The Face That Changed It All

by Beverly Johnson

  I know many would say this isn’t the best way to save your life in the midst of a drug overdose, but it did save mine, and, I’m sorry to say, more than once.

  As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Danny then decided to instigate a custody battle for my baby girl. He had never showed much interest in his other two children, but now he wanted to challenge me over our child.

  It turned out his reasons were far more complicated than I could have imagined.

  When I took my daughter to my parents, I honestly assumed all was well, and if there were any problems they would surely find a way to let me know. But without notifying me, a few months after I’d dropped her off, my mother had taken Anansa to stay with my father’s sister, Sadie.

  Later, my mother would tell me that her reason for sending Anansa away to live with Sadie was that she had to return to work in the wake of my lost earnings. When I was at the height of my career, I sent home a great deal of money to my parents every month. Now that I wasn’t working, the money had stopped, and that had apparently made my parents unhappy. They didn’t understand the reasons behind my sudden lack of financial assistance, and they seemed to assume that I had brought Anansa to live with them in an effort to blow off my responsibilities. I admit that I hadn’t done a great job in explaining my situation to them, but still—to send my baby to my aunt’s to live without letting me know was something I’ll never understand.

  And Sadie, whom my father couldn’t stand (and whom as kids we couldn’t stand), was a true piece of work. In an instant, Anansa became Sadie’s calling card for cash. She reached out to me first for money, and when I didn’t have any to give to her, her next move was to go to the Devil himself, Danny. And that was when all hell broke loose.

  Danny filed for custody of Anansa immediately, and moved forward with a terrible smear campaign in the courts, one that accused me of horrible and dastardly acts. He told the custody judge that during our marriage I had raped his teenage son, given Anansa sleeping pills, and then locked her in the closet. He also told them that I regularly neglected my daughter by leaving her with other people.

  Danny’s lies just went on and on, and Sadie backed up my ex-husband word for word. I just couldn’t believe that someone from my own family would support my ex-husband’s horrible and damaging mistruths. My heart broke all over again.

  In 1982, the judge decided that Danny had the more appropriate living quarters for Anansa, at our old apartment on Fifth Avenue. He also ruled that since Danny worked mostly from home, he had more time to spend with our daughter and therefore should retain primary custody of her. I was an internationally famous model who traveled all the time, and that didn’t help my case at all. I was devastated.

  As I grappled with what losing custody of Anansa really meant, Johnny was slipping away from me, too.

  I still remember quite vividly the night Johnny died. I was sitting on the edge of our bed; he was in the bathroom. He was very weak, and his voice kept trailing off to the point where I could barely hear him. But I knew that he was in terrible pain, and as he tried to make it back to the bed, there was one phrase I heard very clearly. He said, “I love you.” He had never said those words to me before.

  I doubt if Johnny had ever said that to many other people in his life, not even to his son, who was the spitting image of him. This was the same son he was determined not to give a cent of his fortune (a fortune that included a stash of about five hundred thousand dollars in cash that he always kept in a golf bag in the bedroom closet).

  As Johnny came back into the bedroom, he was covered in sweat, so I told him to lie down so I could change his pajamas and call an ambulance. The paramedics came within ten minutes, but when I showed them into the bedroom, we could see that he was dead.

  I collapsed. There is nothing quite like being there to witness someone you love being put in a body bag.

  I got myself together by the time the police arrived, but all they did was inform me that, since my name wasn’t on the lease, I would need to leave the apartment. You would think with all the crime in New York City the cops would have something better to do than escort a woman out of an apartment the same night her boyfriend died. Whatever—I wasn’t leaving without the five hundred thousand dollars. I didn’t want the police to take it into evidence. I would have to be slick, as the police’s job was to make sure I didn’t remove anything but my clothes, so they were following me room to room, and the money would raise a few eyebrows. So I did what any self-respecting woman during the eighties would do. I went into the bedroom closet and pulled out a douche bag and yelled, “I need some privacy—my partner just died.”

  Nothing clears two males out of a room like the sight of a douche bag. After the cops exited, I put that money in my luggage and made my way to another apartment Johnny owned across town.

  Despite Johnny’s wishes, I made sure his only son received the bulk of his estate, including the five hundred thousand dollars. I kept the apartment on Eighty-Ninth Street, but his son also received the money from his publishing deals and other property he owned. I never fully understood the issues Johnny had with his son, but in the end I knew what he owned belonged to his only child.

  To lose custody of my child, and then to lose Johnny just a few months later, was unbearable. I was filled with grief. Both Danny and Johnny had taken so much from me, and they continued to rob me. I had turned to Johnny to save my life, but had lost everything that mattered as a result.

  I thought about suicide many times in the weeks after I lost custody of Anansa. Then I was also faced with having to bury Johnny. I honestly didn’t know what I had to live for anymore.

  It was the thought of Anansa that stopped me from killing myself. I needed her to know how hard I had fought for her, and how much I loved her. I didn’t want to be selfish. Still, some mornings I would have to fight about what I wanted more—to live for my baby girl’s sake, or die to be free from my own agony and pain.

  Thankfully, not long after Johnny’s death, two wonderful things happened.

  First, I won my lawsuit against the modeling agency and advertising companies for lost wages and conflict of interest, and was awarded a large settlement. Then, my brother Darren came to live with me on Eighty-Ninth Street. Darren was the real baby of the Johnson family, the youngest of my two brothers and nearly fifteen years younger than me.

  Darren had spent about seven years in colleges, and I do mean seven. Many people have a five-year college plan, but Darren was on a seven-year plan. That put considerable strain on my parents, so they reached out to me for help to pay his tuition. I agreed to help him but wanted some assurances that he would graduate that year. He did so, and afterward he decided to come to New York and move in with his big sister.

  Having Darren at the house with me was a big boost to my mood during some of those miserable and dark days. I got to know him as a man and not a baby, which was a great experience for both of us. Darren also helped me realize I wasn’t going completely crazy as I continued to feel Johnny’s considerable presence in the Eighty-Ninth Street apartment. I know many people feel such a thing after they lose someone. For months after Johnny died, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that his spirit was everywhere in that house. I could sometimes smell the smoke from one of his Newports, or would catch a whiff of his favorite cologne lingering in the bedroom. I would also catch myself mirroring his same mannerisms by sitting on the edge of the bed the exact same way he did.

  This wasn’t just wishful thinking, either. Though Darren didn’t know Johnny, he also felt the presence of someone else in the apartment. The lights would flicker on and off for no apparent reason, and things would disappear and reappear within days. It was completely strange, but it didn’t scare me.

  Even with Darren around to brighten my days, I was still hurting badly. I needed the crutches of illegal substances to get me through most days. But I couldn’t give in. I soldiered on, and put on my happy face for my daughter when I was able to see her. Then I woul
d go and sink right back into that dark place as soon as I had to take her back to her father’s home.

  Instead of selling the apartment on Fifth Avenue, as Danny and I were both ordered to do in the divorce proceedings, I agreed to let Danny live there with Anansa so I could walk from Johnny’s place, which was just ten blocks away.

  Though I had been given court-appointed days to visit with Anansa, Danny agreed to let me see her whenever I wanted. This wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart—it was merely so he could flaunt his new lifestyle. He had several girlfriends, whom he would proudly introduce to me whenever I came over. Some were aspiring models, and Danny would ask me to give them advice on their fledgling careers.

  But there was worse going on than Danny having girlfriends. One day I walked in and found pornographic flicks playing right in front of Anansa. Other times, I found a bunch of people I didn’t know just roaming around. Random men and women in the home couldn’t be safe for Anansa at all. On the back of all this, I re-filed for custody but lost again.

  I didn’t have any proof, and I still don’t, but I will always believe Danny paid off a few of those family court judges.

  Every time I lost another round of custody hearings, I would go right back into that hole where I drank, smoked, and used cocaine. Also, I wouldn’t eat, because I was never hungry, and I ended up weighing ninety-nine pounds. This would have been perfect if I’d been modeling, but I wasn’t. For six months I didn’t know whether I was going up or coming down; six months where I only left the apartment to see Anansa. I had simply ceased to exist.

  Those six months extended to three years and more. I was forever going back and forth to custody court. I was in agony watching Anansa grow up with a father who, though I didn’t doubt loved her, was also using her to get back at me.

  Still, bit by bit, I could feel my power slowly returning to my spirit and soul. To notify Danny the old me was finally on the way back, I decided that now was the time for us to put the infamous 1215 Fifth Avenue apartment on the market as the divorce court had ordered. That place held so many ugly and painful memories for me that I was sure selling it would be profoundly cathartic.

  Never one to allow me to get one up on him, Danny packed up and moved to New Jersey with Anansa after the apartment sold. So I purchased a champagne-colored Mercedes-Benz for the drive. I might as well look stunning during my hour-and-a-half commute to New Jersey.

  Though my power was returning in drips, Danny still knew how to push my buttons. Once, while in the New Jersey apartment with Anansa, I recognized a painting given to me by my artist friend Keith Haring. Haring had signed it, “To Beverly, Happy Birthday.” I took it home; it was mine, so why not? Danny had been out of town during my visit, and I thought nothing of it. A few days later—I remember it well; I was wearing a wonderful waist-length fur jacket that day—I went back to New Jersey to see my daughter, but when I called up to the apartment from the front desk, Anansa said, “Mommy, don’t come up here. I will come down to you.”

  Several minutes later, the elevator doors opened and two police officers came out. They asked me if I was Beverly Johnson, and when I said yes, they arrested me for theft. It seems that Danny had reported me to the police for taking the Keith Haring picture. He had also worked it out so that the police would be handcuffing me in front of our daughter, but he hadn’t counted on our daughter’s keen mind. Understanding the game her father was playing, she had kept me from going upstairs to protect me. That was my sweet baby girl.

  My arrest was on a Friday, which meant I was looking at a weekend stay in jail if a judge didn’t grant me bail. The police finally found a judge in some part of New Jersey who would listen to my story, and once again I found myself explaining the damn fool I’d been married to. Clearly the judge was familiar with this type of story, and he granted me one hundred thousand dollars’ bail. Thank goodness Johnny taught me to always keep cash in the house in case of emergencies. I called my assistant Gwen Quinn and told her where the cash was—I always kept a bunch of cash under my bed—and she dutifully rescued me from prison.

  Weeks later, the charges were dropped, and the case was thrown out.

  But still the madness continued. One day, when Anansa was in the fourth grade, Danny shaved off all her hair. My daughter had had a beautiful head of thick sandy-red, shoulder-length tresses, but he had someone whack it all off. Anansa even ran around for weeks afterward saying, “Look at me, Mommy, I’m a boy.”

  I took him to court for that, too, because I considered that child abuse. The white judge in the case didn’t agree, but anyone with a little black girl would have understood the importance of hair in the African-American community and how it affected a young girl’s self-esteem.

  My last date with the custody court was something straight out of an episode of Perry Mason. That date brought out good ol’ Sadie again, and she brought along her fourth or fifth husband, Smitty. All of Sadie’s husbands seemed to die early for some reason, and poor, simple Smitty was her latest catch. On a whim, I asked my lawyer to put Smitty on the stand just for the hell of it. Something told me that Smitty would break under pressure, and he would give the court a more honest view of what was really behind Sadie’s unwavering dedication to Danny.

  I was right. On the stand, Smitty, in tears, told my lawyers that Danny sent them money, bought them a car, and paid for vacations to exotic places, all so that they would paint a less-than-positive portrait of me as a mother. Smitty was sobbing like a baby when he stepped away from the stand. The poor man had a conscience at least, which is more than I could say about my devil aunt. I could feel Sadie huffing, puffing, and spitting pure fire from the back of the courtroom. But the jig was finally up, and the truth was out by the winter of 1987. I felt more than vindicated after years of feeling like the bad guy in a really bad soap opera. The judge didn’t change his ruling on the custody issue, but everyone now knew Danny had been lying the entire time.

  What I was most in need of back then, though, apart from the truth, was to clean up my act. I had a problem with drinking, smoking, and drugs, but someone needed to shake the hell out of me for me to see how bad off I really was.

  The custody battle was over; my daughter was getting older and would be able to make her own decisions about where she wanted to live soon enough. In addition, offers were coming in from the modeling world! It was time to get myself back on track; failure was no longer an option.

  CHAPTER 16

  Mr. Cosby

  I’ve had my share of close calls with Hollywood directors who’ve asked me to come in for auditions but wanted much more. The casting couch does, indeed, exist, where these well-known men suggest, ever so politely, that a woman provide personal favors in exchange for landing a role in a film. But usually they allow the woman the freedom to decline.

  In 1986, I had a different kind of casting-couch experience.

  In the midst of my ongoing custody battle, I was also trying to develop my acting career. The problem was that, as a black actress, I had pretty limited options. Only a few “black movies” were filmed each year, and even fewer television shows featured black characters.

  Thankfully there was one huge bright spot for actors of color looking for work. In the world of television, longtime comic Bill Cosby reigned supreme. While growing up in Buffalo in the sixties, I would watch Cosby on I Spy, as well as his short-lived TV sitcom The Bill Cosby Show. Years later, in September 1984, The Cosby Show debuted on NBC and changed television. Cosby played Cliff Huxtable, a doctor who lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Clair (played by Phylicia Rashad), and five children.

  The show’s overwhelming popularity and huge ratings put the NBC network back into the television game after years of ranking behind the two other major networks, CBS and ABC. The Cosby Show also opened doors for other networks to cast shows with predominantly African-American actors, but still, any black performer worth his salt wanted a guest spot on the show.

  That long list included me, so you ca
n imagine my surprise and joy when handlers from the show called to say that Mr. Cosby wanted me to come into the New York studio where the show was filmed to audition for a recurring part as the younger sister of Clair Huxtable. How’s that for a lucky break? Although I was beyond thrilled, I was also nervous about revealing my limited comedy skills to the hilarious Mr. Cosby. But I knew I couldn’t pass up this golden opportunity to finally get Hollywood’s attention.

  On my first visit to the set, Mr. Cosby was warm and welcoming. He made sure I met everyone in the cast and crew—I even interrupted Phylicia as she meditated in her dressing room. After the show wrapped up taping, I met Cosby in his office to talk about the role. He asked about my current situation, my divorce, and my custody battle, and also peppered me with questions about my plans for the future and what I hoped to accomplish in a television or film career. I can’t describe how it felt to have such a powerful and influential man interested in my life. My luck was finally changing. Mr. Cosby invited me to another taping and suggested I bring my daughter along. I didn’t hesitate, because Anansa loved The Cosby Show, especially the character Theo, played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner. She thought he was adorable.

  After the second taping, Cosby surprised me by inviting me to his home to read for the part. It was a weekend, and I was supposed to spend it with Anansa, per my custody agreement with Danny, but once I told Mr. Cosby that I would have Anansa with me, he quickly said I should bring her along. I’d always heard that Cosby’s brownstone was a sight to behold, with its spacious floor plan and a remarkable collection of African-American art, so I was excited to go.

  When we arrived at Cosby’s Lenox Hill home that Saturday afternoon, his staff served us a lovely brunch. Anansa spilled her glass of orange juice all over the floor, and Mr. Cosby seemed a tad miffed about that, but thankfully the staff swiftly moved in to clean it up.