Laurence T (born Laurence Tureaud, May 21, 1952, and known professionally as Mr. T) is an American actor and retired professional wrestler. He is known for his roles as B. A. Baracus in the 1980s television series The A-Team and as boxer Clubber Lang in the 1982 film Rocky III. He is also known for his distinctive hairstyle inspired by Mandinka warriors in West Africa, his copious gold jewelry, his tough-guy persona and his catchphrase "I pity the fool!", first uttered as Clubber Lang in Rocky III, then turned into a trademark used in slogans or titles, like the 2006 reality show I Pity the Fool.
Early life, family and education Tureaud was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest son in a family with twelve children. He and his four sisters and seven brothers grew up in a three-room apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes public housing. His father, Nathaniel Tureaud, was a minister. After his father left when Lawrence was five years old, he shortened his name to Lawrence Tero. In 1970, he legally changed his last name to T. His new name, Mr. T, was based upon his childhood impressions regarding the lack of respect from white people for his family. T recalls:
Tureaud attended Dunbar Vocational High School, where he was on the school's football and wrestling teams. He also studied martial arts. During high school, he was the citywide wrestling champion two years in a row.
He won a football scholarship to Prairie View A&M University, where he majored in mathematics. He was expelled, along with some 200 other students, for protesting the expulsion of the student newspaper editor who had broken the female-only curfew by leaving campus for the weekend to attend Mardi Gras.
Early career After Mr. T left Prairie View A&M, he worked as a gym instructor for a government program in Chicago. He later said it was here that he discovered a gift for helping children. Thereafter, he enlisted in the United States Army in 1975 and served in the Military Police Corps. After his discharge in the late 1970s, he tried out for the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, but failed to make the team owing to a knee injury.
Mr. T worked as a bouncer at the Rush Street night club Dingbats Discotheque. It was at this time that he created the persona of Mr. T. He began wearing gold neck chains and other jewelry as a result of customers losing the items or leaving them behind at the night club after a fight. A banned customer, or one reluctant to risk a confrontation by going back inside, could return to claim his property from Mr. T who would wear it conspicuously in front of the establishment. Along with controlling the violence as a doorman, Mr. T was mainly hired to keep out drug dealers and users. Mr. T has claimed that as a bouncer, he was in over 200 fights and was sued a number of times, but won each case.
He eventually parlayed his job as a bouncer into a career as a bodyguard that lasted almost ten years. As his reputation grew, he was contracted to guard, among others, clothes designers, models, judges, politicians, athletes and millionaires. His clients included celebrities Steve McQueen, Michael Jackson, LeVar Burton, and Diana Ross, and boxers Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, and Leon Spinks. With his reputation as Mr. T, he attracted strange offers and was frequently approached with odd commissions, including tracking runaway teenagers, locating missing persons, debt collection, and assassination requests.
While he was in his late twenties, Mr. T won two tough-man competitions consecutively. The first aired as Sunday Games on NBC-TV under the contest of "America's Toughest Bouncer" which included throwing a stuntman, and breaking through a wooden door. For the first event, Mr. T came in third place. For the end, two finalists squared off in a boxing ring for a two-minute round to declare the champion. Making it to the ring as a finalist, he had as his opponent a Honolulu bouncer, Tutefano Tufi. Within twenty seconds Mr. T gave the Tufi a bloody nose, and later a bloody mouth. Mr. T won the match and thus the competition. The second competition was aired under a new name, Games People Play, on NBC-TV. When interviewed by Bryant Gumbel before the final boxing match, Mr T. said, "I just feel sorry for the guy who I have to box. I just feel real sorry for him." This fight was scheduled to last three rounds, but Mr. T finished it in less than 54 seconds. The line, "I don't hate him but... I pity the fool" in the movie Rocky III was written by Sylvester Stallone, who is reputed to have been inspired by the interview.
Acting roles and other work
While reading National Geographic, Mr. T first noticed the hairstyle for which he is now famous, on a Mandinka warrior.Mentioned in a number of interviews, including Mr. T: Pity The Fool , allhiphop.com, Published Thursday, November 9, 2006. Mr. T gives a 1977 date, for an article with photos on the Mandinka in Mali. National Geographic Magazine's index has no record of such an article. Nationalgeographic.com He decided that adoption of the style would be a powerful statement about his African origin. It was a simpler, safer, and more permanent visual signature than his gold chains, rings, and bracelets.
In 1980, Mr. T was spotted by Sylvester Stallone while taking part in NBC's "America's Toughest Bouncer" competition, a segment of NBC's Games People Play. Although his role in Rocky III was originally intended as just a few lines, Mr. T was eventually cast as Clubber Lang, the primary antagonist. His catchphrase "I pity the fool!" comes from the film; when asked if he hates Rocky, Lang replies, "No, I don't hate Balboa, but I pity the fool." He subsequently appeared in another boxing film, Penitentiary 2, and on an episode of the Canadian sketch comedy series Bizarre, where he fights and eats Super Dave Osborne, before accepting a television series role on The A-Team. He appeared in an episode of the NBC sitcom Silver Spoons, reprising his old role as bodyguard to the character Ricky Stratton (played by Ricky Schroder).
In The A-Team, he played Sergeant Bosco "B. A." Baracus, an ex-Army commando on the run with three other members from the United States government "for a crime they didn't commit." As well as the team's tough guy, B. A. was a mechanical genius, but afraid of flying. When asked at a press conference whether he was as stupid as B. A. Baracus, Mr. T observed quietly, "It takes a smart guy to play dumb." The series was a major hit, and B. A. Baracus in particular quickly became a cult character and the de facto star of the show, reportedly sparking tensions with seasoned actor George Peppard, although Mr. T always maintained that these were unfounded rumors.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Mr. T was reported to be earning $80,000 a week for his role in The A-Team.
His role in The A-Team led to him making an appearance in the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes in the sixth season opener "Mr. T and Mr. t" (1983), in which an episode of The A-Team is supposedly filmed in the family's penthouse apartment.
Also in 1983, a Ruby-Spears-produced cartoon called Mister T premiered on NBC. The Mister T cartoon starred Mr. T as his alter ego, the owner of a gym where a group of gymnasts trained. He helped them with their training, but they also helped him solve mysteries and fight crime in Scooby-Doo-style scenarios; thirty episodes were produced. Each episode was bookended by Mr. T himself, presenting the theme of the episode, and then a closing statement on a lesson for children, based on the events of the episode.
The only feature film that can be called a Mr. T vehicle, DC Cab, was also released in 1983. It features an ensemble cast, many of whom were publicized figures from other areas of show business: comics Paul Rodriguez, Marsha Warfield, singer Irene Cara, bodybuilders David and Peter Paul (the "Barbarian Brothers")—but who had only modest acting experience. Despite the wide range of performers, and more seasoned actors such as Adam Baldwin as the protagonist Albert, as well as Gary Busey and Max Gail, Mr. T was top billed and the central figure in the film's publicity, with him literally towering over the other characters on the film's poster. While the film, featuring the ensemble as a ragtag taxi company trying to hustle their way to solvency and respectability, performed modestly at the box office, its $16 million take exceeded its $12 million budget, it received mixed reviews critically. Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times, described it as "a musical mob scene, a raucous, crowded movie that's fun as long as it stays wildly busy, and a lot less interesting when it wastes time on plot or conversation." Roger Ebert praised the movie's "mindless, likable confusion" and criticized its "fresh off the assembly line" plot. It was the second feature for prolific director Joel Schumacher.
In 1984, Mr. T made a motivational video, Be Somebody... or Be Somebody's Fool! He gives helpful advice to children throughout the video; for example, he teaches them how to understand and appreciate their origins, how to dress fashionably without buying designer labels, how to make tripping up look like breakdancing, how to control their anger, and how to deal with peer pressure. The video is roughly one hour long, but contains 30 minutes of singing, either by the group of children accompanying him, or by Mr. T himself. He sings "Treat Your Mother Right (Treat Her Right)", and also raps a song about growing up in the ghetto and praising God. The raps in this video were written by Ice-T. Due to its unintentionally comic nature, many clips have been made from this video and shared as Internet memes. Also in 1984, he played the protagonist of the TV movie The Toughest Man in the World, as Bruise Brubaker, a bouncer also leading a sports center for teenagers, who takes part in a strong man championship to get funds for the center. He also released a rap mini-album, Mr. T's Commandments (Columbia/CBS Records) the same year. It features seven songs, including the title theme for the aforementioned TV film. In much the same tone as his motivational video, it instructed children to stay in school and to stay away from drugs. He followed it up the same year with a second album, titled Mr. T's Be Somebody... or Be Somebody's Fool! (MCA), featuring music from the eponymous film.
During those busy years, he made numerous appearances in television shows, most notably hosting the 15th episode of the 10th season of Saturday Night Live, along with Hulk Hogan, both of whom were featured in Rocky III. Mr. T had previously appeared on Saturday Night Live (season 8) in October 1982, fresh from his role in Rocky III, in a recurring skit by Eddie Murphy called "Mr. Robinson Neighborhood" (making a reference to one of his lines in the movie : "Hello boys and girls. The new word for today... is PAIN.").
On January 19, 1985, he introduced Rich Little at the nationally televised 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala, the day before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan.
In 1988, after the cancellation of The A-Team, Mr. T starred in the syndicated Canadian television series T. and T. Earning $15,000 for personal appearances, by the end of the 1990s, he was appearing only in the occasional commercial, largely because of health problems.
Some time during the 1990s, Mr. T would be in Eric "Butterbean" Esch's corner in the boxing matches during one of the Toughman Contests. He has frequently appeared on the TBN Christian television network.