My Life as a Furry Red Monster - Kevin Clash [34]
Raised by a single mother in lower Manhattan, Whoopi had a number of jobs before she hit it big. In a funny twist, she worked as a babysitter for a woman whose children auditioned for and regularly appeared on Sesame Street, and she regularly ferried them to and from the set. When I look at Whoopi, I see a woman who is still actively involved in getting children where they need to be.
Whoopi will tell you that she is a big fan of Elmo and a friend of Sesame Street for a number of reasons, but chief among them is her shared desire to foster self-esteem in young people. She has made a career out of celebrating individuality, and though she may not be secretary-general of the United Nations, she’s just as much a symbol of diversity and tolerance as Kofi Annan.
In their scene on the bench, Whoopi and Elmo are modeling self-esteem. If children are not taught to value themselves, then they will not value others. And if they don’t learn to respect each other, then those damaging assumptions about things like race and gender and religion will begin to blur their vision of the world.
I STILL REMEMBER peering out my Grandmother Jones’s front window that day in 1968, one hand holding back the sun-faded white lace curtains. In the other, I held the usual come-visiting treat she offered—one of her heavenly sweet biscuits, slathered with salty butter.
Only now do I realize how appropriate that combination was—the sweet goodness of life in a country where we’ve made so many strides, the salty tears that have been shed over struggles of race and class. But people like Whoopi, like Kofi Annan, like the teacher who gave me a ride home, like Jim Henson, or like my own parents, who taught me to be proud of where I was from and who I was, give me hope that despite our differences, there is plenty of room in this big, wide world for all of us to live together in peace.
MY FRIEND CINDY was about my age at the time, sixteen. She walked on weak, shaky legs to the piano at the center of the stage, where everyone in the audience could see what the chemotherapy had done to her once-vibrant beauty. She had no hair, she had no color in her cheeks, and she had no time to be sad. But she still possessed a brilliant light in her eyes and a heavenly voice to match. Cindy Dosch, who would stay on this earth for only two more months, sat down to play and sing, to give us one final gift. And that, to me, was courage.
CALL IT BRAVERY, call it guts, call it sheer will, or call it courage. It’s the Cowardly Lion, who travels to Oz and finally gets his nerve back; the firefighters charging into burning buildings on search and rescue missions; people all over the world who sacrifice their lives standing up to Goliath-like injustice; the victims of natural disasters, who pick up the pieces and start over after their devastating losses. For Cindy, courage simply meant holding fast to something that she loved—music, the stage, the act of entertaining others—even as her life slipped away.
I met Cindy through the high school drama productions and musicals I took part in, a colorful and exciting world I quickly embraced. I loved the adrenaline-filled auditions, the grind of rehearsals, the pleasures of walking the empty and darkened school hallways when we were done, long after everyone else had gone home. At times like that, the school felt like my private domain.
Cindy was a veteran of these productions, with a gorgeous, powerful soprano that rocked her just-shy-of-five-foot frame. How such a wave of sound came out of such a small body was a marvel. Cindy and I starred together in Oliver! (she as the title character and me as Fagin) and in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. She was as saucy and bossy a Lucy as ever inhabited the role.
Offstage, she was anything but Lucy-like. She was one of the kindest, gentlest, and most soulful young women I’ve ever met. Her rich, warm laugh was as beautiful as her singing voice. Over time, we became good friends with a shared passion for theater and performance.
Besides school plays, we also worked together