville Martin?

Don Pedro Colley: I hate to talk against people, but they make me so mad sometimes. You have to give certain people that they’re whole growing environment was in a closed society. If you don’t develop certain strengths for surviving – then you don’t survive. Then when you get out into the world with all kinds of different people and a different atmosphere, your survival skills are left… you don’t know what to do. I don’t act like you or talk like you because I’m not from the ghetto, never been to the ghetto, I don’t know your common colloquial idioms. They say, “What is that?” I was on the outs. Blacks don’t like me, whites don’t like me… well, okay, fine. I don’t care. I’ll just put out good work and try bring tears to your eyes. That’s always been my situation. As an actor you work off the energies that come at you. It was them against me. They all wanted me fired. They couldn’t get away with shit. They were planning to jack up Paramount Pictures. I’m saying, “No, you can’t. This is our chance in history and you’re going to leave this stain on it by being cheap thugs?” In those days we had a kind of community of African-American folks and we met at some of the restaurants here and there and what’s going on and back and forth. Everybody knew everybody, but when it came to jobs they’d get very jealous if you got something bigger than they had. It lead to a lot of disruption and bad feelings. So I had bad blood with D’Urville Martin and Fred Williamson. He plays The Hammer and “I’m a star!” at all costs. Of course I know he’s full of shit. You know? Having worked with him and taught him literally how to act. When we got on this train to go on location in Richmond, Virginia, I schooled him for hours and hours and hours. How to do the lines, how to find the character, how to feel internals that make the wheels work. I don’t need you to be standing around with your shirt open to your navel saying, “I’m pretty!” Which is what you do Fred Williamson – just because you know you got this animal magnetism. And you piss me off. He always has five girls around him. Always. Plucking the hair in his armpit. Obscene.

Kliph Nesteroff: What was the reaction to the title of the film at the time?

Don Pedro Colley: Well, I researched it and in doing so found it was a real story. In reading the real story I saw that it was a mismatch of several other stories that came out of the same period. I wanted to bring as much realism as possible, so I was personally fine with the title. It actually wasn't as controversial as you might think.

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[Kay]

When I watched the Youtube link, another movie, a likely sequel, came up as another related video: Soul of N. Charley

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ1aRxc341Q