indwe magazine – July 2005

Danny Glover

Mega Star, Mega Heart
Text: Susan Putter
Images: Getty Images/Touchline Photo
If you know Danny Glover only from his role as detective Roger Murtaugh in the blockbuster Lethal Weapon series that made Glover a household name, you had better pay close attention. This is a superstar with a mind of his own, which he speaks unequivocally in a quest to leave this world a better place for him having been in it. From concerns close to home to global issues, Glover works unstintingly to make a significant contribution towards fixing all that is wrong in this world.
His mother Carrie Hunley Glover was a 1942 graduate of tiny Paine College in Augusta, Georgia. She was the first in her family to graduate from college. In 1990, Glover donated $100,000 to endow a scholarship fund in her honour. In May 2002, Glover spoke at the school’s 120th commencement and shook the hands of all of 100 graduates. Despite being a mega-big movie star, Danny Glover has never stopped serving the community.
A tireless human rights crusader, Glover is a recipient of the Amnesty International USA Lifetime Achievement Award for his role in the civil rights movement in Namibia, his work as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program and his commitment to the abolition of the death penalty in the United States. Glover is board chair of the TransAfrica Forum, founded by Randall Robinson that deals with issues relating to Africa and the Caribbean. He has travelled widely, promoting reparations and debt relief for African nations. In response to the AIDS crisis in Africa, he has extended his tenure as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program. He is an active board member of the Algebra Project, a math empowerment program developed by civil rights veteran Bob Moses.
Politically outspoken on matters relating to the United States, global human rights and AIDS, Glover was a guest speaker at an anti-death penalty forum at Princeton University. He was unambiguous about his position. “I’ve been an advocate for peace my whole life. But one of the main purveyors of violence in this world is this country,” he said.
Every day of my life I walk with the idea I am black no matter how successful I am.
His forthright candour did not endear him across the board of the American public. “I reminded the audience that the United States is one of the few countries that still imposes the death penalty while it considers itself civilized,” Glover said afterwards of his Princeton address. “The European Union does not allow the death penalty and supports its abolition around the world. I was asked if my views on the death penalty applied to Osama bin Laden. I said they did. And I added that I was opposed to military tribunals, and to detentions that are still happening. After that I was tagged by elements of the right as unpatriotic.”
Glover has a long history of involvement in activism and uplift-ment. “It’s common that those who are going to be involved in community development would be those people that were the victims of this adverse effect themselves. Yet, at one point they were the ones who found an increased sense of themselves and pride because they were struggling to get something,” Glover said.
His commitment to community work and the plight of minorities started at a very young age. Glover explains: “I’m a child of the Civil Rights Movement. I was seven years old when the U.S. Supreme Court made the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. From that point on, I followed the movement. I also followed it through my parents. They were postal employees, were very involved in restructuring their union after it was desegregated in 1948. It was a kind of empowerment that my parents embraced; the Civil Rights Movement was tangential to their own struggle. I was always privy to the discussions going on. Those were the things that shaped me.”
Something of an anomaly in Hollywood, Glover is a celebrity who was trying to give something back well before he was famous and rich enough to have a lot to give. Glover finds inspiration from the great men who went before him. “I want to look at the world from the eyes of Martin Luther King or Fannie Lou Hamer. I want to look at the world from the eyes of people like Malcolm X or Paul Robertson, from the people whom I embrace. I still wish for my eyes to be trained as keenly as theirs to look at the world. I assume that my survival is figuratively dependent upon my understanding of the world from their vantage point,” he said thoughtfully.
Glover attended San Francisco State University and trained at the Black Actors’ Workshop of the American Conservatory. He appeared in numerous stage productions, but it was his performance in New York in Master Harold and the Boys by the South African playwright, Athol Fugard, that first brought Glover recognition. In a display of true integrity all too rare in Hollywood circles, Glover turned down a part in the hit series Hill Street Blues because he was already committed to doing the play. “ It probably changed my life. I’m a Fugardist in that sense. I would say that if I had not come to understand or admire a field that Fugard was my voice through, his material, I don’t think I would have been an actor. The only reason I’m an actor,” Glover once told an interviewer, “is because of Fugard.”
Towering and quietly forceful, Glover lends gravity and complexity to the diverse characters he has portrayed throughout his lengthy career. A native of San Francisco, where he was born, on July 22, 1947, he made his film debut with Escape from Alcatraz in 1979. Glover has subsequently received wide recognition for his roles in more than fifty films, including The Color Purple with Whoopi Goldberg and the Lethal Weapon series with Mel Gibson. Glover received an NAACP Image Award, as well as an ACE Award for his performance in HBO’s production of Mandela. He also received Emmy nominations for Best Supporting Actor for his roles in the television mini-series Lonesome Dove and for Turner Network Television’s Freedom Song.
While a highly praised and accomplished actor, it is not acting that defines him. Glover told The Washington Post that careers come and go, and that if his career were on the downslide he would not be sitting around idly or playing golf. “I don’t play golf,” said Glover when questioned about this. “I’m not going to sit around. All I know is that I can go and speak my truth. That’s all I have control over. And when I speak my truth, my truth doesn’t come from how many meetings I have with Hollywood execs. My truth comes from trying to be in the world and trying to talk about issues and trying to understand – and underline the word understand – what is happening around us and around me.”
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