Get ready to party!
By CARA HUNT Tribune Features Writer cbrennen@tribunemedia.net
It’s almost time to light the candles and sing Happy Birthday Bahamas for the 51st time. And while this year may not be the epic celebrations of last year, there is never a reason not to party and pay homage to everything that is great about being Bahamian. Unfortunately, the holiday does fall on Wednesday, which means we don’t have a long weekend, but we can still start celebrating from now. Here are 25 great things to do to celebrate Independence starting this weekend.
Go to someone’s house party and toote home a plate of food.
Join thousands of other Bahamians on the beach and refuse to go in the actual water.
Go to church on Sunday in Independence colours.
Watch a movie staring Bahamian screen legend Sir Sidney Poitier.
Eat a delicious mango.
Turn on your A/C and pray that BPL doesn’t charge you a million dollars or worse cut the current off.
Cook tuna and grits for breakfast.
macaroni
Find out that Nassau is in fact the capital of the Bahamas by listening to Elkin 360’s hot song for the millionth time for the year.
10Say well muddasick or that’s a vibe at least once during a gossipy conversation.
11Sit on your front porch with a ice cold glass of switcha.
12Get your hair and nails done and pick an outfit to wear on the holiday.
13Visit the dock or the Fry for something made with conch. 14Eat some crabs - take your pick of crab and rice, crab and dough or baked crab or crab soup. 15Complain about the heat. 16Complain about mosquitos. 17Complain about the bad holiday drivers and traffic.
18Take advantage of the day off to take a quick shopping trip to Miami.
19Take advantage of the day off to sleep as much as possible.
20Sing Independence Morning is like a Baby borning at least once.
21Go on Clifford Park for the Ecumenical Service and Cultural Show on Tuesday night and then catch Junkanoo.
22Gather under the coolest tree you can find for a fiery game of dominos, uno or cards.
23Think of every three or four number combination involving 51 that you can.
24Be a silent observer of the latest social media drama going around town and make sure that all the relevant voice notes, screen shots and comments are forwarded to you. Then forward them to everyone you know.
25Proudly say I’s a Bahamian to everyone you see.
Are
you
ready for Independence?
July 5
1989 - The popular American show Seinfield or as it was then called the Seinfield Chronicles aired its first episode on NBC. It would be become a landmark show in American pop culture.
1996 - Dolly, a female Finn
Dorset sheep was, born near Edinburgh, Scotland, making her the first successfully cloned mammal.
WITH Independence celebrations taking place next week, check out the list of events as we count down to the big day.
The theme for this year’s events is “One People: United in Love and Service”, and celebrations began with the National Flag Day on June 28.
Today, National Culture Day is being celebrated, with tomorrow being the National Day of Service.
On July 7, there will be Independence church services, then a National Day of Unity on July 8.
The traditional Clifford Park show on the eve of Independence will start at 8pm and count down to midnight, and will be an ecumenical service and cultural show.
On July 10, there will be the annual Independence State Reception at Government House, while Clifford Park will host a Family Fun Day from 4pm.
July 6
1942 - Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in Amsterdam. They would remain in a secret annex until August 4, 1944, and the diary she kept while in hiding became a classic piece of wartime history.
2002 - American tennis player Serena Williams won her first Wimbledon singles title after defeating her sister Venus.
July 7
1946 - Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini is the first US citizen to be canonised by the Roman Catholic Church.
2011 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 had its world premiere in London. It is the final film adaption of JK Rowling’s popular children book series.
Plati Dred
After a break from the stage, Plati Dred is back. The singer-songwriter spoke to CARA HUNT about his new album. But he is also on a personal journey - a journey which also incudes publishing a book and a poetry anthology, considering the nature of reality itself.
Bahamian artist Plati Dred returned to the stage after a six-year absence ahead of his newest album release called The Keys to Light.
The singer/songwriter is eagerly looking forward to his newest project which is actually one part of a trilogy of the Keys of Light to include the album, a book, and a poetry anthology.
The trilogy explores his journey into metaphysics and enlightenment. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy which deals with the study of reality and existence and is something that Plati is passionate about.
And last week, he had the opportunity to share a glimpse of the album when he performed for an intimate crowd at the Spotlight Lounge at An Evening of Creative Elegance featuring Tanya Hanna.
The evening was her first performance since the passing of her husband Paul Hanna (both Bahamian musical icons) and it was fitting that Plati took part as he had been a long-time of friend of the couple as well as being Paul’s physician before his death.
“I have been friends with them for about 15 to 20 years and so it was an amazing event to be able to share the stage with her again in a great intimate setting,” he said.
He was able to give the audience a sample of the album, which he describes as an eclectic combination of conscious content.
While he has been performing for more than three decades, he has been on a short break for about six years.
This followed the release of his popular song Junkanoo Rock, which is still being played throughout the country.
He has had great success as a recording and performing artist. He performed at the Battle of the Bands with his band “Naykid I” and as a solo artist at the first Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival, among numerous other performances.
Plati is his alter ego, in his day job he has been a well-known family medicine practitioner.
And while he works to heal the physical aspects of his patients, he is even more passionate about helping his musical audiences find holistic and spiritual healing as well.
“This is something that has always been a passion of mine. I have had a lot of tragedies and challenges throughout my life and had to get to a point of healing, I can say that I have now arrived at a place in my life where I am happy, not enlightened. I want people to know that it is not as hard as you may think.”
He came up with the name Plati Dred because he wanted to separate the medicine from the spirituality and so he uses the name as a form of avatar.
“I needed an outlet for my personality that I was not allowed to express as Dr Bartlett,” he said.
“This is something that has always been a passion of mine. I have had a lot of tragedies and challenges throughout my life and had to get to a point of healing, I can say that I have now arrived at a place in my life where I am happy, not enlightened. I want people to know that it is not as hard as you may think.”
He added: “I began forming bands back in the late 1980s, releasing my first single in 1990 called After the Passion Passes. My whole foray into music was directed by a desire to convert my metaphysical poetry into music. I was driven by a need to share the knowledge that I was discovering through my studies. It was never an ego thing. My career path in music ultimately led to an album, six music videos and numerous singles. I performed in many venues throughout Nassau and gained the respect of the local musical community.”
For the past three years, he has been recording the new album which features ten songs and is produced by Preston Puzzle Wallace.
The first single is called Thrill. It’s a tune about embracing consciousness and self-religion, themes he says anyone can relate to.
His return to the stage coincides with the formation of his new band, which begins rehearsals next week.
“It is with the intention of producing a show that will offerings from the new album,” he said.
The Key to Light – an Inner Life Guide on the Road to Enlightenment stands as a testament to his personal experience.
He kept a diary of poetry of his experiences over the past three decades and some of those writings turned into the songs on the album.
His previous music and albums are available on iTunes.
Best described as a number crossword, the task in Kakuro is to fill all of the empty squares, using numbers 1 to 9, so the sum of each horizontal block equals the number to its left, and the sum of each vertical block equals the number on its top. No number may be used in the same block more than once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Kakuro increases from Monday to Sunday.
Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so the each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday
THE ALPHABEATER
CAN you crack the Alphabeater? Each grid number represents a letter – or black square. As in Alphapuzzle, every letter of the alphabet is used. But you have to complete the grid too! Use the given letters and black squares below the grid to start. The grid is ‘rotationally symmetrical’ – in other words, it looks the same if you turn the page upside down. Solution tomorrow
HOW many words of four letters or more can you make from the letters shown here?
In making a word, each letter may be used once only. Each must contain the centre letter and there must be at least one nine-letter word. No plurals. Verb forms ending in S permitted.
Yesterday’s Sudoku Answer
FIND where the fleet of ships shown is hidden in the grid. The numbers to the right of and below the grid indicate how many of the squares in that row are filled in with ships or parts of ships. The ships do not touch each other, even diagonally. Some squares have been filled in to start you off. Solution tomorrow
Yesterday’s Kakuro Answer
across: Majolica, Heroism, Razor, Taxi, Notch, Shekel, Laughter. down: Reflects, (clue), Liberty, Ague, Windbag, Diminish.
Planting with purpose
Good day, gardeners! What’s in stall for your garden this weekend?
I’m noticing a lot of growth on shrubs around town that line walkways, sidewalks, and driveways.
Montagu fish ramp, for example, the seagrape hedges are beginning to overtake the sidewalks. This jumped out at me because it’s been a common practice to hack shrubs and hedges to the extreme in public spaces almost to a point that defeats the purpose of them even being there. A simple pruning along the sides to keep it in bounds is all that is needed. Trim once again at the end of the summer, and Bob’s your uncle. What I find pleasing is that they’ve grown to head height or more, and I see this as aesthetically pleasing.
I put my eyes on the Saunders Beach plantings this week, and I’m happy to see that it’s being let to grow in, which if it’s let to do what it’s there to do, will not only increase the amount of sand on the beach, it will decrease the amount of sand that makes its way into the road, and hopefully, someday, eventually, provide more shade for beach goers, and habitat for wildlife.
The plant material was planted with purpose, for the benefit of us all. I will cringe if I see it all cut
down again. Why do we choose to cut hedges to stumps, negating their existence? Time shall tell. There is an important aspect to the Saunder’s beach dune ecosystem that is severely lacking still, and that is the removal of invasive species.
The Casuarina and the Scaevola taccada (Sea lettuce) are both non-native, exotic, imported, highly invasive and highly destructive to coastal dune ecosystems. They both out compete native species, and they both contribute to the erosion of the dunes, which again, negates the efforts of planting native materials to encourage dune growth.
Please, government, public space managers, whoever is responsible for the Saunders Beach maintenance, remove all of the sea lettuce and casuarinas popping up in the native dune plantings?! They’re defeating the efforts to encourage the sand dunes. Our coastal management needs help. No gestapo style task force needed, even though the two invasive species mentioned are noncompliant. In your garden, certainly there’s some pruning to do. The rain and long days are growth signals to plant material.
I had visited the garden of a friend who’d asked why a particular type of Alocasia wasn’t growing while the hardier species were doing alright.
The cause is compacted soils in that case. The remedy is to loosen the ground around the plants in question and add organic material. The roots of plants need airspace and room to grow, and that at the same time provides drainage for heavy rains, and all around creates a healthier soil base.
Everything that we see above ground is only the result of the health of the biological happenings below ground. The unseen health of the soil is what produces the result that we see above ground. You can baby the foliage of a plant all day long, but if you’re not encouraging the health of the soil, once again, it defeats the purpose. It is all in the roots. We only see the results of root growth in the foliage, flowers, and fruits of plants.
If you’ve got plants in your garden that aren’t performing as you wish they would, I’d bet the farm that the problem isn’t above ground, but below. Yellowing leaves? Fertilise. Remember, nitrogen is nitrogen, regardless of the source. Organic fertilisers are the result of marketers taking advantage of trends, while I am certainly not discouraging anyone from making their own nutrient brews to be more conscious and economical.
Trends can often be misinformed, and popular opinion is often a result of herd mentality. Forget the trends and stick to the science. For uniform and consistent results, use the correct formulas for the desired result. Consulting with a professional garden centre will yield better results if you don’t know what to use. Not all garden centres are knowledgeable. Not all professionals are well trained or knowledgeable. Not all fertilisers are alike. I wish to see balance in our nation, especially when it comes to our natural environment. We have a ways to go. I will not back down or give up. I will sit in the shade and watch things get overgrown instead of going out into that midday sun though!
Our independence is next week, I hope that in celebration of it, you’ll plant a native tree. Our anthem states to lift up our heads to the rising sun, not the midday sun. Happy independence, My Bahamas, Your Bahamas, Our beloved Bahamaland. As always, I wish you happy gardening.
• Adam Boorman is the nursery manager at Fox Hill Nursery on Bernard Road. You can contact him with any ques- tions you may have, or topics you would like to see discussed, at garden- ing242@ gmail. com.
Stew in da mornin’ The secret ingredient? Just add water
By ALESHA CADET | Tribune Features Writer acadet@tribunemedia.net
IN A busy but creative kitchen filled with yummy aromas, Joan LockhartCulmer carefully packaged her latest creation; “stew in the mornin” recipes neatly packed into convenient grab and go packets.
These “just add water” ready-to-cook meals are transforming how easy it is to make one of The Bahamas’ most popular home cooked meals on the go.
“I’m working on my cookbook called Come Taste My Bahamas. And what I wanted to do was create a product that was not just for the Bahamians, but a product that included flavors of the Bahamas that could actually travel easily,” said Joan.
She told Tribune Weekend, she thought of Bahamians who traveled abroad to their family members who haven’t been home in a long time, as well as visitors who simply wanted to take a Bahamian dish wherever they are leaving to go in the world.
How many Bahamians enjoy the good old fashion stew fish, without the hassle of doing the hard work of “browning the flour”? Well, Joan’s innovative grab and go food packets makes the process quite easy for you. Joan’s stew in the mornin packets includes recipes that include grouper, snapper, and conch. Also available are options like the cracked conch packet, as well as the Johnny cake packet.
was to get everything in to one, the entire recipe.
“I realised from going out for breakfast, there’s so many versions of stew and that’s basically because the stew process is a very tedious one, because you have to brown the flour. My sister Maureen, who is a fantastic fish cook, she’s able to make fish any kind of way, and it is always seasoned well, always from beginning to end, it’s always a fabulous product,” said Joan.
“She has taught me what my eldest sister and my mother and other older ladies in Ragged Island have taught me, and that is the way to brown flour. And I can’t tell you exactly how it’s done, because it’s part of what the secret of the recipe is. It’s not so much in what it is, but how it’s done.”
Joan said she has seen before just the stew powder available for sale, but her goal
“Either when it’s raining or during the holiday or whatever. You want to be able to create this thing at home without going out to the restaurant and paying $35 for a bowl of it, and that’s what it’s running at now. So once I thought of this, I have a Junkanoo Jay label, which is my culinary name now,” she said.
“I sat down with a very good friend of mine, Nick Barnes, and he actually created the cartoon Junkanoo head for me, and I told him, what we’ll do is we’ll bag it, let’s bag the entire process.”
Going on to share how the process was done, Joan said she met with a few of her friends on a Sunday afternoon and did a test run of trial and error of the product.
“We were able to work it down all in one day, cooking, making stew fish, tweaking it and whatnot. And at the end of the day, we had stew in the mornin. As a culinary artist, which I consider myself to be, the same way we have Junkanoo artist and painting artists and shell artists. The flavours of
the Bahamas, I think are very unique and inspiring. They inspire fellowship for me. I have done it in four different places where I’ve lived and my food has always inspired people getting together. Not to argue, just to love on one another and be able to sit down and enjoy good food and good fellowship,” said Joan. She said visitors are often attracted to the country’s sun, sand and sea, but it is also important to sine light on the taste.
Joan said: “I would like people to not just take shellwork home, wood carvings or sand from Eleuthera. Why not let them be able to take the taste of The Bahamas with them? And so that is where stew in the mornin products come from. And at present we have three things that we have tweaked and worked on, which are bagged and they’re durable and ready to travel, and that is the stew in the mornin.
“What we did was we included two slices of seasoned and pre -fried grouper in the packet. And so that is vacuum sealed and put into the bag along with our sea salt, black pepper, and thyme, as well as the stew powder and a small packet of tomatoes and onions that have been fried down for you and seasoned.”
She said the whole process of this product is the fact that if you can boil water, you can make this stew fish anywhere.
“We’ve added the Johnny Cake pack, and I’ve done all the work for the Johnny Cake. All you have to do is add one cup of water, a tablespoon of baking powder, and you could get six Johnny Cake muffins to go with your stew fish,” she said.
“The feedback is amazing, everybody’s talking about it. It has traveled already. It’s in Maryland, it’s in Atlanta, Georgia, and on the Family Islands, soI’m now collecting videos from people who have bought it and made it. Eventually, I think I’m going to just put some snippets out of people making it. It travels really well and the shelf life on it is up to 45 days because we wouldn’t want you to go past that because you lose the freshness of the fish,” said Joan.
At present she said the cracked conch packet comes with seasoned flour with no need for eggs due to a particular cornstarch mixture added. The JAWS concept, she said, also comes in to play with this recipe. All packets are created for two servings.
Joan said: “The cracked conch packet comes with two freshly bruised conchs that are already bruised for you, all you have to do is un-peel them from the vacuum seal packet and dip them into the flour and cornstarch mixture and just deep fry.
“Stew in the mornin can take away the headache of you trying to figure out which cooler you can take, how many conchs you could take. If want my children to have some food, maybe in an Airbnb where you don’t have the luxury of having to travel with a whole cooler full of food. You can actually take these flavors in a simple packet that you could pop in a small cooler bag, even in your suitcase, but they come frozen, and you can actually recreate those meals with as simple as boiling water, creating a home cooked meal away from home.”
JOAN Lockhart-Culmer
More Minion mayhem in Despicable Me 4
Despicable Me 4
Universal Pictures release, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for action and rude humor.
Running time: 95 minutes
By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer
Should a review of a “Despicable Me” movie be a thoughtful analysis or just a list of the funny stuff the Minions do in it? As much as I might believe in the value of film criticism, I kind of suspect that even the finest points of assessment would be dismantled about as fast as a Minion can says “Bello!”
Since they first emerged in the original “Despicable Me” in 2010, the Minions have marauded through movie theaters with impunity, soaking up some $4.6 billion in ticket sales and spawning a franchise that with its latest entry, “Despicable Me 4,” and counting the multiplying “Minions” spinoffs, numbers six movies and counting.
Along the way, they’ve accumulated bits of vocabulary from around the globe to add to their gibberish squeals. In “Despicable Me 4,” I heard “antipasti,” “bazooka” and something that sounded a little like the old “Goonies” line: “Hey you guys!”
So the Minions continue to evolve even if the movies don’t. Six films in and with more on the way, too much of a good thing is becoming more of a pressing question in “Despicable Me 4,” a silly and breezy installment from Illumination Entertainment that passes by with about as much to remember it as a Saturday morning cartoon.
That’s not all bad. Much of what makes the “Despicable Me” movies
fun is that they avoid any sense of seriousness like the plague. They stand proudly in the Looney Tunes realm of animation, with little aim beyond loosely stitching slapstick sequences together. There’s a good chance you might cry during a Pixar movie, but if you wept during a “Despicable Me” movie, someone might call for help.
For “Despicable Me 4,” which opens in theaters July 3, the filmmakers have, as if unsure about where to go next, smashed four or five sequel plotlines together. The film starts with a school reunion — the Lycée Pas Bon School of Villainy Class of ‘85 — where Gru encounters an old rival, Maxime le Mal (Will Ferrell),
a French-accented, cockroachobsessed villain.
Gru is attending, though, as an agent for the Anti-Villain League. (One hopes there is somewhere an Antihero League led by Travis Bickle and Walter White.) Gru traps Maxime and arrests him, but in short order, Maxime breaks out of prison and vows revenge on Gru, sending their family — wife Lucy (Kristen Wiig), and their three adopted children, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier), and Agnes (Madison Polan) — into witness protection.
This gives the movie a few jokes about Gru, who may be a family man now but who still has the bearing
of a supervillain, trying to blend in. He tries to impress their next-door neighbor, a snobbish country club member named Perry Prescott (Stephen Colbert). But there’s also a new character at home: baby Gru Jr. That allows for some decent gags — the Minions, dressed like a race car pit team, help change dirty diapers with a T-shirt gun — but overly familiar ones. Gru Jr. is crawling in the footsteps of another child born into an atypical family with a big-torso’ed, spindly-legged father: Jack-Jack of “The Incredibles 2.”
That may be why “Despicable Me 4” also quickly moves on from this narrative, shifting for a time into a heist movie. Gru is blackmailed by the Prescott daughter Poppy (Joey King) into stealing a honey badger from his old school. Meanwhile, the Minions, back at AVL headquarters, are used as guinea pigs for a new serum. Five of them are turned into the Mega Minions, a Fantastic Four-like assemblage of Minionized superheroes that have powers (flight, elasticity, a ray-gun eyeball) that they’re predictably useless at controlling. One boulder-shaped Minion is keen enough to swallow a bomb before it detonates but not to prevent his belch from causing just as much damage.
So, yes, it will take a lot more than a so-so sixth film to slow down the Minions. Though there’s little that distinguishes this latest, overstuffed “Despicable Me,” series veteran director Chris Renaud (with codirector Patrick Delage and writers Mike White and Ken Daurio) is in something between cruise control and autopilot on this careening, carefree sequel.
The “Despicable Me” movies have always benefitted from the somewhat judiciously meting out their Minions. Even if they very handily upstage the franchise’s main characters, they’re second-banana henchmen who patiently wait for their many cameos. In “Despicable Me 4,” one gets trapped in a vending machine and nonchalantly spends the rest of the movie there. If that’s not a show of force, what is?
Eddie Murphy’s back as Axel F
What to stream this week
Eddie Murphy reprising his role as Axel Foley in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” and country music star Zach Bryan releasing a new studio album are some of the new highlights headed to a device near you.
Also among the streaming offerings worth your time: Emma Roberts is accepted into a competitive NASA training program in the movie “Space Cadet”, and Discovery Channel’s annual “Shark Week” hopes to bite off a chunk of primetime viewership.
NEW MOVIES TO STREAM
• After nearly 30 years of fits and starts, the fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie is finally upon us. Eddie Murphy reprises his role as Axel Foley in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F”, which debuts on Netflix on Wednesday. Judge Reinhold and John Ashton also return but they get some fresh blood in a detective played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Captain (Kevin Bacon). Taylour Paige also joins the ensemble as Axel’s daughter. The original “Beverly Hills Cop” which launched Murphy to stardom in 1984 is also streaming on Netflix now.
• Emma Roberts is “living her best Florida life” when she remembers her lifetime dream of being an astronaut in “Space Cadet”. Unbeknownst to her, a friend (“Hacks” castmate Poppy Liu) embellishes her resume and she’s accepted into a competitive NASA training program. It aspires to be a kind of “Legally Blonde” meets “Private Benjamin” (who wouldn’t dream of such heights) and will be available to stream on Prime Video starting Thursday.
— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr
NEW MUSIC TO STREAM
• On the 4th of July, country music star Zach Bryan will release a new studio album, “The Great American Bar Scene”. Little was known about it ahead of release. There will be 18 tracks — 17 songs and a poem — and it will be previewed at bars around the US and Canada before hitting streaming on Independence Day. (Listen, it would be foolish to
expect a traditional rollout from the sometimes-irreverent musician, who just two years ago released a live album titled “All My Homies Hate Ticketmaster”.) The album will feature “Purple Gas”, a duet with the Canadian up-and-comer Noeline Hofmann, as well as “Pink Skies”, a folksy tearjerker that AP recently named one of the songs of the
summer. That song is an exemplar of Bryan’s specific skillset — little more than an acoustic guitar, harmonica, and raspy, specific storytelling that reveals universal truths. “The kids are in town for a funeral,” he sings. “So pack the car and dry your eyes.” He’s an expert at writing a novel in few words, so prepare to take notes.
— AP Music Writer Maria Sherman
NEW SHOWS TO STREAM
• The beloved animated children’s series “Bluey,” about a family of dogs, rolls out super short episodes this summer between one and three-minutes long. The first seven minisodes will begin airing Wednesday on Disney+. A second batch of minisodes will be released later this year.
• Summer is for sharks. Discovery Channel’s annual “Shark Week” kicks off on Sunday, July 7, with John Cena as host. The network has 21 hours of original programming to sink your teeth into, hosted by John Cena. “Shark Week” will also stream on Max.
• Former reality star Hannah Berner, who was a cast member on Bravo’s “Summer House”, is ready to debut her first comedy special. “We Ride At Dawn” drops Sunday, July 7, on Netflix. Berner is also the co-host of the popular podcast “Giggly Squad” with former “Summer House” cast member, Paige DeSorbo.
Alicia Rancilio
literary lives
Morgan Freeman
Sir Christopher Ondaatje writes about the American actor, director and narrator with a deep mellifluous distinctive voice. His acting career has spanned over five decades, and he has received multiple awards including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee on 1 June 1937. He is the son of Mamie Edna Revere, a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber, who died of cirrhosis of the liver. His great-great-grandparents were slaves who migrated from North Carolina to Mississippi. His great-great-grandparents lived and were buried together in the segregated South, as the two could not legally marry at the time. As an infant he was sent to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi.
He made his acting debut at age nine playing the lead in a school play. When he was 12 he won a statewide drama competition and attended Broad Street High School in Greenwood, Mississippi where he discovered music and theatre. He graduated in 1955 but refused a drama scholarship from Jackson State University, choosing instead to enlist in the United States Air Force where he served from 1955 to 1959. He took acting lessons at the Pasadena Playhouse and studied theater at Los Angeles City College, where a teacher encouraged him to embark on a dance career.
Freeman started his showbusiness life as a dancer at the 1964 World’s Fair and was a member of the Opera Ring musical theater group in San Francisco. He got a part in Sidney Lumet’s 1965 film The Pawnbroker starring Rod Steiger. After appearing in The Royal Hunt of the Sun he made his off Broadway debut in 1967 in The Nigger Lovers about Freedom Riders in the American Civil Rights Movement, and never looked back. He got a part in the 1968 all-black version of Hello Dolly which starred Pearl Bailey and performed on stage in The Dozens (1969). He realilsed then that his heart was in acting – not dancing.
In 1971, Freeman got some financial stability when he appeared in the children’s TV show The Electric Company. It was exhausting work and he considered leaving acting in 1975.
“It was a very unhappy period in his life … but he was grateful to be part of it.
Joan Ganz Cooney Television Producer
His first credited appearance in a feature film was in 1971 in Who Says I Can’t Ride a Rainbow? starring Jack Klugman. He also performed in Purlie – a theater production.
Freeman returned to work in 1978 in The Mighty Gents (1978), winning a Drama Desk Award for his role as an alcoholic wino. He also appeared on stage in White Pelicans, and a year later performed in the Shakespearean tragedies Coriolanus and Julius Caesar.
In 1980, he started appearing in small roles: a prison warden in Brubaker starring Robert Redford; the TV film Attica (1980) about the 1971 Attica Prison riot; Eyewitness (1981) with William
Hurt and Sigourney Weaver; and from 1982 –1984 as a cast member in Another World. After several more bit-parts he starred in Marie (1985) by Peter Maas, and in the mini-series The Atlanta Child Murders (1985); and a small role in That was Then
… This is Now by SE Hinton. Starting in the mid-1980s, he earned a reputation for playing wise, fatherly characters. However, he played a violent street hustler in Street Smart co-starring Christopher Reeve.
“Freeman has the flashier role, as a smart, very tough man who can be charming or intimidating – whatever is needed … Freeman creates such an unforgettable villain.”
Roger Ebert Film Critic
Freeman earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Although he didn’t win, he considered Street Smart to be his breakthrough film. He next played Craig in the drama Clean and Sober with Michael Keaton and Kathy Baker. Freeman also received Obie Awards for his roles as a preacher in the musical The Gospel of Colours, and as Hoke Colburn in the play Driving Miss Daisy. He made four films in 1989: Glory about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry regiment in the American Civil War.
“’Glory’ is one of my favourite releases. The Black legacy is as noble, is as heroic, is as filled with adventure and conquest and discovery … It’s just that nobody knew it.”
Morgan Freeman
He starred in the film Driving Miss Daisy with Jessica Tandy and Dan Ackroyd – the film of the popular Alfred Uhry play where he played Hoke Colburn, the chauffeur for a Jewish widow. It was a fabulous performance, and the film deserved its nomination for nine Academy Awards including Best Actor for Freeman.
His third release was the drama Lean On Me; and his fourth release was Johnny Handsome, a crime drama in which he plays a New Orleans police officer.
The success of Glory prompted the 1990 TV mini-series about the American Civil War, and Freeman was invited to provide the voice of Frederick Douglass. He was also in the critically panned The Bonfire of the Vanities with Tom Hanks – but he had a small part. That summer he played Petruchio in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew at the Delacorte Theater in New York – an unlikely piece of casting but a part Freeman wanted to play. He had a supporting role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring Kevin
Costner – a commercial success. He also narrated The True Story of Glory Continues – a documentary of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.
One of Freeman’s best film performances was in Clint Eastwood’s film Unforgiven, which won four Academy Awards including Best Picture. It was the first of several collaborations with Eastwood. The Power of One was the second of Freeman’s films in 1992, and was followed by his directorial debut in the drama Bopha! about a black policeman in South Africa’s apartheid era.
“Freeman lays out the fatherson dynamics with great skill and very little fuss. There’s no hysteria in his approach; instead, he sticks to the facts, relying on his cast to provide the emotion. The result is a powerful insightful film.”
Hal Hinson
The Washington Post
1994 provided Freeman the part of Red, the redeemed convict in Frank Darabont’s acclaimed drama
The Shawshank Redemption with co-star Tim Robbins based on the 1982 Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Despite the actual character being a white Irishman, Freeman got his part at the suggestion of Liz Glotzer – the producer.
“He was quietly impressive and moving.”
The
At the 67th Academy Awards he received a nomination for Best Actor.
Outbreak (1995) was Freeman’s next film – a medical thriller with a doctor in a small town dealing with a fictional virus. Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, and Donald Sutherland also starred, and there was no mistaking Freeman’s star quality. The film grossed a massive $189.8m. He next played in the crime thriller Seven with Brad Pitt. A year later, Freeman appeared in Chain Reaction, another science-fiction thriller with Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz. He was totally miscast in his next film, Moll Flanders, and got a poor reception.
Together with Lori McCreary, the producer of Bopha!, Freeman started a film production company Revelations Entertainment, looking for properties but had to wait three years. In the meantime, he narrated the Award-winning documentary The Long Way Home about Jewish refugees’ liberation after World War II and the establishment of Israel. He also appeared in Steven Spielberg’s historical epic Amistad with Djimon Hounsou, Anthony Hopkins, and Matthew McConnaughey, based on 1839 events on the slave ship La Amistad. The film earned four nominations at the Academy
MORGAN Freeman won an Oscar for his role in Million Dollar Baby
MORGAN Freeman with Denzel Washington in Glory
MORGAN Freeman with Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption
MORGAN Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy
Awards. Also in 1997 he made Kiss the Girls, another thriller movie based on James Patterson’s 1995 novel. He made Deep Impact (1998) and Hard Rain before his Revelations Entertainment got a chance to produce Under Suspicion (2000).
“The film was too tawdry to be completely entertaining, and too static to generate much excitement.”
Paul Tatara CNN
He then went on to reprise his role as Alex Cross in Along Came a Spider (2001), a sequel to 1997’s Kiss the Girls.
In 2002, Freeman played opposite Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears about an Austrian neoNazi trying to trigger a nuclear war between the United States and Russia. It received moderate reviews but it was a huge commercial success, grossing $139.9m worldwide. He followed this with another thriller with Ashley Judd and Jim Caviezal in High Crimes (2002). In 2003, Freeman appeared as God in the hit comedy Bruce Almighty with Jim Carrey and Jennifer Anniston. He next starred in another science fiction horror Dreamcatcher (2003) – a Stephen King novel, and two other dramas: Levity and Guilty by Association. The next year, directed by Clint Eastwood, he made Million Dollar Baby. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Eastwood), Best Actress (Hilary Swank), and Best Supporting Actor (Freeman). It was his first Academy Award.
From 2005 – 2013, Freeman continued acting in documentary and thriller films making six appearances: An Unfinished Life with Robert Redford, and then two documentaries; War of the Worlds and Spielberg’s March of the Penguins. He played in Batman Begins and Unleashed with Jet Li. It was followed by Edison, and he provided the voice of Neil Armstrong in Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon.
More thrillers and crime fiction followed. Freeman must have realised the constant danger of him being type-cast. He starred in The Contract (2006) opposite John Cusack, Lucky Number Slevin (2006), a crime thriller, before portraying himself in the comedy 10 Items or Less, and reprising his role as God in Evan Almighty (2007), a sequel to Bruce Almighty. Feast of Love was Freeman’s second release in 2007, and it was followed by a supporting part in Gone Baby Gone – a mystery thriller, before he starred with Jack Nicholson in The Bucket List (2007) about two terminally ill men with a list of things to do before they die. Both stars acted superbly and the film grossed $175 million.
Freeman continued doing thrillers with Wanted (2008) before appearing in The Dark Knight (2008) – the second instalment of the Dark Knight Trilogy. After an 18-year absence he then returned to Broadway starring with Frances McDormand in The Country Girl directed by Mike Nichols. It was
another case of questionable casting. The play only lasted a year.
Thick as Thieves (2009), and The Maiden Heist (2009 followed, before he purchased the rights to John Carlin’s book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation. Clint Eastwood directed Freeman and Matt Damon, and Freeman garnered a Best Actor nomination at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. He also narrated Anne and Emmett – a play about an imaginary conversation between Emmett Till and Anne Frank – both teenagers who were killed because of racial persecution.
Freeman’s only film release in 2010 was Red with Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich. He also temporarily replaced Walter Cronkite introducing CBC Evening News with hostess Katie Couric. During the next two years, he narrated Conan the Barbarian and appeared in Dolphin Tale. He then returned to the theater with John Lithgow in Dustin Lance Black’s play 8 that overturned California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City. In 2012, he played Lucius Fox in the third instalment of The Dark Knight Rises, and had a lead role in The Magic of Belle Isle. He continued to be popular and to receive film parts like Olympus Has Fallen (2013), Oblivion (2013) with Tom Cruise, and Now You See Me, another thriller. Lastly, in 2013, he played a retiree in Las Vegas with Michael Douglas and Robert de Niro.
In the late 2000s Freeman voiced Vitruvius in The Lego Movie, Transcendence – and the science fiction thriller, Lucy with Scarlett Johansson, Dolphin Tale (2), 5 Flights Up, and himself in Lennon or McCartney (2014).
Last Knights, Ted 2, and Madame Secretary were produced in 2015.
“What is riveting is that he can achieve a complete tonal change in performance with the least amount of direction … Everybody behaves better when Morgan is there.”
Lori McCreary Producing Partner
He played a US Senator in Momentum (2015), London Has Fallen (2016), and Now You See Me (2) (2016), a very successful sequel that grossed an exorbitant $334m. He played in the fifth adaptation of the film Ben-Hur.
In 2017, now nearly 80 years old, Freeman made two comedies Going in Style and Just Getting Started, and in 2018 narrated Alpha, an historical drama about the Ice Age, and starred in The Nutcracker and The Four Realms, ETA Hoffman’s short story. In 2019, he starred opposite John Travolta in The Poison Rose. Finally he made Angel Has Fallen, The Comeback Trail (2020), and Coming 2 America (2021). It was one of the longest acting careers in American film history.
Freeman criticised the celebration of Black History Month, saying:
“I don’t want a black history month … There is no white history month.”
Morgan Freeman
Freeman was married to Jeanette Adair Bradshaw from October 22, 1967, until November 18, 1979, and subsequently married Myrna ColleyLee on 16 June 1984. The couple divorced on 15 September 2010. He lives in Charleston, Mississippi, and still keeps a home in New York City. He earned a private pilot’s licence when he was 65 years old and has owned three private aircraft. He was injured in an automobile crash on 3 August 2008, and had to be cut free from the vehicle. His left shoulder, arm and elbow were broken, and the doctors operated on him for four hours to repair nerve damage. He suffers from fibromyalgia but it did not stop his acting career.
Freeman was named the 54th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment.
Sir Christopher Ondaatje is the author of The Last Colonial. The author acknowledges that he has quoted liberally from Wikipedia.
• See today’s editorial on page 6 of our news section
animals
Animal matters Kim Aranha
A plea from Peanut
Dear Friends, who have dogs in their homes.
Every year my Mother (human mother that is) writes a long article asking you to remember that July 10 is around the corner and that loads of people will be celebrating.
For some reason, that we dogs have never ever figured out, humans like to shoot off small rockets into the sky that make huge and very scary BANGs and the light bursts out into the sky and sometimes it is so close that we feel that it is going to land on us and burn us right up. we look up at the sky, bang (over and over again) sparks of different colours fly, it smells scary too. We know what explosives smell like. Please do not forget that many of us are in the service of nations to sniff out explosives to make sure it is safe for humans to go into buildings and stadiums. We are experts, even if we haven’t been trained, we know the smell and we don’t like it.
So, I told my Mum, “don’t you bother to write Mum, they never listen to you”! they don’t you know!
I went on to say to her “Maybe a letter from me, a small and young Potcake will resonate (big word for a small pup) and maybe somebody will listen just once”.
Here is what I have to say to you all living with dogs. I do not like to say own dogs because in actuality you do not own us, frequently you do not even choose us. We choose you, and while on the topic of rescue, let me tell you that almost never do you rescue us, in fact we rescue you..
Now that we have established the essential role that we play in our humans’ life I would like to get back to how you need to prepare for these scary scary fireworks. Every resort will be setting them off and so will a bunch of private homes (waste of money, just think how many bags of dog food they could buy with those funds).
We dogs hate those things and
PET OF THE WEEK
PHOTO BY JUDY YOUNG
sometimes we are so frightened that we do crazy irrational things. We are known to jump the fence or wall, get out on the road and run, and run and run, weaving in and out of traffic. Many of us are home bodies so we may not be street smart, and some of the humans may have had their water bowls filled with stuff other than water, so their driving may not be too smooth, and what happens under those circumstances is too sad for my little brain to contemplate. But I can tell you it’s not good and involves lots of
Zoey the fluffy sweetheart
By The Bahamas Humane Society
Zoey is a popular dog with the dog walkers. She walks very well on a leash and loves to meet with the other dogs who are walking. Her file name is actually Sandyport Zoey as she came to the Bahamas Humane Society through Sandyport, but really, she’d be happy to live in your house wherever you live! Zoey’s about four years old and enjoys cuddles. If you need a fluffy sweetheart
tears. If the dog who panicked survives the experience, they frequently come to their senses miles away from home, they don’t know how to get back and they are frightened. I have never been on the street alone, but I am sure it is frightening. No familiar smells or sights.
So, humans this is avoidable. If you persist on going out and leaving your” bestest” of friends alone, here is what you need to do. Put them in a room that they can’t get out of (no open window) Turn on the TV or put on some
Peanut dictating her letter to her humans.
in your life, Zoey might be the right match for you! Come in to the BHS to meet her or call 821-4121 for more information. Zoey looks forward to meeting you!
A reminder that with the holiday next week on Wednesday, July 10, both the Thrift Shop and the BHS shelter will be closed for Bahamas Independence Day.
music. Make sure they have toys and water and come back soon.
If your dog lives outside, and for some reason you don’t want him inside (who knows why) then secure him or her in your garage, No do not trust your garden fence, I told you when we freak out, we get superhuman (haha get it?) power and escape anything. If you didn’t usually do what I am telling you, and your best boy or girl gets lost put it out everywhere on social media. Photos and info. Check with the Bahamas Humane Society and ask everybody to share your post (put your privacy on that post as public).
If you have a dog who is absolutely terrified then you can try getting a thunder shirt for them, I was talking to a friend the other day and he was saying that his humans bought him one and that it makes everything less scary. He says its comfy because it makes you feel cuddled all the time.
Of course, the very best thing that you can do for you dog is stay at home and be there to reassure them.
I have not experienced an Independence Day celebration or a New Years Eve yet, but others have shared their stories with me. I am not frightened because I will have humans,that I love with me making me feel safe.
I feel so very sorry for those dogs with nobody. I wasn’t always this lucky, so I will pray that all the dogs out there find good homes like I have.
Licks and wags Peanut.
Opening the doors at Versatile Records
By ALESHA CADET | Tribune Features Writer | acadet@tribunemedia.net
THE newest addition to the country’s vibrant music scene is the recent opening of the Versatile Records studio.
What makes a recording studio more than just a place to create your next big hit? At Versatile Records, it’s more about closing a musical gap and providing a pathway for musicians to get their music heard.
As there is always a demand for professional recording spaces, the team behind Versatile Records opened its doors on Fire Trail Road not too long ago.
The music man behind the studio, Lavardo Sands, also known as Shine 242, tells Tribune Weekend, since sharing the news of its opening, there has been tons of likes, shares, and a number of bookings from the community in support.
“What inspired me to open Versatile Records in The Bahamas originally came from my college friend Dominic Goodman, who is the owner and founder of Versatile Records. We started doing music together in university and we always stayed in touch. He started the studio in the United States and then he reached out to me for us to come together and offer the Bahamian musicians an environment to be able to put their music ideas and abilities to reality at an affordable price,” said Lavardo.
“We always talked about how all the other genres of music are blowing up, yet Bahamian musicians are still struggling to make their way on the international stage. So the purpose of the studio was to close the musical gap.”
Sharing a little about himself, Lavardo said he served his country, The Bahamas, as a Marine in the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Band and wore many caps such as drum major, lead vocalist, and keyboard player. He also played various brass and woodwind instruments. Retiring after a decade of service, Lavardo is now known as the solo artist Shine242.
“I have hit singles such as Down Dey Yo, Follow Me, Did It On
My Own, and Feel Like Whinin. I’ve also produced for numerous Bahamian artists such as Jonny Cake, Ebony 242, Mama D and San Jardo B. Being a music artist has its ups and downs, but I take pride in doing Bahamian music and keeping our culture and heritage alive through music,” he said.
“I now have a catalogue of music that I’m happy about which consists of 15 single records and three collaborations.”
In his music style and genre, Lavardo said he tries to be “versatile”, but he’s been doing very well when it comes to The Bahamas’ cultural music, Rake ‘n Scrape and Junkanoo. From time to time, he also dabbles in Soca and afro beat.
“The joy I see my music brings to people keeps me inspired and motivated.
I want to be known not just as an artist, but also as a great producer and pioneer for culture and music in our country called Bahamas,” said Lavardo.
Going into detail about the studio’s look, he said the interior colours are red and gold, colours he believes are bold and represent strength.
“Red is for the music in my blood. Music pumps through the blood in me, and the gold represents the sun. The Bahamas, the island under the sun. There will be an official opening event for the studio. Still fine-tuning a few things,” said Lavardo.
The artist said he is looking forward to working in partnership with other great producers in effort to provide music education for upcoming young producers and artists, more especially in the schools and possibly the Family Islands.
