Christian Payton
- 1998
This two-part NBC miniseries follows the rise of the Temptations, a quintet of black singers who came to rule Motown and the charts with their groundbreaking music. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terron Brooks, Leon, (more)
- 1998
This two-part NBC miniseries follows the rise of the Temptations, a quintet of black singers who came to rule Motown and the charts with their groundbreaking music. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terron Brooks, Leon, (more)
This biographical TV miniseries tracks members of the famed Motown group, The Temptations, faithfully following their rise to fame and the subsequent downhill race in a chronological coverage spanning 40 years. In 1958, when Detroit high-schoolers harmonize on street corners to meet girls, Otis Williams (Charles Malik Whitfield) finds his mom Haze (Tina Lifford) supports his singing but not his stepfather Edgar (Harold Surratt). When Williams brings together his group The Siberians -- with Franklin (D.B. Woodside) and Al Bryant (Chaz Lamar Shepherd) -- producer Johnnie Mae Matthews (Vanessa Bell Calloway) records the group as Otis Williams and the Distants. They perform with The Primes, including Kendricks (Terron Brooks) and Paul Williams (Christian Payton), and The Primettes (later The Supremes). When group members merge as The Elgins, Berry Gordy (Obba Babatunde) begins grooming the group. The name is changed to The Temptations, and a 1963 New Year's Eve altercation results in David Ruffin (Leon) replacing Bryant. The Motortown Revue is launched, and Smokey Robinson (Erik Michael Tristan) teams with Norman Whitfield (Mel Jackson) to compose/produce My Girl and Ain't Too Proud to Beg. As Ruffin becomes hooked on coke, Gordy moves to intro The Temptations to white record-buyers. In part two, Dennis Edwards (Charles Ley) replaces Ruffin, and after Paul Williams' suicide and some members leave the group, the act is dropped by Motown, later returning for a reunion tour and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This four-hour miniseries premiered November 1 on NBC. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- 1996
This made-for-TV sequel to the 1968 theatrical feature To Sir With Love stars Sidney Poitier, recreating his role as Mark Thackery, an American-born schoolteacher who in the original film had taken a post in a tough East Side London neighborhood. Thirty years have passed, and Thackery has been forcibly retired, much to the dismay of the thousands of underprivileged students both past and present who have grown to love him. Although he has received several offers to teach in America's most prestigious universities, Thackeray chooses instead to start his career all over again, teaching so-called "incorrigible" students at an inner-city Chicago school presided over by cynical, weak-willed principal Horace Weaver (Daniel J. Travanti). Anyone who has seen the original To Sir With Love can pretty much guess the outcome of the sequel, though a subplot involving Thackeray's search for a lost love is less easy to second-guess. In addition to Sidney Poitier, actresses Lulu and Judy Geeson appear in brief cameos as the now grown-up characters they played in the 1968 film. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, To Sir, With Love II first aired April 7, 1996 on CBS. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sidney Poitier, Daniel J. Travanti, (more)
