Word: lawd
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Being "de Lawd" is no mere mimic part to Richard Harrison; it is a full-time job, onstage and off. For the members of the cast, he is just short of an actual deity. He arbitrates their squabbles and since they are mostly professional actors from Harlem, they periodically have to be lent money. Actor Harrison is known as "Two Dollar" Harrison to his colleagues because he is always available for a loan to that extent...
...achieves a state of grace before each performance by meditating alone for half an hour, and has never yet made an entrance to Gabriel's strident cue "Gangway for de Lawd God Jehovah" without breaking into a cold sweat. "If you got to thinking about it too much and let it get hold of you offstage as well as on," says he, "I don't think your sanity would stand it. It's a hard part to play." He has had to put up with a good deal of hysterical adoration. A friend of 50 years...
...Berry Harrison, life up to his 65th year was woefully thin. His parents were slaves who fled to freedom in Canada. He and five sisters and brothers were born in London, Ontario. Like their parents, his sisters and brothers never amounted to much. "And," says one Negro biographer, "de Lawd nearly missed...
...support of an invalid wife, whom he married 40 years ago with his friend, the late Negro Poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, as best man. A son, who struggles with a jazz band, and a daughter, who has proved an indifferent performer in Negro musical shows, also require "de Lawd's'' financial assistance. Harrison lost money when the Binga State Bank of Chicago failed. But he has a solid investment in two Chicago Black Belt houses. He also has satisfied a lifelong vanity by buying a big diamond ring...
With a reputation in the Negro theatre equal to those of Paul Robeson, the late Charles Gilpin and Jules Bledsoe, Actor Harrison plans to open a dramatic school if and when The Green Pastures closes. "The Lord," humbly says "de Lawd," "has showered His mercies...