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In the Heat of the Night Fan Club interviews...
Crystal Fox
May 22nd, 2014
By Chad Moore
To protect and to serve. From officer, to corporal, to sergeant, she served the citizens of Sparta, Mississippi as Sparta PD's second girl Luann Corbin for six seasons. These days Tyler Perry says her current role as Hanna Young is one of the most controversial characters he has ever written. From her formative years as an aspiring student of the Arts, to her years on the NBC/CBS hit series In the Heat of the Night, to her current starring role on the OWN Network's The Haves and the Have Nots, Crystal Fox sat down with us and didn't dodge a single question. Let's get to it...
First of all, congratulations on your current success as Hanna Young on the Tyler Perry hit drama series The Haves and the Have Nots. It must be somewhat surreal to not only be a part of another hit series but to have it happen yet again in the great State of Georgia!
Crystal Fox: Yes, it’s awesome! It’s good for us actors. Oh my God, I cannot forget how they never wanted to acknowledge actors in Atlanta. When I went out to Los Angeles, I auditioned for this lady -- and I’ll never forget that she wouldn’t even look up -- she was moving papers around on a table and when after I read it she looked up and said,
“Oh, good job! Where did you say you were from?” I said, “Atlanta.” She said, “Mmm... there are actors in Atlanta?!” And now look today -- all these studios are moving here.
They’re en route to Hollywood of the South!
Crystal Fox: That's right!
For six seasons, you portrayed character Luann Corbin on the hit NBC/CBS television series In the Heat of the Night -- yet, a lot of people don’t know that your audition for the series was initially for the temporary role of the Sparta Police Department’s first female officer Christine Rankin. Tell us how the audition for In the Heat of the Night had come about for you and what your expectations had been going into the audition process?
Crystal Fox: I think I had auditioned two other times -- I was going to say that one was for a prostitute, but I am not sure if that was it or not. I just know so many other people that did audition for that part, and one was for like a lawyer. There were two different parts completely, and I didn’t get them. I then wanted to audition for the part of Chris Rankin because I was like, “I’m in Atlanta. I want of be on In the Heat of the Night one of these times.” So I go in for that audition only hoping that I would get that one shot, because it would have been my introduction to television -- my first television gig.
So when I got it I was excited. But the process was taking so much longer than some of my other friends who had been on the show more than once. Kenny Leon (character Daryl Tyler, Episode: “Hello in There” S3/Ep13; character Thomas Spiers, Episode: “Paper Castles” S4/Ep17) had been on the show two times, and a young lady I went to high school with Shilla Benning (character Angie Dupree, Episodes: “Stranger in Town” S2/Ep09, “Walkout” S2/Ep17, “Missing” S2/Ep22; character Nana Beety, Episode: “Home Is Where the Heart Is” S3/Ep15) had been on several times. And they were telling me that the process was kind of quick.
I was getting these calls and being told, “Oh you have to go through one more audition,” and I’m thinking, “Man… I must not have been that very good!” So they tell me weeks later that it was narrowed down to me and another actress. That particular actress I had done musical theatre with -- I thought she was a way better actress than me, and I still do.
Who was the actress?
Crystal Fox: Patty Mack. And so they said that I had to go see one more person, that I had to meet with Carroll. Well I must confess that I had not watched In the Heat of the Night the series -- I knew the movie, and I knew that everyone was getting on this show -- but I said “Carroll who?” And they started laughing. No one ever told me who it was -- they thought I was kidding.
Can you take it from there and share with us the subsequent first encounter you had with Mr. O’Connor?
Crystal Fox: So I go to the studio out in Covington, and I go to the makeup room and made friends with everyone in the room at the time, and they said “Oh you’re going to do fine, don’t worry about your audition” -- but again, no one was talking about who Carroll was. So my friend Patty Mack, she went in and she came right back out, and I thought
“That was quick!” And so it was my turn. I go into the set and it’s like this maze, and I hear footsteps, and I hear someone waking, walking, walking and it’s kind of dark in there and this person turns and comes right into my face and I just started screaming, “OH MY GOD!...IT’S YOU! YOU’RE CARROLL...OF COURSE! OH MY GOD!!”
All Carroll did was giggle, shake my hand and said “It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for coming.” And he left! I thought to myself, “You idiot!” I didn’t read anything, I didn’t say anything but scream at this man and I thought that I didn’t get the job. So I went back to the makeup trailer telling the new people that I had met, “I just did the worst thing as an actor -- they’re never going to hire me.”
What was your reaction to the subsequent callback you received when you learned that you had instead been chosen for the starring role of Officer Luann Corbin?
Crystal Fox: They called me and told me, “You are going to be Luann Corbin,” and I panicked, I freaked out. I said “ No... no, I auditioned for Chris Rankin, I’m supposed to be Chris Rankin, and they said, “No, Carroll wants you to be Luann Corbin.” And that’s how I got Luann Corbin.
Crystal Fox's official debut as Luann Corbin in episode "First Girl" (S3/Ep04)
So you didn’t have to read for Carroll -- he just decided that you were the one to be Luann Corbin?
Crystal Fox: That was it. You know what Carroll and I shared? I loved him so much. The theatre experience. Later he said, “You’re a theatre person, and your facial expressions, you have a sense of humor and I loved it. I love your facial expressions.” And so I think it was a feeling and ideally I think he thought I could do it.
How would you describe character Luann Corbin?
Crystal Fox: There was a topic that came up once with David Hart (a/k/a character Parker Williams) when I first got on the show, and he was wondering how come I got to do karate (Skills scene, Episode: “Child of Promise”, S4/Ep16) and some other things. And Carroll said, “Well look how little she is” -- and that’s what I thought too. When I first walked onto the set and realized who I was around, I was like, “Oh my gosh. Luann has to be a powerhouse.”
I felt like Luann probably came from an environment where nobody expected her to succeed. She was the smallest one in her family. So I felt in order to beat that you had to be good at everything else. I don’t think Luann had a Napoleonic complex, but to not have one she had to say “Let me develop the best of myself I can possibly be” -- and she became a law enforcer and planned to be one for the rest of her life.
Leading up to your arrival on the series, it had been reported that the producers of In the Heat of the Night had been at odds with Carroll O’Connor over his desire to permanently add another female to the cast. Incidentally, this was around the time Mr. O’Connor had sought more control and influence over the direction of the series and ultimately becoming an Executive Producer. Were you aware at the time of this issue between Carroll and the producers, and if so how did you handle it?
Crystal Fox: One, no I was not aware of it. Two, I absolutely was on the receiving end of it. For me it was an actor’s nightmare in a way. I was so excited. I had my first television job. My very first day, I think I had a tire breakdown, it was so crazy. James, (James Griffin, Assistant Director) his good friend Mia, ended up helping me get to the set. It was the craziest first day ever. I get to the set, I get in makeup. Then I have time to kill, so they said to go sit down and have lunch. So I’m sitting down getting to know people and one of the biggest producers, Ed Ledding, comes over and sits down next to me, and this is how he greets me, he said, “So you’re Crystal!” and I said, “Yes” and he said, “Oh, so you’re the actress who should be paying us to be on the show.”
Okay, so how did things go from there?
Crystal Fox: I don’t know if anybody else knows this but my very first two seasons, each season I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to come back, but I passed on them, and I sent word when it was suggested that I should let Carroll know why. It was because of the treatment I was receiving behind the scenes for the show. The producers did not give me a dressing room trailer -- that I did not expect because I was new. But what they did do is they would put my room next to the toilet. They never put any guest stars there, because you can smell the bathroom. I think they were trying to discourage me so I would quit or leave. Now, in retrospect, when I found that out I did not know that.
And then much later after it was established, and Carroll came to my defense a couple of times -- and I was so honored by that -- I found out that they didn’t want a new character, I found out that Carroll had went above their heads to Fred Silverman and it was approved. But one of the things we were instructed on, or it was hinted at us, if you as a new character fail, then you and Carroll will suffer that failure together. If we succeed, then we would have that success together. But they really expected that to fail, they were really frustrated, I found that out much later. When it came time to negotiate, all I said was, “Pops, I love my job. Thank you for the opportunity, but it’s hard to feel like people want you there.” So what I love is that each time he never contacted me back, but he took care of it. My first year, I don’t know how he fixed it, but it was fixed, and I was moved somewhere else.
The next time it happened, he was so fed up he made Ed Ledding call me -- Ed Ledding would have never called me for anything. Ed Ledding called, he apologized, and it was never said that it was Carroll that did anything, so it had to have gotten back to him, truthfully. I just love Carroll for that, because it just made me feel bad and I didn’t know how to correct it.
When the show was ending, the producers were telling us “no you can’t take anything off the set, no you can’t have anything” because they were going to either put some things in like a museum and the rest they were going to get rid of. I thought it was absolutely wonderful that the same man who greeted me and said you should be paying me to be here sent me as a gift my badge, and I just wept. Not only was I happy to have something from the show, but that he sent it. Ed Ledding sent me my Sgt. Corbin badge. I was so humbled and grateful and honored.
What I also love is that David Hart, Geoffrey Thorne, Hugh, and I think even Howard Rollins -- when they saw that they kept putting me in these rooms and they never did give me the trailer, those guys went and told production, “Whenever I’m done, Crystal can come into my trailer.” I love them. I love them.
So in addition to Carroll O’Connor, they were supportive of you as well, your fellow castmates.
Crystal Fox: Yes. When I first got there, it was rough because our script supervisor’s daughter, she evidently wanted to audition for the character of Luann Corbin. So my first day of working on the set I see Howard and he said “Oh, that’s her?” And I get that… they’re a family, they’ve been together for two years, so who is this new person coming in? But after that it was fine, and they were always, always supportive of me.
Well it certainly worked out to be the right choice, as those who have followed the series over the years have come to know. Moving along, in 1991 you appeared as a supporting role in the ABC television movie “Separate But Equal” starring Sidney Poitier. Did you have an opportunity to speak with Mr. Poitier, and if so, did he have anything to say about either Howard Rollins’ portrayal of Virgil Tibbs or In the Heat of the Night as a television series?
Crystal Fox: I wanted to do that movie, but I was worried that it would conflict with In the Heat of the Night. I said something to Pops and he was so like, “You gotta go do that movie.” So he cleared me to go do this movie. With Mr. Poitier, I do not know if he knew anything about the show -- he did not talk about the show -- he was grateful when I told him that Carroll let me come and do it.
But he, for whatever reason, zeroed in on me when I was there and invited me, I think the first day we were there, through Bernie Casey who is a fabulous actor, to sit next to him for dinner. He was just telling stories of his life and growing up, and I just thought that he was the most charismatic person, and to go from Pops to him was just fantastic.
His energy was so strong that literally he was down a long hallway, and I went where they sent me to go meet the other cast members, and I could feel his energy, and I went, “What is that?!” I turned around and Mr. Poitier was in a chair leaning down thinking about something -- I was like “Man, that is strong energy”. It was lovely and he was very gracious to me and was grateful that I could be there.
Which In the Heat of the Night episode, scene or storyline is most memorable to you and why?
First of all, Denise Nicholas recognized that I could sing, first. And she wrote, I think she went to Carroll and asked if she could write something, and when she wrote it, she wrote me in to sing in the choir, so that happened first.
Right! You're talking about episode "Odessa".
That’s the one. She wrote “Odessa” and had me sing the part when she found out that I could sing.
In the Season 7 episode “Singin’ the Blues”, Sgt. Luann Corbin revealed a part of her life that many people had not known existed outside of her duties as a cop. She moonlighted as a gifted singer in a nightclub and dated the club’s manager Troy Davis, a character role portrayed by Willie Gault. Was the development of this episode inspired by your singing talent, or had the storyline already been in place?
I think it was inspired by Pops finding out that I can sing. I feel that Carroll created that whole show where I have the love interest and I got to sing in the nightclub,
and it’s so memorable to me for so many reasons. But Carroll let me pick out any gown. The producers were complaining because two of the gowns were the same color, and why should it be this and whatever, and Carroll was like, “Let her have whatever she wants!” He gave me all three of those gowns at the end of the season. He let me invite anybody in my family, friends, everything to be in the scene, in the show.
[Editor's Note: The nightclub's audience was largely comprised of Crystal's real-life family and friends.]
The band that I used to sing with in Atlanta sometimes, they were the original band that did the music [Mose Davis Trio]. When one of the guys got sick, near deathly sick, my band couldn’t do the reshoot, so they weren’t in there, but they are the band you hear. So they had a mock band on there. There is so much love surrounding me and my life, from my personal life to my job family that that will forever be one of my favorite, favorite shows -- that and the one with the baby (Episode: A Baby Called Rocket (S7/Ep10)), because those twins and that family I love.
[Editor's Note: While "Baby Rocket" was said to be a boy in the show, the role was actually portrayed by twin girls.]
Were you aware at the time of filming episode “Singin’ the Blues” that the actor who would portray Luann’s boyfriend had been a wide-receiver for the Chicago Bears and the Los Angeles Raiders?
All of the crew was excited to find out who was going to be my love interest and silly me I did not know sports -- so when it was Willie Gault, the crew was like “It’s Willie Gault!, it’s Willie Gault!” and I’m like, “Who is that?” and they’re like, “Crystal!!”
Speaking of “Singin’ the Blues”, you performed the numbers “True Love” by singer Pat Benatar, and “When a Woman Loves a Man” by the legendary jazz great Billie Holiday. Were these numbers chosen for you or did you have any input in the selection of these songs for the episode?
Pops picked the songs for me to sing because I didn’t know what songs he wanted me to sing, so he picked those songs. It must have been songs that he liked a lot which made me even happier that I was singing something that he liked. To have him sit out there in the scene and watch me sing, it didn’t feel like acting, it just felt like Pops who I just feel is like another pop figure, he just looked so proud and I was so proud to be singing for him.
Your aunt is the late Nina Simone. Was she the source of inspiration behind your vocal talent, and what did she think of Luann Corbin?
I don’t think she was the source behind my singing. My aunt and I shared a bond and it took until I was an adult to really realize what it is. It is the fact that we are both artists. We used to spend summers with her when I was a little girl, and then there was a gap of time when we hadn’t seen each other.
And then when I was 16 or 18 she came to Atlanta and gave me my first bottle of champagne. I think it was around that time she learned what I did -- I sang, danced and acted for a living, but she hadn’t seen me in anything. So much later I found out, I talked to her, she saw In the Heat of the Night, she was proud of me, she was proud of that, and she wanted to know if I had continued singing. My aunt asked me if I was singing her songs and I was like no, and she said “why?” and I said, “Because you’re Nina Simone!”
I have songs that I love by her, but I wouldn’t ever think that I could do what she does. And she was kind of like, “Well, what do you sing?” and I sang for her the two songs that meant something to me. When I told her the names, she didn’t remember them, but when I sang them, she was moved by them and when you move my aunt, that is a lot.
I think by sense of family, there are very few of us in the family that went on to pursue the Arts. She and I went on to pursue them and amazing as my mother said, we both became celebrities with it. So maybe my whole family that was musical inspired me to be musical, but not just the one person. But in a weird way, maybe she did. Maybe her playing and her being an artistic person helped me be want I wanted to be anyway which is an artistic person.
In season 6 and season 7, actress Saundra Franks portrayed Luann Corbin’s mother in episodes “Brother’s Keeper” and “A Baby Called Rocket” respectively. Interestingly, Luann’s relationship with her mother appeared to be, for a lack of a better term, tumultuous. The storyline never really put forth a rationale with regard to the underlying friction. Looking back, why do you think there was that level of disharmony between Luann and her mother?
You might know this because you’re a parent, but for some reason, and I’m not a parent, what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen is father’s clash with sons and mother’s clash with daughters, and what I think is it’s almost like who ever the same sex grouping is they are that much more anxious about teaching the other person the right way to be that sex -- and also it’s how that person can grow into who they are going to be if they bump up against their same sex first.
Just like a woman will know how to be a woman from another woman -- so they’re going to challenge that particular sex until they become it. And so, that can either be a positive thing sometimes, I think that’s what happens when people say, “Oh my God, when adolescence becomes 16 they become obnoxious" -- because now they think they’re adults but they’re really still not. So I think that that was probably most of the time that they’re just so much alike and they clash anyway, and I think that is what happened -- and the other sex becomes the favorite child.
I think my brother [Tyler Corbin (Meshach Taylor), episode: Brother's Keeper, S6/Ep03] was like my mother’s favorite child because he was the baby boy, well he was a boy, he wasn’t a baby, he was an older boy but he was her son. I think that we bumped heads because we were both strong-willed, opinionated and so much alike.
Crystal Fox with Heat mom Saundra Franks -- Episode: A Baby Called Rocket
The Last of Crystal Fox…
The last thing you purchased that you really had no use for :
I try not to do that but sometimes it’s like, “What the heck!” I think I have to go get it. I don’t even know what it’s called, I think it’s called a turkey timer? Do you see this? Once the meat is the right temperature, I think the drumsticks stand up.
The last movie you watched in a theater:
Noah
The last time you rode a motorcycle:
Oh my God! Oh gosh, when did I finish my class? I just took a motorcycle course not even a month ago. Let me go get my graduation paper. Here is my certificate, I am very proud of it. April 18th, 2014.
The last time you spoke to a cast member from In the Heat of the Night:
Oh, that hurts because I don’t get to talk to them that often. I don’t know. I can not remember the last time I actually spoke to anyone.
The last song you heard on the radio that you sang along to:
This is How We Roll by Florida Georgia Line and the Happy song by Pharrell Williams. I sing it everyday, the Happy song.
ITHOTN Fan Club: Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. Good, catchy song.
The last time you performed an original rap song based on the message no glove, no love:
Do you want to say that again?
ITHOTN Fan Club: Back in 1994, you and several other featured artists apparently participated in the AIDS-awareness event “Serenade to Sisters,” a 90-minute theatrical performance hosted by actress-comedienne Phyllis Yvonne Stickney from Def Comedy Jam.
Crystal Fox: Oh my God!
ITHOTN Fan Club: Featured artists were said to perform an original rap song addressing the notion that you have to protect yourself to respect yourself.
Crystal Fox: (laughter) Whoa...that’s right. I was there for that event. I don’t remember… I do remember that saying “no glove, no love” but I don’t remember if we sang anything or the other person did. But thank you for saying that!
The last theatre production you performed in:
What I Learned in Paris. It was the first leading role for me in a play. We broke the single ticket sales record for the Alliance Theatre, which I loved.
The last time you watched an episode of In the Heat of the Night:
Three weeks ago. It was amazing because I didn't know the episode.
In 2012, In the Heat of the Night was finally picked up for DVD distribution. In March of 2014 we saw the release of seasons 2&3, 6 and 7. Do you receive residuals from the sale of these DVDs?
First of all, we don’t even get residuals until a certain number of the shows cycle through. So if that is the case with the DVDs maybe it hasn’t happened yet -- or I haven’t received maybe a check to know. And... I would be a harder one to know, because I truly was considered and treated as far as -- I don’t know if they want to know this but it’s good to know, because I don’t think a lot of people know this: Because of that battle between Carroll and the networks, I was never given a salary like a series regular. Never. I was treated like a day player. And so what they got and what I got would totally be different. I don’t know if I would even be eligible for it. It could be that it has not cycled enough to accumulate enough to be sent out as a residual yet.
Tell us a bit about your upbringing and how it all led you to audition for Northside School of the Performing Arts?
I was born in Tryon, North Carolina, was raised in Detroit for twelve years and grew up in Atlanta. By the time we moved to Atlanta I went to a place called Coan Middle School. I had one year to finish and they had drama. The English teacher taught drama and the gym teacher taught dance. They placed me in the enrichment program. As I was in all of those things, the two teachers said, “You should go to the performing arts high school here in Atlanta.” They said that it was a magnet school, so I would have to audition to get in.
So I auditioned for a choreographer at Northside named Barbara Sullivan -- who to this day is still like a second mother to me. It was her last year there, and she was the only African-American teacher there. I auditioned for her as a dancer. She accepted me and I got into Northside though her. At Northside you had to have two classes for your performing arts class. So I went to dance for those to classes, but then I wanted to go to the musical theatre class. I literally cut one hour of my dance class to sit in on the other hour of the music theatre class and none of the teachers ever said anything.
The music theatre class was 150 students, and I would sit up in that alto section. I would be there so much that the teacher literally had an audition for Raisin the musical. None of the altos could sing the part, and he said “I can not believe I can not find anyone to sing this part” and the whole room said “Let Crystal do it.” I went down to the floor and sang this song. That day, he took me out of dance and put me in the music theatre department.
I want to get into a little inside baseball here. When the seventh-season of In the Heat of the Night concluded as a series, did you or the cast in general have any knowledge that the resurrection of the series as 4 two-hour telefilms and reprising your role as Sgt. Luann Corbin for Season 8 would be the last of it?
I feel like I did. For me it just seemed like every time it ended you didn’t know if it was coming back. That’s how I remember it.
I ask the previous question because the two-part season 7 finale “Give Me Your Life” and the final Season 8 telefilm “Grow Old Along with Me” left open a lot of loose ends. One could argue that In the Heat of the Night never really had a sensible farewell finale that it deserved.
Right!
Based on that premise, do you think that Carroll O’Connor may have held out the possibility that In the Heat of the Night would have carried on beyond season 8?
Possibly. I think that because that’s exactly how I feel. I think of it now and it doesn’t feel finished. It’s like, we did that season and we weren’t picked up again.
During your tenure on the series, you did a rather noble thing by contributing your singing talent to the In the Heat of the Night Christmas charity album Christmas Time’s a Comin’, an effort to raise money for drug abuse awareness. You performed the classic “The Christmas Song.” Tell us how this song became your song to perform on the album as well as any memories you have from this project.
First of all I thought it was a wonderful thing that Randall Franks did to even pull it together. I just wanted to be a part of it because anything that somebody will ask me to do to give back I would love to do. I love that cause. At first when he said it would be a Bluegrass album I was like, “I don’t know any Bluegrass.” Randall then said, “It doesn’t have to be that, it can be anything you want it to.” So my wonderful friend Mose Davis who I had performed with, I had asked him to do it. I don’t know if we ever sung that out, but I love that song and I said, “Can we do this?” It was an easy decision -- yes let’s do that and we had a ball and we laid it down. It was fun.
Given that Carroll O’Connor, Howard Rollins and others from the series are no longer with us, and considering the success that In the Heat of the Night has enjoyed in wide syndication over the years, do you think a revival version of In the Heat of the Night would be sensible today?
(Long pause) No. No because In the Heat of the Night as it is now… first of all, it was amazing to know that the hit that it was with Sidney Poitier could be a successful series was already huge. And then the fact that we did it and it became one, it still has its own life. People watch it now like they watched it then. So it’s like it hasn’t died, it hasn’t finished this life yet which is amazing. To have somebody come in, it would kill the life that this one is still having. It’s still endearing to people, and so I don’t want that to change until it has to.
Until it has to. Okay, I am going to give you this follow up question then. If solid plans for a revival were in place, and your schedule permitted it, would you revisit Luann Corbin?
Oh yeah. Absolutely. If it could be our cast, as many of our cast that is left so that it is like the original family, yes a brand, brand, brand new one...yeah -- but not now, not yet (laughs).
Moving forward with The Haves and the Have Nots. Tell us how you landed the starring role of Hanna Young
At one of the Alliance Theatre performances of What I Learned in Paris, the casting director and the new executive producer for Tyler Perry came to see that show. I think it’s because of that that I got the audition for The Haves and the Have Nots. Even though I had done a couple of episodes of House of Payne, I didn’t have an agent. So when people were talking about the teaming up of Oprah and Tyler, and people were talking about it backstage while I was doing that play, people were asking me “Are you going to audition?” and I was like, “I hope so... if they have something.” At the time, I said that I wish he would do a one-hour drama, because I don’t want to do another comedy. So right after that show and after they saw it, we got the breakdowns and he (Tyler Perry) was doing a one-hour drama. Later I got the audition for The Haves and the Have Nots.
Crystal Fox (center) as Hanna Young - The Haves and the Have Nots (2014)
This summer will mark the 20th anniversary since production for In the Heat of the Night closed for good. Before we close this interview, take a moment and share a fond behind-the-scenes memory of each of the following...
- Covington, GA
The Square. I loved the Square. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. That all looked like or reminded me of the city where I was born Tryon, North Carolina. And so it was like, “How the heck is this out here?” -- and I live in Atlanta and Atlanta is this growing big city. So I loved the Square. I loved the people there. I loved where we had the souvenir shop. We used to go to this restaurant Michelangelo’s (Conyers, GA). It was fabulous! Loved it, loved it, loved it! Is it still around?
It seems like... you know what? -- late last year that property was on the market.
(((screams)))
It will always be the McGuffey House to us -- a historic ITHOTN landmark.
That's amazing. I hope someone buys it and keeps it.
- Alan Autry
I love Alan Autry. Bubba is intimidating because he’s just so massive and big. Sometimes I would go stand next to him just to try to look like I was this big ole cop too. So anytime I got to stand next to him and look all serious and tough I really got a kick out of it -- that and we teased him. My God women loved Alan -- and so we would just tease him and we would love to see anybody who came to the show, who would try to like make googly eyes with him. He would just flirt, he was a good flirt, he was a big flirt so it was fun to make fun of him.
- Carl Weathers
People kept making Rocky references. He was just so certain about his Southern accent, and me being from the South it was like he is such a Southern-Northerner or wherever he’s from... California. He was still so California.
- Howard Rollins
Howard didn't let you 'in' easily, but we bonded over talking about cooking. During the last of his legal struggles he allowed only Carroll and me to visit him in jail. He let me come to his home and shared his family history with me. Just the two of us were there! I'll never forget him!
- Carroll O'Connor
I have so many with him. He had had his surgery and he was not supposed to be eating sweets and they had given him all this sugar. He was behind this wall somewhere eating this piece of pie and I just looked at him -- I didn’t have to even say anything, and he was like I know, I know, I know -- so I busted him eating something he wasn’t supposed to be eating.
Other times that meant the most to me… when we were doing cast photos and they kept calling everybody in the cast and saying “but not Crystal” -- I’ve only seen him angry twice, one when he had heard that the National Enquirer said that he had rejected Howard in some way. He was angry for that.
The one other time is when they would not put me in that cast photo. He got on the speaker and everybody heard it. He said, “Get Crystal in here now! I am sick of this shit.” He said she’s a serious regular, she’s a cast regular, get her in there. When I got in there, they were still trying to make me stand behind everybody. Carroll got fed up and he grabbed my hand, he sat me on the desk and our backs were to each other and they put everyone else around and he said, “Now, take the picture!”
Great story! I love that.
Ain’t that wonderful? The last one is he called me a week and a half before he died and we talked. It was interesting because I was talking to my room mate at the time, and when we got off the phone it was a wonderful conversation, and she said, “What’s wrong?” and I said “I don’t know… I don’t know if I’m just being melancholy or whatever. I just feel like that’s the last I’m ever going to talk to Pops. And she said, “Well, if it is you both told each other that you love each other” and I said, “You’re absolutely right.”
I then went with them to the Monterey Jazz Festival, and I didn’t realize it, but they kept it from me the whole day. That night my friends got me in a room and told me that he had passed. When I last talked with Carroll he had asked about singing with him. I was going to sing with him in Vegas. He said they had wanted him to do one night, and he wanted to do a full week and he wanted to have two backup singers. He wanted one African-American and one caucasian woman. He asked if I wanted to join him, and I said absolutely.
Is there anything in closing that you would like to say to the fans of In the Heat of the Night?
This show was life-changing for me. Any love that I have ever received back from the audience is because of the love and opportunity that Carroll first gave me, and I will never, ever forget it. I want them to know that I will never forget it -- I love them. They will always be my first group of fans ever -- they’re more like my family, and I will never be successful at anything had I not been first successful with them.
In the Heat of the Night Fan Club would like to thank Crystal Fox for this interview and spending time with us. Catch her Tuesday evening, May 27th, at 9/8c as she returns to the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) as Hanna Young in an all new episode of The Haves and the Have Nots.
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