All language subtitles for O.J. Made in America - S01E01 - Part One - Obsessed with Fame

As a kid growing up in the ghetto,

one of the things I wanted most
was not money, it was fame.

I wanted to be known. I want the
people to say, "Hey, there goes O.J."

You're approaching five years now
at Lovelock.

Tell us about your work assignments.

How have you occupied your time
for the past five years?

Uh, when I first came here,
I was a porter,

which comprised of cleaning things
in the unit that I was in,

and basically after a relatively short
period of time,

I started working as a gym worker.

I start each day, um, disinfecting, uh,
the workout equipment in the gym,

mopping floors with the other, uh,
group of us that work in the gym.

Uh, I've coached teams, um, uh,
since I've been here.

Uh, and I like to say that we won
the championship,

and we were old guys,
a totally mixed group of players.

I didn't play, I just coached.

I do see that in 1994 you were
arrested at the age of 46.

We-- We're talking about this case?

No, the age at first arrest.

How old were you, first time
you were arrested? For any reason.

[ Sighs ]

Um, I think about 46, yes.

With an enrollment
of approximately 16,000 students,

this is the largest
and oldest university

of continuous existence
in Southern California.

Its buildings and grounds
cover 45 acres

and it has graduated many thousands
of men and women

who are now leaders in the business
and professional world.

BROWN:
I didn't know that much about him.

I heard about his reputation
coming out of junior college.

He was big, fast, powerful, dynamic.

You're awed, because you haven't
seen that.

I was teaching part-time at San Jose
State and a friend of mine said,

"Hey, man, you gotta go check out this
little cat from, um, San Francisco.

His name is Simpson.
Orenthal James Simpson."

O.J. takes the football. Boom.

I think he runs about 90 yards with it
for a touchdown.

He ran through 'em like foreign water
through a tourist.

San Jose State was trying
to recruit him, and I asked him,

"O.J., what is it
that you're lookin' for?"

Said, "I wanna be the best.

I wanna go to a school
where I play against the best."

Superstar phenom is coming to USC

and all the buzz
that goes around with it.

This is Marguerite Simpson.

She and O.J. have been married
for five months now.

Right.

Are you happy after five months?

Yes, I'm very happy.

And do you like this campus
and everything?

I love it.
It's like a resort. It's beautiful.

Now, you tell us the truth, Marguerite.
What kind of guy is O.J.?

O.J. is very serious.
He loves football.

And he's just a serious person.

McKAY:
He has a great running sense.

Uh, as a team man,
he's an outstanding person.

As a citizen, he is a tremendous boy
and, uh,

I don't think we've had a boy around
here who has ever been any better.

Whoo! Get up!

It was pretty obvious early on that
O.J. was a superior athlete, special,

and Coach McKay was warmer
and closer with him.

He had never had a player of this
caliber. And you didn't mess with it.

He protected him.

Johnny, would you describe
that devastating

Southern Cal offensive attack for us?

Well, Duffy, I don't-- I don't know
how devastating it is, but our attack

is built around the, uh, tailback,
O.J. Simpson, running a football.

We think our attack will be able to let
us move the ball on most people.

There was no drama.

John McKay was gonna give him
the football,

and he was gonna give it to him
35, 40 times a game

and you were gonna tackle him.

And then when you missed,
we were gonna score a touchdown.

So we fed him the football,
fed him the football...

He had incredible stamina,

that he could take the ball every play
and keep on going.

Every game he did something
that was eye-opening.

You-- "What? Did I see that?"

He was one of a kind.

This is O.J. Simpson,
USC's junior halfback.

You have been getting an awful lot
of publicity lately.

How does it affect you?
Does it bother ya?

Oh, it doesn't bother me at all.

It's-- It's a matter of winning, I guess.

If you win, you get publicity,

and they have to give someone in our
offense and on our team publicity,

and, uh, I'm just in a position to get it,

running at the tailback and carrying
the ball as much as I do.

O.J., you've got an awful big game
on Saturday.

It's the big intercity rivalry.
There's just all kind of pressure.

How does the pressure affect you?

Well, uh, I don't know.

I don't think the pressure bothers--

It doesn't bother me and--

and I think most of the team right now,
it's not bothering them yet.

I'm sure it will tomorrow.

We're shooting
for all the marbles this week,

and, uh, I think we'll be relaxed
and ready to go.

USC football is not a matter
of life and death.

It's much more important than that.

Live and in color,
you are looking at this view,

hovering above the Memorial
Coliseum which is jam packed today.

As we look at Gary Beban,
a reminder that college football,

a pleasant and colorful way to spend
an autumn afternoon.

UCLA's quarterback was Gary Beban.

It's gonna be his year
for the Heisman Trophy.

So we have the upcomer running back

against the established
superstar quarterback.

We were ranked number 4,
they were ranked number 1.

The city of Los Angeles,
the two top teams in the country,

and we're fighting
for the national championship.

Today with 10 cameras
covering this game,

over 200, uh, newsmen here,
200 photographers.

There were people out here
this morning at 6 o'clock

trying to get in to the ballgame.

And the ballgame is underway.

I had never been
to a college game ever.

And we all wanted to go see O.J.

Offensively now for the Trojans,
watch for number 32, O.J. Simpson.

None of us had any tickets.

All of a sudden, we looked up
and someone had cut a hole

in the Coliseum fence and about 50
people ran through it, including us.

Okay, Bud, we have approximately 9
minutes remaining in the first half.

I'd never seen the Coliseum
full like that.

There was just the colors,
I was in awe.

Tie ballgame, and they are in UCLA
territory. Steve Sogge. Simpson.

There's his brilliance. Thirteen yards.
Touchdown.

A tremendously gifted athlete,
number 32, O.J. Simpson.

Everybody loved watching O.J. run.

As we look at it in slow motion...

There was something about his style.

...O.J. Simpson.

I said, "Man, if I could but run
half as well as this guy,

I might be all right."

Beban hooking.
Deep and long to Copeland.

UCLA has tied it up.

There is Nuttall.

Touchdown, UCLA.

And with 11 minutes and 40 seconds
left in the game UCLA gets the lead.

We were losing.
And we were fighting.

O.J. Simpson is deep.
Number 32.

And he's determined.

We were outplaying them,

and we were very angry that
we were not winning that game.

Thirty. Moving away,

and sheer sake of effort
brings him out to the 34-yard line.

Things weren't going our way
until that run.

Rose Bowl bid, Bud, is at stake.

Everything that they've fought for
all year,

it's coming down to the wire now,
Chris. These final minutes.

At the 36-yard line, a 4-yard gain,

it'll be third down at three
for the Trojans.

It was a pass play.

They need three yards.

And they audible, and some guys
missed the audible.

I couldn't hear it. I made a mistake.
I stood up to pass block.

The linebacker read me and backed
into his passing zone,

and that opened up a lane for O.J.

And he did his magic.

First down and more.
There's Simpson.

Look at that cut! O.J. Simpson!

All she wrote.

64 yards. 64 thrilling, captivating,
collegiate football yards,

and let's look at that one again. Wow.

Don't recall seeing anybody that can
turn it on like this boy, Chris.

If you were a football fan in the late
'60s and someone said to you,

"Do you remember the run,"
it was just one run.

That set O.J. apart from everyone.

He's so much faster,
it makes no difference.

That single play is still felt to be
one of the greatest college plays.

He became an instant national star.

A civil rights leader in Los Angeles
has said

if you are going to be a negro
in a big city,

then, Los Angeles
is the best place to be.

The image of Los Angeles
was milk and honey.

There's no prejudice
in Los Angeles.

Everybody's free
to do what they will.

You know, palm trees and sunshine.

It's just the ultimate place.

And anybody who was trying to go
somewhere, at least in my area,

you know, they were going
to Los Angeles.

There is no group in America
to whom California has meant more

than it has to the Negroes.

In the two decades
between 1940 and 1960,

while the population of all
other groups in Los Angeles

went up by 100 percent, the negro
population went up by 600 percent.

Where do the people come from?

People come from the states of Texas,
Louisiana, Georgia...

The hope is that all the trouble
I've known will be gone.

2, 4, 6, 8, we don't wanna integrate!

I will no longer be held down
by this notion

held against my skin and my hair.

More literally, I can get work
because it's growing so fast here.

And I can buy a house,

and nobody's ever gonna come take it
away from me because I'm black.

This is something that you didn't have
in the deep South.

The Simpsons
are from Rodessa, Louisiana.

My parents and his parents,
they grew up on a 200-acre farm.

Although they had land, there was
no opportunity for people of color,

so everybody "got out of Dodge",
as they say.

O.J. and I were born
in San Francisco in '47.

He had aspirations.

He knew that he wanted to better
his circumstances,

and LA was the place to do that.

I moved out here
looking for opportunities.

My grandmother gave me 67 dollars
for a ticket,

and my mother gave me 65 dollars
to spend,

and I got on a plane, one-way ticket.

If I had the money,
I would've gone back home,

'cause it was very, very troubling
once I got out here.

Racism out here was as stark
as it was in Jim Crow South.

You don't really have any more power
out here than you had there.

Everybody was always conscious
of the police.

You a friend of Jack Grant's?

Why?

Jack Grant a friend of yours?

I'm not gonna tell ya.

I grew up watching the Los Angeles
Police Department.

They just were so sharp
and professional all the time,

if you watched things
that depicted them.

I'm Lieutenant Moore
of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Hell, no, we won't go.

If you do not leave now,
you will be arrested

for violation of section 602-J.

They were just always squared away.

The institutional culture
was really clear.

We expected you to be the best,
we expected you to be professional.

It's not like it was
in the '30s and '40s.

Police officers don't take bribes.

There's none of that stuff, that had
been cleaned up by Chief Parker.

Chief Parker turned
a very corrupt police department

into what was viewed
as a very honest police department,

but with that he brought a level
of being untouchable.

Everything at the police academy
was white,

in the sense of command staff,
officers, all the trainers were white.

Bill Parker was reputed

to have actually recruited police
officers from Klan rallies,

I think he, at minimum,
was racially insensitive,

at maximum, he was racist.

Police officers under Bill Parker
would respond to a radio call,

they would go snatch the person
who was causing trouble,

put 'em in the car, take 'em out
and leave.

So their interaction
with the community

was almost entirely
based on apprehension,

and that's where the notion
of an occupying army comes from.

Just getting tired of being pushed
around by you white people, that's all.

You stoppin' us on the street,
kickin' down the doors,

takin' down to the police station,
you're kicking our teeth in.

Well, he took me in the car and, uh,
he just started getting on me.

But was there a fight?

How can I fight with my hands stuck?

The complaint that you hear
everywhere is that the negro

is not getting the same treatment
from the police as the--

Well, I know, but I'm getting
a little bit weary of that,

and I think perhaps
the best thing to do

is just to pull the police
out of the area.

I've offered to do that
again and again,

but you see how quick they are
to come back and say,

"We can't afford to have that."

The Negroes are stepping up,
they're waking up,

and they're gonna do something
about what the white man did to them.

I'm not afraid of bloodshed.
If I have to die for my rights, I will.

54 square miles in the middle
of the nation's third-largest city.

No one expected the flashpoint
of discontent to be

in the sprawling, bungalow'd 450
square miles of Los Angeles.

This is where the fuse
was lighted.

It began with the arrest by white
officers of two young Negroes,

one on a charge of drunk driving,
the other his brother.

Their mother came to the scene.

There was an argument,
there was a scuffle.

By then, a crowd of several hundred
Negroes had gathered.

The story of police brutality quickly
spread through the community.

The Watts riots.
I was 10 years old, man.

It was summer, it was hot,

and white policemen had been treating
us like shit forever.

And we were gonna respond.

The police in their idiocy
responded with too much force

and not enough understanding,
and it mushroomed.

I was nervous.

There were people screaming,
people shooting,

people lying on the ground,
not moving.

The police, four-deep in a car,
all holding up shotguns.

The Watts riot was one of the first
major events in the city of LA

that was caught on TV.

People who grew up looking at those
kinds of activities in the South,

they thought that's where
all of the racial divide was.

The only thing was missing in LA,
there weren't dogs.

Hands up there. Get 'em up.
Get your hands up. Let's go.

I got home and my father was
sitting there, upset, and he says,

"You know, Walter,
they're out there, riot."

And he says, "I wanna do that.
I feel that. I feel that anger.

I know it's wrong, so I can't do it.
But I want to."

I didn't think it was a big deal.

I didn't think these people were, quote,
"persecuted".

I didn't think these people had any
problem. Why were they rioting?

I was as naive
as any other white person.

This area is being closed.
Please go in your homes.

The question came down
from white people after Watts.

They said, "Do most black people
feel like this?"

And the answer came back,

"About 99 percent of them feel like
this. And one percent are really mad."

In creating this situation,
where was the failure?

On the part of the city,
the county, the schools?

This, sir, I think, is one of
the difficulties in meeting this,

is that we're trying to find a failure
other than the people themselves.

They came in and--
and flooded a community

that wasn't prepared to meet them.

We didn't ask these people
to come here.

So long as this stubborn attitude
is maintained,

I can only see
the situation worsening.

I can still smell the smoulderings
of that event.

There was nervousness
all over the place

that would ultimately translate into
traumatizing an entire community.

Better to make all the rioting stop.

I don't think it'll ever stop, really.

Ever?

And the institution that gave life
to O.J. Simpson's image

and presence nationally and beyond
was located

right in the middle
of that very same neighborhood.

USC was an isolated, beautiful school
right next to the LA Coliseum

Everyone was warned not to go
down on that side of the Coliseum.

At the University
of Southern California,

they have a living legend,
and at homecoming,

that's all they wanna talk about.

The name of the legend
is O.J. Simpson.

When you saw him on campus,
it was like, "Wow! There's O.J.!"

And you might go up and wave
and say, "Way to go, O.J.,"

and he'd give you a big smile,

and you felt like you were
a million dollars.

You felt fantastic.
"O.J. Simpson said "hi" to me!"

[ Chuckles ]
Yeah.

Hey, O.J., how are ya? How's it--?

Working hard.

I hope you're gonna
be smiling Saturday.

Yeah, in about four days or five.
I plan to.

For most of the USC students,
I wager, O.J. Simpson

was the first African-American
they really got to see and talk to.

Because most of them didn't know
African-Americans at all,

or any person of color.

We are! SC!

USC was a football school,
it was a Hollywood school,

it was glamour and glitz,

it was not the University of California at Berkeley.

It was not San Jose State.

Fight, fight, fight, fight!

It was above and beyond
reach of the movement.

O.J. went to USC in 1967, so he's
plucked out of the black community,

out of black consciousness, and he's
submerged in an all-white university.

And I say this,
and I don't say it facetiously,

but he is seduced by white society.

USC controls TV, Hollywood,
banking, finance,

law and medicine in Los Angeles.

The alumni are very powerful,
and their whole existence

revolves around the success
of the football team.

And O.J. is leading them to glory.

It was that type of school
with that type of power and control

that could be directed towards him.

The black man
has been brainwashed,

and it's time for him to learn
something about himself.

The word "black"
is a part of the times.

We are succumbing to the demands
of the black man in the street

who says that the negro is dead
and the black man is alive.

It was a condition
that I was born into;

the unfairness, the racism, the hatred,

the poverty that we had
in this country.

You can't balance that
with being a football hero.

In the '60s, societal issues
were pushing their way into sports.

It has been said that I have
two alternatives,

either go to jail or go to the army.

There was this engagement
of the athlete.

Some major athletes stood up.

Nine top negro athletes meet
with Cassius Clay

to discuss his anti-draft stand.

They include Bill Russell,
Lou Alcindor,

and former pro-footballer
Jimmy Brown.

Every man in that room
was a soldier.

Every man in that room, for nothing
other than his beliefs

and backing another brother,
felt that he should be there

and the hell with the consequences.

Jim Brown, Bill Russell, Ali,
for sure, were race men.

They stood up for principle

and damaged
their commercial possibilities.

They pointed to the discrimination,

not only of all blacks,
but of black athletes,

of people who were supposedly
given entitlement in America.

At the time you were supposed
to be satisfied. Or grateful.

Why would someone
that's making money

and cheered by 80,000 people
be complaining?

For me, it was really a matter
of fairness and what is correct.

The United States has hypocritically
put itself up

as the leader of the free world,
while right here in this country

there are 22 million black people
who are catching more hell

than anyone in any communist country
ever dreamed of.

Black men and women athletes,
professional and amateur,

have unanimously voted to fully
endorse and participate

in a boycott
of the World Olympic Games in 1968.

The movement on the West Coast
recently

in which Lou Alcindor supposedly said
he might not play in the Olympics.

What are your thoughts?

Well, um--
Well, this is his prerogative.

I'm not too well
enlightened on the situation.

I don't know exactly what they're
trying to do, you know.

The whole idea behind
the Olympic Project for Human Rights

was to escalate the relationship
between elite athletes

and the civil rights movement.

Let me say that I absolutely support
this boycott.

I would also like to commend
the outstanding athletes

who have the courage to make it clear
that they will not participate

unless something is done about these
terrible evils and injustices.

O.J. was approached because he was

the biggest name
in collegiate athletics at that time.

He was also a world
record-holding track star.

That's O.J. Simpson...

So here we got two for one.

...and Lennox Miller...

When I asked him, I said we were
trying to get black athletes

to understand they have a role
in the current civil rights movement,

his response was,
"I'm not black. I'm O.J."

What they think is right, I guess,
they must follow their beliefs.

Well, uh, right now I don't wanna be
involved in it, because,

uh, I'm not in track. You know,
I'm running track, but when it--

when it comes to Olympic time,
I'll be in football,

so I have no comment on the matter.

O.J. was saying, "I want to be judged
not by the color of my skin,

I want to be judged by the content
of my character

and. most of all,
the caliber of my competence.

I think I'm the greatest football player
that this country's ever seen.

That's all I wanna be judged by.

Don't tell me I've gotta do this
because I'm black."

I think football is a great sport.
It teaches a person an awful lot.

I would say there's less prejudice in
sports than any other field anywhere,

because, uh, it just-- you're accepted
as what you are,

you know, an athlete
and what you can do,

and I think this is good for anyone.

Simpson rushed for 1709 yards
in 1968,

more than any other back in history.

His durability is almost as legendary
as his speed and moves.

Simpson scored 22 touchdowns.

He carried a record 355 times and
proved himself nearly indestructible.

He was in a different world
than the rest of us.

There was an O.J. cult.
It was building, building, building.

When you bring a student athlete in
there on a visit, they wanna see O.J.

The community leaders, for speaking
engagements, they wanted O.J.

They wanted a role model. They
wanted the young black kids to see.

When I was 16 years old, I made
an all-star team down in Los Angeles

and they had a banquet,
and while we were eating,

the guy who was running
the whole show, he says,

"Okay, I wanna introduce the guest
speaker tonight, O.J. Simpson."

And I was like, "Wow!" I said,
"O.J.'s here. This is unbelievable."

O.J., when he walked up, he said,

"First of all, before I start
is Ron Shipp here?"

I put my hand up. I was like, "Is this--?
Is this for real?"

And he goes, "Are you the brother
of Michael Shipp?" And I say, "Yes."

And he goes, "Hey, everybody,
I just wanna tell you about,

uh, Michael Shipp, his brother,

we played against each other,
he's a great guy,

so on and so, Ron, if you're anything
like your brother, you know..."

and, like, he made me an instant hero
in that room.

I mean, I fell in love with the guy
right then.

This is the most incredible
human being.

Here is the star of our show,
Bob Hope.

I don't have to tell you it's a pleasure
to be here at OJU.

But it's wonderful to be here at USC.

You haven't had a riot,
a demonstration or even a sit in.

Are you sure this is a college?

I have some very sad news
for all of you.

Martin Luther King was shot
and was killed tonight in Memphis.

I tried to talk to O.J. before the show,

but I guess he has something
on his mind.

He kept referring to me
as Mr. Heisman.

RFK, RFK, RFK!

Pigs, pigs, pigs, pigs!

O.J., you've had quite a season.

Well, I have gained a few yards.

A few yards? You've gobbled up more
real estate than Howard Hughes.

When you think of 1968,
what do you think of?

1968, I think of winning all the games,
getting O.J. famous,

everybody on campus thinking
it's the greatest thing on earth.

That's all we thought about.
There was nothing else going on.

Several European newspapers today
condemned

the International Olympic Committee
for sending home

two militant negro athletes
from the United States.

The two, Tommie Smith
and John Carlos,

who ran first and third
in the 200-meter dash,

were banished after they raised
clenched fists in black gloves

during the playing
of The Star Spangled Banner.

Uh, with your bad self!

Say it loud!

I'm black, and I'm proud!

I didn't believe
in the national anthem,

but I stood up anyway,
because I didn't want no static,

but those days are gone.

Right on.

Brother Tommie Smith, Brother Johnny
Carlos and Brother Harry Edwards

join the ranks
of Brother Muhammad Ali,

because we want black people
who are concerned with us first

and with sports second.

Yeah!

Say it loud!

I'm black, and I'm proud!

At about, uh, 10 o'clock this morning,
we were notified that,

uh, a Heisman Trophy winner
comes back to USC

and, as you all know,
it's O.J. Simpson.

[ Applause ]

Thank you. Well, I--
I don't know quite what to say.

I'm, uh, certainly proud,
and I'm very happy,

and I'm-- I'm taking it as a team award
and all the other guys did as much

if not more than I do,
for me to get the award,

and I'll be glad to see all the guys,

'cause I know they're
just as happy as I am.

As you can see, the Heisman Trophy
award ceremony is over,

and O.J. Simpson, number 32,
the University of Southern California,

has been beset by autograph hounds.

Mrs. Simpson, I wonder if you'd be
good enough to come over.

Your tears only registered your pride,
and it's a very great pride,

and you should enjoy it, because
this is a very great young man.

O.J., the congratulations of all of us
to you for a truly remarkable season

and more importantly
for your impeccable character.

Thank you, Mr. Cosell.

So that's the story.

The Heisman award proceedings,
number 32, O.J. Simpson.

Perhaps the greatest running back
in the history of college football.

When I met him,
I was quite taken with him.

This is kind of a warm June night
in 1969.

Howard Cosell took O.J. and me
to Bachelors III,

which was Joe Namath's bar.

He was telling a story about being
at a teammate's wedding with his wife

sitting at a table of mostly,
as he said, Negroes,

and you overheard a white woman
at the next table saying,

"Look, there's O.J. sitting
with all those niggers."

And I remember in my naivete,
saying to O.J.,

"Gee, wow, that must have been
terrible for you."

"No, that was great.
Don't you understand?

She knew that I wasn't black.
She saw me as O.J."

And-- And really, at that moment,
um, I thought he was fucked.

Our first guest today is one of the
greatest running backs I've ever seen.

I met him when he was still in college
at Southern California,

and he's not only a hell of a football
player, he's a hell of a guy.

The winner of the Heisman trophy,
the finest college football player

in the country last year,

the Buffalo Bills' great rookie,
O.J. Simpson.

[ Applause ]

Thank you, Joe.

Now, with all that money you got
for signing with Buffalo,

I wanna know if you're gonna help me
out in some business interests.

[ Laughs ]

How's business?

Oh, it's pretty good.

I, uh, I'm under contract with--
I don't know if I can say it. I'm here.

Yeah.

Well, I'm under contract
with Chevrolet and RC Cola,

and I'm working with, um--
What network is it?

[ Laughter ]

ABC.

And, uh, they're keeping me
pretty busy.

The pitch to Chevrolet was

that this would be the first national
black spokesman.

You've got a black market.

He's not gonna be a negative
in any way to the white market,

but you're gonna get a lot of brownie
points just for stepping up.

O.J.? It's a real satisfaction to me
to be able to introduce

a great ballplayer like you

to an equally great group
of Chevrolet salesmen.

My pleasure, Chris.

At the time, athlete endorsements
were virtually non-existent.

And for them to sign him,
a black man, a football player,

was ground-breaking.

They tell me
that the Chevrolet selling team

is the greatest in the country.
I believe that.

That's what made perfect sense.

O.J. Simpson was
the counterrevolutionary athlete.

White America is looking for
somebody who can erase the threat

of these seemingly angry
principled black athletes

who are going to create a revolution
in sports.

O.J. made people feel good.

It was clear once you spent
some time with O.J.

that the Carlos, you know, fist pump,
and those kinds of, uh,

situations were not gonna be, you
know, present in-- in dealing with him.

He just gave you that confidence that
he understood what this was about.

I'd like to welcome a new member
of the ABC sports commentary staff.

It is O.J. Simpson.

Uh, well, Jim, I'll be doing basically
sports work with the, uh,

ABC radio networks and the TV
nextworks-- networks. I hope--

O.J. was very, very rough and needed
a lot of coaching in the early years.

It's pretty interesting,
and I'm really looking forward to it.

We obviously wanted him to be able
to speak proper English

and eliminate slang, and he didn't ever
take offense at that.

It was, "Thank you." You know?
"Okay, I got it."

He realized that his Horatio Alger
story was based on

him being a pleasing person
to white people.

I really had the sense that he was
enormously self-conscious

of who he was and who he needed
to be to get over.

That there was this character, O.J.,
which he was creating.

What does O.J. stand for?

[ Laughs ] Oh, Joe.

[ Laughter ]

Come on, tell it. Tell me.

Orenthal James Simpson.

Good.

[ Laughter ]

Now, that's a nice name, Orenthal.

Yeah.

[ Laughter ]

It's a good name.

You-- You never got in any arguments
over that, did ya?

No, no, I had, uh-- I had some pretty
good friends, pretty big friends,

and they were the only guys
who could tease me about it.

Well, in your movie career, uh,
motion picture industry,

are they gonna call you
Orenthal James or-?

They're gonna call me O.J.

[ Laughs ]

I was taken by O.J. as a character,
as somebody to write about,

that somebody was so self-aware
and so obviously ambitious.

The question in my mind then
and still now is

where did this imagination
come from?

Where did he begin to write this novel
about O.J. Simpson?

Everybody looks at San Francisco
now, "Oh, it's this cosmopolitan--

Oh, you know, everybody loves
everybody gooshy goosh."

It's not. It wasn't like that, man.

Potrero Hill was predominantly
African-American.

Public housing,
the old barracks from the navy.

When the navy left, the city turned 'em
into low-income housing.

It was a rough area.

The Simpsons lived
at the top of a big hill.

Carmelita, his younger sister Shirley
had a room,

and Melvin and O.J. had a room.

We crawled around
on the floor together

before we ever learned how to walk.

Four months apart. I'm born in March,
he's born in July.

We'd spend a lot of time
at each other's house.

We're a close-knit family.

The mother worked at night, so they
were responsible for themselves,

and sometimes he would open
the refrigerator

and there just wouldn't be nothing
in there,

and I'd say, "Well, come on, let's go
to my house and eat dinner."

O.J.'s mother, my aunt Eunice,
worked the graveyard shift

at San Francisco General Hospital.

She was a provider, she was steady,

but if you're in a single-parent
situation, you know,

there's never enough money.

[ Police siren ]

I mean, we were poor kids, you know.

We would steal cars, we would break
into somebody's house,

take all the women's purses and stuff
like-- You know.

We would be called criminals.

From the time we were 10 years old,
you know, we were hustlers.

You know, you'd go to the football
game, scalp tickets,

and everybody
had their own technique.

Yeah.

I would-- I can recall crying
in front of a cat, you know.

"Oh, I need it." [ Laughs] "Please
let me have that ticket." You know?

[ Laughter ]

"I wanna see-- I wanna see
Hugh McElhenny play," you know?

Cats break down, give you the ticket,

I would go on the other side
of the stadium and sell it.

Why didn't I think of that?

[ Laughter ]

Did you ever see him
in any fist fights?

O.J. didn't fight.

No?

No. O.J. was boisterous.

When you say he was boisterous,
did you ever see him,

uh, talk himself out of a--
a fight situation?

I've seen O.J. fight--
Talk himself out of a lot of situations.

There was this one incident
at school.

Myself, Al Collins and O.J., we were
all in the bathroom shooting crap.

We were cursing and talking loud,
and I was shaking the dice,

and, all of a sudden, these big wingtip
shoes slide in the circle,

and I looked up,
and it was Coach McBride.

We were all on the football team.

We're like, "Okay, Mr. McBride,
we're busted. Let us go to class."

He's like, "No." He's gonna take us
to the principal's office.

O.J. stays in back of the pack.
I could hear him,

"Oh, come on, Mr. McBride. You know
we're gonna be suspended."

So we get in the principal's office.

Coach McBride says, "I caught these
guys in the bathroom shooting dice."

And then he turned and walked out.

So O.J. turns and walks away.

Dean Smith says,
"Simpson, where you going?"

He says, "Oh, I was just helping
Mr. McBride bring these guys down."

[ Laughs ]
And Dean Smith let him go.

[ Bell rings ]

Self-preservation.
It was just that kind of smooth talk

that O.J. would do
in all kinds of situations.

Do you think he was shown
a little preference

because of his football ability?

Oh, yes.

You said you had seen Simpson talk
himself out of lots of situations.

Oh, yeah, talked himself... with me.

When we were younger,
Al Collins used to stutter,

and he never was good
with talking to girls.

Marguerite was the nice girl
from the other side of town,

but Marguerite liked Alan,
and they wound up going steady.

There was some party,
and O.J. came and got me.

I thought we was going straight
to the party,

but we pull up
in front of Marguerite's house,

and he tells me to get in the back,
and I'm, like, in shock, like, you know,

I seen her with-- you know,
walking with-- with Alan.

We go down to where the party is,
and Alan spots us,

and he starts shaking his head
and, "No! No way!"

He is furious, and Al is a big guy.

And he grabs the car,
and he's rocking it,

rocking the car back and forth,
just rocking it.

And Marguerite gets out of the car,
she says, "Alan, stop it."

And he stops. And we were like,
"No, he didn't."

[ Laughs ] How could O.J. keep
getting out of these situations?

He stole his best friend's girl.

Later on, you see the three of them
together. Alan went to USC also.

They were as thick as thieves.

Everywhere he went,
A.C. was with him.

Football really was
what brought us together.

We were really braggadocious,
you know.

We were like, "I'm gonna be
a pro football player,"

and O.J. said something
that really struck me.

He says, "Man, let me tell you guys
something. One of these days,

your children are gonna be fighting
over who wants to be O.J. Simpson."

He knew that he was
going to be somebody.

He was self-assured. I'll just--
I'll just put it that way.

O.J. has always wanted to be a hero.

If it was looking at Burt Lancaster
on The Man on the Flying Trapeze

or Burt Lancaster playing Jim Thorpe,
he always wanted to be a hero.

An American hero.

The Buffalo Bills select as their first
choice in the first round,

halfback O.J. Simpson,
the University of Southern California.

It was the last place you'd wanna be.

It was just like being sent to Siberia.

There was some players that said,
"Oh, Mr. Hotshot."

He understood that people
around him was envious

what he was getting
and what he was doing.

Stand by and go
whenever you're ready, O.J.

[ Chuckles ] Well, there was never
much doubt about missing him.

Uh, that was O.J. Simpson. O.J. is
now a professional football player.

The Buffalo Bills is his home,
and the question is

how many professional defensive
tacklers is he going to get by?

So what kind of an attitude

must O.J. Simpson have to play
professional football?

Well, he's gonna have to be
strong-willed,

uh, in many different ways,

because he will have a lot of people
picking at him, he'll have a lot of--

We had a coach, John Rauch,

which I've considered the worst coach
that we ever had.

Blocking, he will have to block,

because other people
are ball carriers also.

He tried to make O.J. a receiver,
more or less.

What we call tosses, quick, uh,
opening plays.

And O.J. could not catch a ball.

He couldn't catch a ball if they paid
him to catch a ball, which they was.

They was paying him. [ Chuckles ]
They was paying him a lot.

O.J. hated Buffalo.
He hated the weather.

It's a blue collar town. Hard working,
blue collar, factory-working people.

O.J. was nothing of that.

And plus, we was on a losing team.

The first couple years of his pro
career were very frustrating for him,

and they were disappointing relative
to the huge expectations

that everybody set for him.

I mean, they were saying
he was a bust.

If it had have stayed the same as it
was when he first got drafted in here,

he would have been a nobody,
I honestly believe that.

He'd have been a nobody.

Best thing happened to O.J.
was John Rauch got fired,

and Lou Saban took over.

Lou Saban was a person who believed
in the run game first,

the pass game second.

I tell you, if Lou Saban
hadn't have came in,

we wouldn't be doing
this story right now.

'73 was the year we opened
the new stadium.

So we had a 80,000 seat stadium,

and they brought in all these young
offensive linemen.

Coach Saban built the team to run.

When I got there
during exhibition season,

I saw him doing things that-- I said,
"Wow. Homeboy's pretty bad."

Lou Saban started selling them
on the idea that we can get 2,000.

You can get 2,000.
We can do this.

You can get it done. What's more,
you gotta get it done.

And in that first game,

we turned out the lights and started it
and never looked back.

First game I ever played in the NFL,
O.J. got 250 yards.

O.J. Simpson
could run sideways faster

than most men could run forward.

And he hit the line, and he'd go

[ whistles ] that quick,
then up the sideline.

He was amazing.

I've been around
a lot of good ballplayers,

but I've never been around anyone
that was as breathtaking

or as captivating as he was.

He would, like, glide.

He never really picked his feet more
than a couple inches off the ground,

so he was, like, slithering
through a hole.

When he'd hit a hole sometimes
he'd turn sideways

and kind of leap through it sideways.

Then if he broke open into the open,

then you'd start seeing the knees
go up in the stride.

That's when he was buttery.

He's the one who sucked me
into being a rabid Bills fan.

Let's hear it for the Bills. Let's hear it.
Come on! Let's go!

Let's go, Bills!

And once we got to the seventh game,

it was a Monday night game,
O.J. went over a thousand.

Everybody said,
"Hey, we have a shot at this."

Two thousand yards in 14 games.

That was like somebody breaking
Babe Ruth's home run record.

That was unheard of.

What was going through my mind
at the time is

he might have a chance
of breaking Jim Brown's record.

I never thought
that he would go 2,000 yards.

Why are you so much better
than everybody else?

I think-- I think the offensive line
is so much better than everybody.

Hey, you guys!

We're gonna turn it on.

All of a sudden, we got a nickname:
"The Electric Company."

And, wow, this is pretty cool.

The nickname came
from the PR director of The Bills.

There used to be a cartoon called
The Electric Company,

and his son watched it all the time.

He said, "Hey, dad, why don't you
call 'em 'The Electric Company'?"

They turn on the juice.

The Bills they got
that Electric Company

Montler, Foley, Big Joe D

They turn on The Juice
They turn on The Juice

They cut him loose
They turn on The Juice

You know I love to see
my Electric Company

Turn on The Juice
Turn him loose

O.J. just couldn't be stopped that year.

Throw that switch, boys
Turn the power on

There were times
when the quarterback

would only throw six passes
in the entire game.

There goes The Juice
There goes The Juice

The entire offense was O.J. Simpson.

There goes The Juice

30, 40...

Nobody actually thought he was gonna
go for 2,000.

With only, uh, two games to go, he
was still 400 and a few yards short.

Go, Juice!

Come on, Juice!

During the games, I never took
a minute off from the offense.

Do you want The Juice
to put a move on you?

I never made it to the bench.

Turn on The Juice

Yeah

I didn't wanna miss any of it.

Turn on The Juice

It was the most exciting thing
that I'd ever seen.

Turn on The Juice

Yeah

When we got to New York,
that last game,

he was going for Jim Brown's record.

With 60 yards needed,
and everyone knew

that The Jets didn't want him
to get the record.

I was actually there. The Jets had
no chance of making the playoffs.

The only interesting thing
about that day

was whether O.J.
was going to break 2,000.

It was a really snowy, cold day.

Hm, a little bit similar to today.

So a lot of people were worried

that he wouldn't have
a lot of rushing yards

because of that,
a lot of slipping in the snow.

He was nervous that day.

We had a little chat,
and I told him, I said,

"Hey, homes,
this is just another week for you."

I think he knew that "This is gonna
make or break me."

He knew that in order for him
to write his name in the book,

he had to be exceptional.

He was living a very comfortable life,

but he wanted to live
an exceptional life,

and this was his exceptional feat.

I remember just about every play
in that game.

Every time Simpson got the ball,

everyone was rushing to their, uh,
notepad to write it down.

And the announcers
kept counting it down.

Well, gentlemen, we are coming
upon it, and, uh, The Juice should

break the National Football League
rushing record in this next series.

Simpson running left, Simpson
breaking loose, and there it is!

All right! All right!

He needed four yards,
he got five and this crowd,

his whole team is gathering around
and congratulating him,

hitting him on the head,
there isn't a person sitting down.

He got the 1,863
pretty early in the game.

And they said, "Okay,
now we're going for the 2,000."

And now it's for the 2,000, Floyd.

More than 100 yards,
O.J., O.J. cuts inside,

O.J. gets wide, this is on!

Now a race he's at midfield and he's
inside Jets territory at the 43 yard line.

100 yards. How many games did
he get to 100 yards? Eleven?

Once he got over 100 yards,

a different excitement
started to hit the game.

Well, he might do this.
He might actually hit 2,000.

You had Jets fans who were basically
rooting for O.J.

because they wanted to be part
of history, and I think, you know,

I was basically a little kid,
but I think I felt that way.

Who cared if The Jets won?

Everybody loved O.J.

O.J., he's got five yards,
and O.J. running left,

O.J. five more. Maybe more.
I don't know.

They did it. They did it. Yeah!

And when he did it,
he was on my shoulder.

I knew how important it was.
I contributed to that also.

The defense has to give the ball
to the offense.

I felt it. It was mine, too.

Right after the game, there's
"Gotta get O.J. to the interview,"

and he said, "I'm not coming in unless
you bring in all the guys."

And we were in a tiny room.
We could barely fit in that room.

He brought in all the offense. He
refused to go in that room without us.

O.J., you brought 'em all with you.

Yeah. Hey, they did the job, all of you.

I want you to meet the boys. Here.

Mike Montler, our-- our-- our center.

Jim Braxton, Bob Penchion,
Joe Ferguson.

Didn't throw many passes this year,
but ball-handling is the thing.

[ Laughter ]

Donnie Green, [ laughs ]
Bobby Chandler, Paul Seymour,

Dave Foley, a former Jet.

[ Laughter ]

All right, all right!

[ Chuckles ] This is a guy,
through the long winter

wasn't supposed to play any football
this year.

He had a heart problem, but you came
back, and you see what we did.

JD Hill, "Crackback" Hill,
my main man Reg McKenzie.

He was the most generous guy
you'd ever meet.

When we broke the record,
he bought us a gold wristband.

And on the back of it is, "We did it.
The Juice. 3088."

He didn't say "2003", he said "3088",

because that's how much
the team rushed.

I hope to stay in the, uh, league
long enough for, uh, you know,

'til all these guys get old
so no young back

can get behind 'em
and break my record.

'73 was like a rebirth of his celebrity.

I was 22 years old, I thought,
you know,

"This is like being on a team
with Babe Ruth."

Mentally, I think he was ahead of, uh,
a lot of people.

From watching how he handled
himself, how he operated,

my whole demeanor changed.
I began to wanna be like O.J.

He was Baryshnikov. When somebody
is that great at something,

when we see those people,
they are special.

They just can do stuff
that other people can't do.

You expect it of yourself. You hear
the crowd, but you don't hear it.

I mean, you know they're cheering,
but that's the way it should be.

When I'm in the open, I'm running,
this is how it is supposed to be.

This is correct. This is
the natural state of things.

I know whenever I've done it,
my feelings have always been,

uh, that's nothing.
Uh, this is nothing yet.

Yeah, I'm gonna do it again.

Orenthal James Simpson
had that shine.

The sun hit him,
and there was this thing about him.

Because he really was that great.

He really was that great.

Football has been my vehicle
to come out of the ghetto,

uh, to give everything I've got.
I think I have a lot more to offer.

There's a lot of things I need
as a person.

You know, I need, uh--
I need that recognition.

I think that, uh, what--
what is driving O.J. Simpson

is that need to be number one,
that need to be liked.

That need to be said,
"Hey, that's O.J. Simpson."

When I walk down the street,
I want people to know me.

Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat

Let Hertz take you anywhere

We had done a survey
asking the customer base

what was the most important attribute
of the rental car experience?

And the most important attribute
was speed of service.

So we went to the agency,
and they showed a storyboard

of a businessman with a briefcase
running through the airport.

Our marketing guy said,
"Frank, it doesn't work.

That's not realistic to think
a businessman's gonna do that.

We need somebody
that connotes speed."

And I said, "Like what?"
He says, "Like O.J. Simpson."

Juice comes off the blocks,
immediately goes into the lead.

Steve Smith running in second place.

Right now it's Mark Gleason,
but here comes Hancock.

He moves past Gleason.

O.J. looks back, sees Smith
running at his shoulder,

steps on it a little bit,
and The Juice puts him away.

It was one of the clients who said,

"Did you see the ABC program
The Superstars?

O.J. just lit up the screen.

His personality came out,
and he just made everybody smile."

You gave him about a yard and
then you took a look at him.

What's happening?

Well, I was out there cruising.
I figure I'd coast it on in.

I saw Steve pull up on me, you know,
and my ego got a little ruffled there.

I said, "I'd better get out
in front again."

I called him,
and his first comment was,

"Hertz is the number one
rent-a-car company.

If I'm ever going to do anything
in advertising in a big way,

it's always gonna be
for the number one brand."

When you're in a rush,
take it from O.J. Simpson.

There's only one superstar
in rent-a-car: Hertz.

The first ad was filmed
in Newark Airport.

He was very professional,

he was anxious to make sure
that he did things correctly,

that his diction was appropriate.

Others claim to be fast, but nobody
has more to do it faster.

More pros to execute the toughest
performance standards.

More cars, more locations, first with
every good idea to speed up service,

like the Number One Club.

Before you get there, your form's
filled out, car's preassigned.

Go, O.J., go!

Rent a Ford fast from Hertz,
the superstar in rent-a-car.

I thought it was perfect.
I mean, it just made sense.

You're trying to portray
speed of service,

and you've got the fastest guy
in America running through the airport

and a little old lady yelling, "Go, O.J.!"

Go, O.J., go!

It was perfect.

It tested so well that they decided
to use him for the print work,

promotional work,
and they did the right thing.

He made that company successful.

He became the image
for that company.

We started in September of '75.

By two years of the campaign
running, O.J. Simpson

was the star presenter of the year
for Advertising Age.

There was never a story
that was written about O.J.

that didn't mention Hertz.

Coming or going on a business trip,
you've got no time to waste.

I can see him right now
flying through the airport.

Whether it's picking up
or dropping off--

I was proud.
It made me want that.

Go, O.J., go!

It gave me hope.

There you are with super-speed

This is an important moment.

The young black kid seeing a black
man running on television.

That's all he sees. He says, "He looks
like my uncle Reggie."

You know it.

That's something I could do.
I wanna be like O.J. on television.

Hi. Ever need to rent a car fast?
Watch.

You're in the limelight. We like
seeing you. You look like us.

It's kind of like
when I first saw black people

brushing their teeth on TV.

I mean, we always knew
we brushed our teeth,

but it was, like, a big thing.
Like, "Come see!"

That's what happened
with O.J. Simpson.

Those were heights that we had not
reached before, so he was a pioneer.

You're a black man in America,
you're fighting our war.

If you make a success for yourself
somewhere, you've opened a door.

Fortunately, because of the riots
of the early '60s,

some doors were opened to me.

If I were to have looked at myself
in any other way except a man,

my brother could walk
into a room and know

he's the only black guy in the room.

I walk in a room, and I don't care.

I don't count the blacks or whites
in the room,

and in '68, when I signed to work
for some white companies, you know,

Chevrolet Motor Division,
I walked in the room,

and I never thought that I was
the first black guy to do it.

I never even gave that any credence.

For us, O.J. was colorless.

None of the people that we associated
with looked at him as a black man.

O.J. portrayed success.

Success, I mean, from nowhere. And I
think people want to be successful.

O.J. was the first to demonstrate
that white folks

would buy stuff based
on a black endorsement

as long as it was not pressed
as a black endorsement.

And the way they did that was
to remove black people

totally from any scene
that O.J. was in.

It was Fred Levinson who said,

"Guys, we're going to be showing
a black man

running through an airport in 1975."

I said, "When you see the commercial
with a black guy

running through an airport,
a little different

than seeing a white guy
running through an airport."

So he came up with the idea
of putting in various characters

who would see O.J. and endorse him
by saying, "Go, O.J., go!"

Go, O.J., go!

Go, Juice, go!

Rent a Ford from Hertz.

The superstar in rent-a-car.

Right.

They bought the notion

that you could erase the black
character, the culture.

This is what made O.J. marketable.

He's African,
but he's a good-looking man.

You know,
he almost has white features.

He wasn't the typical black look,
African look.

What white America got out of it

was they could point to somebody
that had "made it"

and demonstrated unequivocally
that we are more than willing

to not just accept you,
but to embrace you.

What O.J. got out of it was money,
fame, celebrity.

Hey, hey, hey!
What you got to say?

I always tell everybody,
he was the guy of the '70s.

I look back at those days,

there was Muhammad Ali,
Hank Aaron and O.J. Simpson.

And O.J. was the most popular
of all of them.

Hollywood

I didn't see them running
through airports.

Hollywood swinger

When you're a star running back, you
have to maintain a certain image.

Aw.

I'm'a tell ya, I dug O.J..

I got a chance to see how he lived,
how he handled stuff.

I'd never been that close
to that type of success before.

Hey, listen, Hollywood city, yeah

They'd have 3-4,000 fans
standing around the bus

just to get a look at him.

He would stay on the field
and sign every autograph.

I've seen O.J. sign autographs
for hours.

I said, "How in the world
do you put up with this?"

He said, "Man, I wanted this."

O.J., tonight we're gonna change
your image.

Flip, you won't be the first who tried.

Hollywood, Hollywood swinging

When I first met O.J.,
he was a huge star.

I'll shave one side with the leading
double-edged blade.

I was friends with his wife
Marguerite's sister.

I can't tell.
Both sides feel the same.

They lived up in the hills, in Bel-Air.

Marguerite felt like she was a single
mother while O.J. was out being O.J.

Tonight, O.J.,
we're gonna be sophisticated.

Sophisticated.

We gonna have a ball, Orenthal.

I can dig it. Cool.

Right on, O.J.

Hollywood

The scene is this,
here is three poor black kids,

never had a thousand dollars
in our pockets.

Now he got a brand-new
drop-top Cadillac,

we're driving down Rodeo Drive.

Women come up, throw their arms
around O.J. and just lay it on him.

Not just women, white women.
Fine white women.

What you got to say?

It was that kind of world, man.

Hollywood, Hollywood swinging

Do you feel, like, any kind
of pressure in some ways to--

You know, people expect
that you're gonna be a hero

so you always have to--

Well, I found that-- I thought
that maybe my problem would be

that I would have to tear that down.

You know, I would have to, uh--
You know,

I-- I found that I was becoming
a trapped-- you know,

getting trapped within the image
other people have of me.

You know, my image was dictating
what I did and who I was.

I even had a manager at one point, I
was gonna do something and he said,

"You can't do that.
O.J. would never do that."

I said, "Hey, wait. Wait a minute.
I'm O.J. Simpson, you know?

[ Laughs ] And I'm'a do it."

Yeah, 'cause I would think
that someone

would like you to be a spokesman.
You know, to get out there.

All the time.

Yeah?

I've had a lot of pressure on me
to go into politics.

I was pulled into it once or twice
in the black movement,

when I was in school.

I think they tried to use us,
and in many cases, it-- it hurt guys.

I felt that with Harry Edwards.

It hurt Tommie Smith,
it hurt John Carlos.

Standing on his platform,

I thought they should've been
standing on their own platform.

I say if I'm gonna be standing
on the platform,

I'm gonna be speaking for O.J.
[ Laughs ]

When did you first meet Mr. Simpson?

1970.

Okay, and under what circumstances?

I met him, uh, on a tennis court.

Would you be able to describe
Mr. Simpson's

basic personality as you knew it?

Very personable, very outgoing.

We did business together, and then
we would, uh, socialize together.

We were at Bob Kardasian's mansion
in Beverly Hills.

O.J. is playing tennis, and everybody's
having a good time.

I'm with black power, get it?
[ Laughs ]

I don't wanna be around these people,
all right?

'Cause they're all phony to me.

I said, "O.J., look around you, man.

These people don't care
nothing about us.

Just a few years ago, these guys
woulda drove down Fillmore

in their Rolls Royce and they wouldn't
have even spit on us."

I said, "Now they're acting like
we're their long-lost brothers."

I said, "Man, the only reason
we're here is we are jocks,

and you're O.J.."

And he looked at me, he says,
"Mm-hm, yeah."

He says,
"I understand what you're saying,"

and he rubbed his tennis racket.

He says, "But I am O.J.,"
and ran off on the field laughing.

And I was, like, I mean, I was furious.

Because I say, "He's lost.
He's lost his identity.

He doesn't know who he is
any longer."

I think he'd been brainwashed.

Let me read you something
that he said to me.

"That sort of thing hurts me

even though it's what I strive for,
to be a man first.

Maybe it's money, a class thing.

The negro is always identified
with poverty.

But then you think of Willy Mays
as black, but not Bill Cosby.

So it's more than just money.

As black men, we need something
up there all the time for us,

but what I'm doing is not for principles
or black people.

No. I'm dealing first for O.J. Simpson,
his wife and his babies."

O.J.'s quest was to erase race
as a defining factor in his life,

and that was the basis upon which
white society

not only accepted him,
but embraced him.

Now, there are problems with that,

because what enabled O.J. to be O.J.
and not be black

was that so many Negroes
and black people stood up,

made the sacrifice, paid the price.

They're the ones that set the table
for O.J. and what he was saying was,

"Okay. We may not have arrived,
but I have arrived,

and as far as I'm concerned,

everybody else can get here
the same way that I did,

and when they get here,
they can do what I do."

He was so privileged,
he was so accepted,

he was so embraced that he was
immune from the reality

that he could find in the mirror every
morning that he was a black man.

No matter how far he runs
and how long he runs,

when you look in the mirror,

that black man is gonna be right there
with you. Every day.

We were just sitting around the house
once and, uh, he says,

"Joe, do you think you could go back?"

And I was like, "Go back where?"

He said, "You know, go back
to the projects, hanging out?"

I said, "Yeah, man." I said,
"I could go back tomorrow."

Potrero Hill. [ Laughs ]
Hasn't changed a bit.

We didn't have Dr. King and these
other bougie folks as role models.

Our role models was pimps
and players.

Those are the only people
that we looked up to,

because they had cool things.

They'd beat a ho down right there
on the street in front of everybody

so that all the women would know it,

this is the kind of treatment
you're gonna get

if you don't bring me my money.

Your perceptions are shaped
by the men that are in your lives.

Mama was Mama. We knew
she loved us, but the reality is

I didn't wanna be like Mama.
Mama's a woman. I want to be a man.

He had to deal with his father
from time to time.

Sometimes,
I guess his father came by

to take care of the monthly payment
or whatever.

One day, we went over to his dad's
house. We knocked on the door.

He kept looking at me, and when
his dad opened the door,

he was in a bathrobe,
which is not a crime,

but then his dad kinda
opened the door more,

and there was a guy in the back
in a bathrobe too,

so it was obvious that his dad
was gay.

We left and on the way back,
we were quiet.

Because there was so much tension,
we got to this certain point,

and we both bust out laughing.

Calvin came to me, and he was like,

"Man, did you know O.J.'s dad
is a punk?"

I was like, "Man, shut up.
I don't wanna hear that."

Back in our day that was the worst
thing in the world.

That you could ever think
about an African-American man

being a homosexual.

Did you ever talk to O.J. about this?

No.

Never?

Mm-mm. I felt like that issue was
enough for him to deal with himself.

Think of O.J. as an American man,

a poor American man,
tough American man,

who's recreating himself in ways
that people would accept and push.

O.J. Simpson may be playing the last
game of his brilliant football career

tomorrow when the Buffalo Bills
meet the Minnesota Vikings.

All year, O.J. has hinted he may
hang up his cleats for a movie career.

He could not wait to get out of Buffalo.

He was away from the glamour.

He was away from all the Hollywood
and all that stuff.

He got attention here, but it was
a different kind of attention.

It was not Hollywood attention.

Lou Saban said today that he's
detected a change in The Juice.

He hasn't diminished one whit
as a competitor,

but he's an intelligent man,

and he's thinking about the whole
of his future life.

There are certain opportunities
outside of football

that I can't, uh-- I just can't overlook
too-- too many more years.

You know, I came into the league,
I thought the world was mine.

I had a few bad years,
and I realized then that

"Hey, you know,
when you're hot you're hot,"

so there's opportunities that have
come to me with ABC,

with the movies that I would like to,
uh, take advantage of

and, uh, the only thing I wanna do
right now is play--

Get the best possible year
I can so if I do retire...

I-- I will feel that I gave it my all and I,

you know, uh, went out the best.

That's your own meretricious way
of saying you want my job.

Well, you gotta explain meretricious
to me, Howard.

[ Laughs ]

[ Chuckles ]

I always felt that there was more
underneath O.J. Simpson

than just the momentary superficiality
of his pleasantness.

He had goals
that he wanted to achieve,

and he internalized those things.

There was something driving him,
and I always felt

that he was looking
past a football career,

which was going to definitely
come to an end.

We are T-minus 18 seconds from
liftoff. We are T-minus 15 seconds.

Would you and your men
please follow me?

Gary, what the hell is this?

This is an emergency.
Please follow me now!

One of the most intriguing films now
being put together in Hollywood

is Capricorn One.

James Brolin plays the first astronaut
to set foot on Mars,

but the picture's scene-stealer
will probably be O.J. Simpson.

It basically came from the studio
that they wanted O.J. Simpson.

I thought there were
worthy African-American actors

who had paid their dues as actors,
who had shown their talent.

My first choice was either
Robert Hooks or Bernie Casey,

so my reaction
was less than enthusiastic.

I had seen Towering Inferno.

What? Damn it, man, you shoulda
sent a man up there.

How do you expect her to hear
a phone call? She's deaf.

I thought he was not gonna frighten
Daniel Day-Lewis.

O.J. was a celebrity
of enormous stature,

and somebody who had not shown
the chops to play the part.

How uptight do you get making
a picture like Capricorn One

where you're working in the company
of actors of-- of real stature and--

and you're just a football star
trying to be an actor?

No, I don't think, uh,
it's given me that-- that feeling.

It's obviously given me
the feeling that,

"Hey, I've still got a lot to learn."

I think, uh, you never stop learning
in anything,

and I-- I realize I'm still just a babe,
you know, in the woods.

My goal was to see if I could make
this guy work for what I wanted.

Came time to do his last scene.

Water. Tiny says signs for water.

He's a guy who's parched
and delusional.

Dry river bed. Signs.

And so rather than him acting
somebody

who was desperately thirsty--

...more sign.

I put appliances on his face that made
it difficult for him to move

and difficult to talk,
and it just made him sound

like he was in desperate trouble.

[ Sniffs ]
Elizabeth, there's no water.

[ Sobs ] There's no water. [ Sobs ]
I don't want to die. [ Coughs ]

And, uh, he was pretty good.

Elizabeth.

You know, at the-- at the--
What could I say?

He was a charming, terrific guy.

He was a positive guy.
He tried very hard,

and it was clear that he saw a future
for himself in film.

The Daisy was a private club
in Beverly Hills,

and the only people that could get in it

were either rich, famous or beautiful.

All the celebrities used to go there.
And really beautiful girls.

And you could get in even if you were
underage, no problem.

Jack Hanson started the disco,
and he knew every Hollywood star.

Jack was a former USC guy.

One day he said, "You chum around
a bit with this Simpson guy.

Could you bring him by, you know,
and introduce him to me?"

He was married to Marguerite
at that time.

But as we're sitting there, this
gorgeous little surfer blonde

is waiting tables at lunch hour.

O.J. goes, "Wow, who's that?"

Jack had Nicole come over
and said hello.

And she didn't walk 10 feet away, and
he looks right at Hanson and said,

"I'm gonna marry that girl."

She was 18 years old, she had just
graduated from high school.

She was just like my little sister.

She goes, "I met this man,
and his name is O.J. Simpson."

They went out,
and I waited up for them.

She got home, it was, like,
2 o'clock in the morning

and her jeans were ripped. And I went,
"What--? What happened?"

And she goes,
"Well, he was a little forceful."

And I go,
"Nicole, why would you let him,

first date, be a little bit forceful?"

"Well, Dave, don't be upset.
I think I really like this guy."

That was, you know, the start of it.

About two days later,
she went back to work. She said,

"O.J. came in. He wants to get
an apartment for me and also a car."

And I went,

"Nicole, think about this. You know,
he's married and has children."

And she goes, "But I think I really
like this guy." It was that fast.

Eighteen years old.
I mean, it was too young.

She was quiet, nice,
didn't say too much.

She wasn't like she was distant or
anything. She was just a shy person.

And Nicole was a doer. Whatever
Nicole put her mind to, she could do.

She actually wanted to be
a photographer,

and she was always an artist.

Honestly, the connection's
pretty obvious.

I mean, she's drop-dead gorgeous.

She was hot.
My sister was really a beautiful girl.

We didn't know who he was.
We were girls in the Brown house.

We didn't grow up with football.
We went to the beach.

So when Nicole came home with him,
we were like, "Who are you?"

They had a real love affair, these two.

When they were together, it was just--
it was love.

And that's what makes this thing
so sad.