“When the camera came on, my body shook like crazy. All I kept thinking about was my hair getting all sweaty. This Soul Train regular, Ricky, kind of took me under his wing and partnered with me. We got picked for the Scrabble Board! My first day! When I started to speak on the first take, Don Cornelius gave me an incredulous look regarding my accent. I lessened it; he gave a nod of approval. Instantly, I felt ashamed. I had made my first conscious effort not to sound ethnic. Ricky made me feel better, later telling me he thought that my accent was cute, that it set me apart, and to ignore Don.
My mind was spinning the first time I stood on the Soul Train line. I didn’t know what to do. Don Cornelius didn’t like hip-hop or house dancing. He kept telling me to dance like the other girls, meaning like a vixen. In fact, after my first day he suggested that I dress more appropriately—you know, tight-ass minis and high heels. I was cool with the minis, but three-inch heels? Yikes! I could wear one- or two-inch heels. Three was a whole other story.
I couldn’t do more than stand there and gyrate. All the regulars had routines; all the girls had their signature sexy moves. I didn’t have shit. When it was my turn, I started nervously pumping my body back and forth, trying to look like the other ladies, praying I wouldn’t fall off those damn heels. While pumping I kept thinking to myself, I look like a fucking idiot! To my surprise, everyone started cheering me on! Even Don Cornelius told me to go down a second time!
We didn’t get paid, just a Kentucky Fried Chicken two-piece lunch box—not kidding. I didn’t complain, I was just happy to be there, and my ass was always hungry anyway, living on cans of tuna fish. But I left the show after only being on it for maybe a year or year and a half. I say “only” because most of the regulars were there five, ten years plus! All waiting for their big break into the entertainment industry, like Jodi Watley and Shalamar. […]
I had gotten into a fight with Don Cornelius during a taping. He didn’t like Keith Sweat coming over during his performance and dancing with me. But that wasn’t the reason why he went at me. Don was trying to form a new singing group and asked me to be a member. I was excited, even though I told him I couldn’t sing that good—’Your inability to sing is insignificant. It’s how you fill that dress and how the camera loves you.’ Wow. Okay. But I declined the offer after he wouldn’t let me take the recording/management contract asking for 60 percent to a lawyer. I wasn’t anyone’s fool.
Things were tense after that, but shit really hit the fan when an A&R executive from MCA Records, Louil Silas, Jr.—who unfortunately passed away in 2001—had brought an act on the show and saw me rehearsing some hip-hop moves with Ricky and his older brother on the side. Louil was African-American and medium height and had a potbelly, scruffy aftershave; he was well-dressed, arrogant, confident, and funny as shit.
He waved me over. ‘That’s hip-hop, right?’
‘Yes, sir. But Don doesn’t like the girls doing it on the show.’
‘Really? That’s weird. I want you to teach it to my new artist, Bobby Brown, from New Edition. He’s going solo. But don’t tell anyone yet.’
My heart went up into my throat! ‘Here’s my card. Come up to the record label on Monday.’
‘But I’m not a choreographer.’
‘I’ll pay you fifteen hundred.’
‘I’ll be there Monday morning.’
Of course news got to Don. How dare I not sign with him and go off and make money elsewhere? That’s when he started to pick on me during the tapings. So Keith kept humping, Don kept yelling “Cut!” and I was getting heated. By the time I went down the Soul Train line things were going from bad to worse. Excited that Louil liked and saw the future in hip-hop, I went down the line doing the Pee-wee Herman.
‘Cut! Rosie, do it again.’
I went down doing the Roger Rabbit.
‘Cut! come here.’ I walked over.
He pulled me in close and whispered sternly. ‘You walk back down that line nice and sexy like you’re supposed to.’ I walked back to the head of the line, paused, then strutted down as if I were Naomi Campbell on the runway, continued walking past Don to my seat, grabbed my things, and told him I was out. Don grabbed my arm, pulling me back. ‘You don’t quit until I tell you you can quit!’
I grabbed the first thing I could get my free arm around, which happened to be one of the two-piece KFC chicken lunch boxes, and threw it at him. A chicken wing smacked him dead in his forehead. I was escorted out by security.”
—Rosie Perez, an excerpt from her memoir, Handbook for an Unpredictable Life: How I Survived Sister Renata and My Crazy Mother, and Still Came Out Smiling (with Great Hair)
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