A couple of e-mails tell me that some of you are waiting for my obit on Demond Wilson, the actor who played the Son on Sanford and Son. He died Friday at the age of 79 from prostate cancer, as I learned from this obit in The New York Times.
My correspondents expect me to write about him because, as one put it, “You worked with him.” No, I didn’t. I co-wrote one episode of a sitcom he did in 1977 called Baby, I’m Back but I never met Mr. Wilson. We apparently had this in common: He is said to have not liked working with the producer of that show and I definitely didn’t like working with the producer of that show. That’s one of the reasons I only worked on the one episode.
The other is that I didn’t like the show. I’m not sure anyone liked the show as it only lasted thirteen episodes. Here’s the one I worked on but I’ll warn you: You won’t like it either.
As I recall, the problem between the producer and the star is that everyone behind the show wanted Cleavon Little as the lead and the network insisted on Wilson because Sanford and Son was such a hit whereas Cleavon Little had starred in an ABC show called Temperature’s Rising which was not a hit. It had been argued that people who were watching Sanford and Son were tuning in for Sanford (Redd Foxx) and not Son but CBS insisted on going with the guy with the better track record and it did no good to point out that Mr. Little had Blazing Saddles on his list of credits. Networks think in odd ways.
So I really have nothing much to say about Demond Wilson. Sorry. Never met the man.
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