Tribute: Don Cornelius
Posted on February 1, 2012 at 1:24 pm
A sad farewell to Don Cornelius, television pioneer and the host of the popular music and dance series, “Soul Train” for two decades. There were very few opportunities for audiences to see African-American culture in its own context when “Soul Train” first came on the air in 1980. USA Today’s obituary quoted from an interview with Cornelius on the 40th anniversary of the show.
“Back then, there was no targeted television and I just had the sense that television shouldn’t be that way,” Cornelius told USA TODAY in a rare interview in 2010, when the show’s 40th anniversary was celebrated with aVH1 documentary. “The primary mission of the show was to provide TV exposure for people who would not get it otherwise. People who didn’t get invited to TheMike Douglas Show, or (Johnny) Carson. There was no ethnic television, just general-market television, which meant mostly white people.”
He presented stars like the Jackson 5, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, David Bowie, and Marvin Gaye. He influenced and inspired programs from “In Living Color” to “The Cosby Show” as well as the networks MTV and BET. We appreciate your contribution, Mr. Cornelius, and, in the words of your weekly sign-off, we wish you peace, love, and soul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkleiqrWji0
. But I remember watching him as the next-door neighbor on reruns of the 1950’s sitcom 
and as St. Joe Friday’s sidekick Bill Gannon on 
. He had a remarkable career over more than half a century going back to 
. He appeared in musicals — he was a carny outsmarted by a farm boy in “State Fair” and co-starred with Elvis Presley on the riverboat saga, “Frankie and Johnny.” He was in westerns, including the classics 
and 
. He was the judge in the Scopes trial story 
. He appeared in war stories, comedies, and costume dramas, opposite stars like James Garner, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Marlon Brando, Debbie Reynolds, and Janet Leigh. 
and for the role that won him the industry’s top acting prize, 
, a mentally disabled man who, through a medical experiment, briefly becomes a genius. He was Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben in “Spider-Man” and also appeared as an ambitious political candidate in “The Best Man” and the guy who loses Kim Novak to William Holden in “Picnic.”