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theatrical page, on which sat an article with a heading that read ACTORS WANTED . The gist of the article was that a theater group called the American Negro Theatre was in need of actors for its next production. My mind got to spinning. My eyes bounced back and forth between the want-ad page and the theatrical page.
    “What the hell,” I thought. “I’ve tried dishwashers wanted, porters wanted, janitors wanted—why not try actors wanted?” I figured that I could do the work. Acting didn’t sound any more difficult than washing dishes or parking cars. And the article didn’t say the job required any particular kind of training. But when I went in and was auditioned on the spot, the man in charge quickly let me know—and in no uncertain terms—that I was misguided in my assumptions. I had no training in acting. I could barely read! And to top it off, I had a thick, singsong Bahamian accent.
    He snatched the script from my hands, spun me around, grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and the back of my pants,and marched me on my tippytoes toward the door. He was seething. “You just get out of here and stop wasting people’s time. Go get a job you can handle,” he barked. And just as he threw me out, he ended with, “Get yourself a job as a dishwasher or something.”
    I have to tell you that his comments stung worse than any wasp on any sapodilla tree back in my childhood. His assessment was like a death sentence for my soul. I had never mentioned to him that I was a dishwasher. How did he know? If he didn’t know, what was it about me that implied to this stranger that dishwashing would accurately sum up my whole life’s worth?
    Whatever it was, I knew I had to change it, or life was going to be mighty grim. There’s something inside me—pride, ego, sense of self—that hates to fail at anything. I could never accept such a verdict of failure before I’d even begun my life! So I set out on a course of self-improvement. I worked nights, and on my evening meal-breaks I sat in a quiet area of the restaurant where I was employed, near the entrance to the kitchen, reading newspapers, trying to sound out each syllable of each unfamiliar word. An old Jewish waiter, noticing my efforts, took pity and offered to help. He became my tutor, as well as my guardian angel of the moment. Each night we sat in the same booth in that quiet area of the restaurant and he helped me learn to read.
    My immediate objective was to prove that I could be an actor. Not that I had any real desire to go on the stage, mind you. Not that I had ever given acting a thought before reading that ad. I simply needed to prove to that man at the AmericanNegro Theatre that Sidney Poitier had a hell of a lot more to him than washing dishes.
    And it worked. The second time around they let me in. But it was still no slam dunk. In fact, I made the cut only because there were so few guys and they needed some male bodies to fill the new acting class. But soon after that first hurdle went down, another went up: because of my lack of education and experience, after a couple of months I was flunking out. And once again I felt that vulnerability, as if I’d fallen overboard into deep water. If I lost my chance at the theater, where would I be? One more black kid who could barely read washing dishes on the island of Manhattan. So I worked out a deal. I became their janitor, and they let me continue to study.
    Things began to improve, and maybe even I began to improve—as an actor, that is. But when it was time to cast the first big production, in walked this new guy, another kid from the Caribbean with whom the director had worked before. After all my studies, busting my ass trying to learn to act (not to mention busting my ass sweeping the walk and stoking the furnace), she was going to cast him in the lead. Well, I had to admit he was a pretty good-looking kid, and he had a nice voice. He could even sing a little.
    I tried to find some consolation in the fact