Shal­iza Has­sanali

Hav­ing con­quered the world with his su­perb act­ing in Amer­i­ca, Trinida­di­an Sul­li­van Walk­er is on an­oth­er mis­sion. This time it in­volves the pub­li­ca­tion of his first book en­ti­tled "Caribbean Woman" which Walk­er in­tends to launch next month in T&T in the pres­ence of Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ther Le Gen­dre as a means of giv­ing back some­thing to the Caribbean com­mu­ni­ty. Two weeks ago, Sul­li­van who has played nu­mer­ous small and re­cur­ring roles on tele­vi­sion shows since the ear­ly '80s, among them the pop­u­lar Cos­by se­ries,vis­it­ed Trinidad to pro­mote his book which has a blend of scin­til­lat­ing rap­so, dub-po­ems, is­land blues, skits and short sto­ries.

To add some Caribbean flavour to the pub­li­ca­tion, Walk­er used a lot of di­alect and hu­mour. Sto­ries such as Tantie Rosa in New York and No­ra Com­plain­ing make in­ter­est­ing and en­joy­able read­ing. "The book stores I have vis­it­ed are very much in­ter­est­ing in sell­ing my prod­uct," said Walk­er, a fa­ther of one. Adorn­ing the cov­er of Walk­er's 120 page book are T&T's na­tion­al colours red, white and black. Among the women Walk­er high­ly praised in his book are cane cut­ters, fish­er women and way­side ven­dors.

"These women have all con­tributed to a civil­i­sa­tion but are nev­er recog­nised. We see them as or­di­nary peo­ple. I can't re­call so­ci­ety prais­ing women in the Caribbean who have toiled and giv­en yeo­man ser­vice to the com­mu­ni­ty. The on­ly time you hear about them is in our mu­sic. Mu­sic, to me, can't do every­thing," said Walk­er, who was born in Laven­tille and grew up in the hills of San Fer­nan­do with his grand­par­ents.

Turn­ing point

Walk­er flew to the US in 1969 af­ter plac­ing third in Hol­ly Be­taudi­er's Scout­ing for Tal­ent con­test in T&T. His prize was a trip to New York.

"That prize was the turn­ing point of my life, af­ter fac­ing a tough child­hood," Walk­er re­called with a smile, while seat­ed in the lob­by of the Trinidad Hilton last Fri­day. As he spoke, he was con­stant­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by strangers and guests of the ho­tel who en­cour­aged him to keep up the good work. Many com­pli­ment­ed him for his per­for­mance in the 2005 box of­fice smash Get Rich or Die Tryin' where he act­ed as the grand­fa­ther of rap singer 50 Cent.

Walk­er re­mem­bered go­ing to pri­ma­ry school with­out shoes and one text book in his hands. "You couldn't com­plain oth­er­wise it was licks. I wasn't spared the rod. I got my fair share of blows when I stepped out of line. I think this is what made me a stronger per­son in life," he ad­mit­ted. Walk­er said the less he got from his grand­par­ents Adam and Clementi­na Dea­con, the more was ex­pect­ed of him. Be­cause of Clementi­na's stern up­bring­ing, Walk­er said he de­test­ed her with a pas­sion at that time.

"I didn't like her be­cause she was very strict... but she taught me re­spect, dis­ci­pline and com­mit­ment which made me what I am to­day."

"Though we didn't see eye-to-eye, I con­sid­er my de­ceased grand­moth­er as one of the gi­ants in my life," Walk­er said. So proud of Clementi­na, Walk­er ho­n­ourably men­tioned her in his book stat­ing that she was his in­spi­ra­tion to him.

Bless­ings in dis­guise

Hav­ing lived with the phi­los­o­phy that ed­u­ca­tion was the key to suc­cess as a child, Walk­er said he start­ed ex­celling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly un­til he land­ed a teach­ing job at St Paul's An­gli­can School in San Fer­nan­do.

It was while look­ing at tele­vi­sion, Walk­er said he saw Scout­ing for Tal­ent be­ing ad­ver­tised, put a skit to­geth­er and went for au­di­tions where he qual­i­fied for the pre­lim­i­nar­ies and lat­er moved on the se­mi fi­nals and fi­nals. Al­though Walk­er was a bit per­turbed by plac­ing third in the com­pe­ti­tion since the crowd was root­ing for him to win, he said it was a bless­ing in dis­guise.

"That's when the doors opened up for me," Walk­er said beam­ing with pride. Of all the places Walk­er de­cid­ed to live up­on ar­riv­ing in Amer­i­ca was Harlem which was gripped by gang war­fare, vi­o­lence and drugs at that time. But Harlem was home to a vi­brant black the­atre, which he al­so loved. 'I got dumped right in the mid­dle of Harlem with no fam­i­ly or friends," Walk­er said. "I learned pret­ty quick­ly how to make a way and how to make de­ci­sions." Walk­er said he sur­vived un­scathed in Harlem for five years be­cause of his grand­moth­er's teach­ings.

How­ev­er, af­ter three months of de­liv­er­ing pack­ages, wash­ing dish­es and work­ing in mail rooms, Walk­er land­ed his first role, a $75 a week gig in the play, "A Sea­son in the Con­go" and lat­er rose through the ranks, forg­ing a suc­cess­ful ca­reer in tele­vi­sion, film and the­atre. How­ev­er, his per­sis­tence and de­ter­mi­na­tion even­tu­al­ly paid off when he was giv­en the role as the doc­tor in the com­e­dy se­ries The Cros­by Show. Hav­ing es­tab­lished a name for him­self, Walk­er was of­fered a sup­port­ing role in the block­buster movie Croc­o­dile Dundee in 1989. He al­so starred in sev­er­al oth­er movies such as the Firm, Run­away, On the Edge of In­no­cence, The Ex­ter­mi­na­tor, and Lush Life to name a few.

Walk­er al­so ap­peared on the Jamie Foxx Show, Law and Or­der and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In an ef­fort to bring about a deep­er un­der­stand­ing be­tween the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States and the Caribbean, Walk­er formed the Caribbean Ex­pe­ri­ence The­atre in 1970 and the School for the Caribbean Arts in 1994. Walk­er be­lieves that peo­ple with­in the Caribbean have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of ed­u­ca­tion the world as to who we are.