Shocking Interview: Demond Wilson of Sanford & Son!

Like Share & Subscribe! No Dressing Room for Redd Foxx! Being Discovered on All in the Family! The Exile of Slappy White! NBC Refuses to Please Redd Foxx! Harsh Words for Co-stars like Jayne Kennedy! Those Dean Martin Roast and Hollywood Squares Appearances! Quitting Sanford & Son For More Money! No comment on The Cotton Club Murder victim Roy Radin he was connected to!

I conducted this summer of 2009 interview in conjunction with Demond Wilson's book Second Banana. He, along with Redd Foxx, were the stars of of the number one rated sitcom on NBC in the 1970s, I asked about the early days of the sitcom when the network didn't even provide the stars with a dressing room!

I published parts of that interview here:
http://www.tvparty.com/vegas-wilson.html

The Roy Radin Revue - Death of Crazy Guggenheim!
   • Sad Ironic Death of Crazy Guggenheim ...  

We also talked about being a popular guest star on shows like Hollywood Squares and the Dean Martin Roasts. Filmed in both Burbank and the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Demond Wilson characterized those primetime roasts hosted by Dean Martin as, "A bunch of old, drunk comedians walking through what was left of their careers. When they roasted you that meant you had reached a certain level of success and notoriety and that in a nutshell is all it meant to Redd [Foxx]. You didn't get roasted unless you'd made it."

When the sitcom was riding high in the ratings, "I walked out on Sanford and Son for more money," Wilson told me. "And they said 'You can't do television, you can't do radio, you can't do movies. If your house in Truesdale Estates catches on fire and a camera crew shows up and we see you interviewed on television you are in contravention of your contract.' So I said, 'Okay, I'm going to Vegas.' The money was grand, it was great, it was huge, but the lifestyle, my God. It was like sleep all day, up all night."

Vegas in those days was a crepuscular lifestyle, still is. "I don't understand how they could do that night after night," Wilson said. Contractually unable to do a stand-up act, he performed an hour long set of dance routines instead. "It was murder. I never worked so hard in my life. You can't do two shows a night for four weeks and have any weight on you, I was down to Skeletor frame and still it almost killed me. It's not a life, it's like a vampire. I don't know how Sammy Davis Jr. did it - ”yes I do, he drank, smoked and used cocaine."