How 1995 diagnosis gave Mr. T a ‘bigger audience’ to reach
Mr. T opens up about his battle with T-Cell Lymphoma and what the experience taught him.
Video Team – USA TODAY Entertainment
- Mr. T gives a mixed review of Netflix’s new documentary, “Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool,” in an interview with USA TODAY.
- Mr. T, 74, says he was initially “reluctant” when approached about doing a documentary, “because I feel that my story is very precious.”
- Mr. T also discusses the origins of his famous catchphrase and what his cancer diagnosis gave him.
Mr. T hesitated before agreeing to be the focus of a new Netflix documentary, “Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool” (now streaming).
“I was reluctant because I feel that my story is very precious,” he tells USA TODAY, while decked out in a patriotic ensemble.
An American flag head-covering matches his overalls hooked on one side, and he wears a single rope chain so long that it extends beyond the frame of our video chat on Thursday, Sept. 3. Gone are the days when he would layer numerous necklaces – a symbolic reference, in part, to his African ancestors “shackled by their neck, their wrists, and their ankles in steel chains.”
The actor and retired wrestler says he decided to stop wearing the gold after his church helped people relocate to Chicago from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. It’s believed the devastating storm killed nearly 1,400 people after striking in 2005.
“I said, ‘It would be disrespectful and be an insult to God,’” Mr. T, 74, says. “Look at me in gold, people suffering, dying. I said, ‘No. The gold is in my heart because I feed the hungry.’”
God plays a large role in Mr. T’s life that he worried about being accurately portrayed on screen.
“If it’s not done right, [it’s] going to come out the wrong way, and that’s the last thing I want because my life, I worked too hard to get to where I am for somebody to manipulate it and mess it up,” he says. “Some parts [are] good, some parts not. We went off course. We didn’t stick with it, in my point of view.”
The documentary, which recently featured episodes examining former University of Texas quarterback Vince Young and viral Australian breakdancer Rachael Raygun Gunn, traces Mr. T’s path to his 80s heyday.
Born Laurence Tureaud, he was raised in housing projects in the south side of Chicago as one of 12 siblings, but that didn’t keep Mr. T, who legally changed his name at 18, from dreaming.
“I wanted to be something. Told my mother when I was 9 years old, I said, ‘I’m going to buy you a house and pretty dresses,’” he says. “I said, ‘One of these days I’m going to be big and strong. I’ll be a football player and a boxer.’”
Mr. T ultimately landed a breakout role as Balboa’s adversary, Clubber Lang in “Rocky III,” which led to starring in NBC’s popular action series “The A-Team.”
‘I credit him with saving my life’: What Mr. T would’ve liked to have seen in the documentary
Mr. T wishes the documentary would’ve covered his time in the Army − which began in 1975 − or how his life changed after meeting a child with a terminal illness, while filming “The A-Team,” via the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“Then I saw other kids, and on and on,” he says, “and that’s who I am.”
Mr. T also would’ve liked more screentime devoted to his pastor, Rev. Henry Hardy, whom he met in 1976.
“I credit him with saving my life,” Mr. T says. “I told him that he saved my life because, even though it might look OK on the outside, deep inside I had a lot of rage with things… And I felt that it was cheapening when you get other people because nobody know me like him.”
“A lot of my life is about God,” Mr. T adds. “I’ve come this far by God, by faith − not by exercising and all that stuff. That’s not me. If people just know that Mr. T is tough and stuff like that, you don’t know nothing about me. I’m more than that.”
The origination of his famous catchphrase ‘I pity the fool’
Mr. T says when he was cast in “Rocky III,” star Sylvester Stallone, who also wrote and directed the 1982 feature, encouraged Mr. T to be himself and improvise. When his character is asked if he hates Rocky, Mr. T took mattrs into his own hands.
“I replaced ‘hate’ with ‘pity.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool,'” he says. “So you pity the man because pity really means mercy.”
In the Bible, which Mr. T carries with him, “there’s pity and there’s fools,” he says. “So you put them together, say, ‘I pity the fool.’”
Mr. T says blood cancer diagnosis ‘was a test of my faith’
In 1995, Mr. T was diagnosed with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (a rare blood cancer), for which he underwent chemotherapy and radiation. Every four months, he goes in for a checkup but sees his experience as another way to connect with others.
When diagnosed, Mr. T remembered the children he met through the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. He also remembered the encouraging messages he shared with them: to be strong and that he and God loved them.
“If I couldn’t believe in God, that meant now that I was a liar and I was a phony,” he says.
Mr. T feels cancer “was a test of my faith. It allowed me a pulpit, a sermon spot. So now when I talk about cancer, they say, ‘Wow, he’s been there.’ Boldly. If I tell kids about the ghetto, food stamps, I’ve been there boldly… My mother told me, ‘Don’t talk what you don’t know.’ I know about that. I’ve been through it, been through all that.”
“I never say, ‘Oh, why me? Why this here?’” Mr. T says. “No, it allows me an opportunity to tell people, ‘Don’t quit. Don’t give up.’”