Ben Vereen (born October 10, 1946) is an American actor, dancer, and singer.
He played Henry Barr in the 2018 series Magnum P.I.
Early Life[]
Ben was born in Laurinburg, North Carolina. While still an infant, Vereen and his family relocated to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City. He was adopted by James Vereen, a paint-factory worker, and his wife, Pauline, who worked as a maid and theatre wardrobe mistress. He discovered he was adopted when he applied for a passport to join Sammy Davis Jr. on a tour of Golden Boy to London when he was twenty-five.
During his pre-teen years, he exhibited an innate talent for drama and dance and often performed in local variety shows. At the age of fourteen, Vereen enrolled at the High School of Performing Arts, where he studied under world-renowned choreographers Martha Graham, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins. Upon his graduation, he struggled to find suitable stage work and was often forced to take odd jobs to supplement his income.
Career[]
He was eighteen years old when he made his New York stage bow off-off Broadway in The Prodigal Son at the Greenwich Mews Theater. By the following year, he was in Las Vegas, performing in Bob Fosse's production of Sweet Charity, a show with which he toured in 1967–68. He returned to New York City to play Claude in Hair in the Broadway production, before joining the national touring company.
The following year, he was cast opposite Davis in the film adaptation of Sweet Charity. After developing a rapport with Davis, Vereen was cast as his understudy in the upcoming production of Golden Boy, which toured England and ended the run at the Palladium Theatre in London's West End.
Vereen was nominated for a Tony Award for Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972 and won a Tony for his appearance in Pippin in 1973. Vereen appeared in the Broadway musical Wicked as the Wizard of Oz in 2005. Vereen has also performed in one-man shows and actively lectures on black history and inspirational topics.
Vereen has also starred in numerous television programs, and is well known for the role of 'Chicken' George Moore in Alex Haley's landmark TV miniseries Roots, for which he received an Emmy nomination in 1977.
Vereen's four-week summer variety series, Ben Vereen ... Comin' At Ya, aired on NBC in August 1975 and featured regulars Lola Falana, Avery Schreiber and Liz Torres.
In 1978, on a Boston Pops TV special, Vereen performed a tribute to Bert Williams, complete with period makeup and attire, and reprising Williams' high-kick dance steps, to vaudeville standards such as "Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee".
In 1981, Vereen performed at Ronald Reagan's first inauguration. The performance generated controversy as Vereen performed the first part of the show in blackface. Before the finale, ABC cut the live performance, generating confusion and anger from viewers at home. According to video artist Edgar Arcenaux, what TV viewers didn't see was the second part of the performance, in which Vereen mimicked being refused service because of his color while trying to buy the Republican elite a congratulatory drink. As Arceneaux explains, Vereen's performance was meant as a critique of Republican civil rights policies, but the TV audience didn't get to see it.
Vereen was cast opposite Jeff Goldblum in the short-lived detective series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980). During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Vereen worked steadily on television with projects ranging from the sitcom Webster to the drama Silk Stalkings. In 1985, Vereen starred in the Faerie Tale Theatre series as Puss in Boots alongside Gregory Hines. He appeared in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode "Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse", in which he played Will Smith's biological father, Lou Smith. He made several appearances in the 1980s sitcom Webster as the title character's biological uncle.
He also appeared as Mayor Ben (a leopard) in the children's program Zoobilee Zoo and as Itsy Bitsy Spider in Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme. In 1993 he appeared in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Interface" as the father of Roots co-star LeVar Burton's character Geordi La Forge; fellow Roots star Madge Sinclair appeared in the same episode as Geordi's mother. In Roots, Vereen had played "Chicken George", the grandson of Burton's character Kunta Kinte. He also appeared in the television series The Nanny episode "Pishke Business". In 2010, he appeared in the television series How I Met Your Mother episodes "Cleaning House" and "False Positive" as Sam Gibbs, the long lost father of James Gibbs, Barney Stinson's brother. He returned in 2013 and 2014 for another two episodes.
Appearances[]
| Magnum P.I., Season 1 | |||||||||
| "I Saw the Sun Rise": | "From the Head Down": | "The Woman Who Never Died": | "Six Paintings, One Frame": | "Sudden Death": | "Death Is Only Temporary": | "The Cat Who Cried Wolf": | |||
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Appears | Absent | |||
| "Die He Said": | "The Ties That Bind": | "Bad Day to Be a Hero": | "Nowhere to Hide": | "Winner Takes All": | "Day of the Viper": | "I, The Deceased": | |||
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | |||
| "Day the Past Came Back": | "Murder Is Never Quiet": | "Black Is the Widow": | "A Kiss Before Dying": | "Blood in the Water": | "The Day It All Came Together": | ||||
| Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | Absent | ||||