The White Shadow (TV series)

The White Shadow was a television series that ran on the CBS network from November 27, 1978 to March 16, 1981. It starred Ken Howard as a White ex-NBA basketball player (per the storyline, previously with the Chicago Bulls) who was hired as head basketball coach at a mostly Black and Hispanic urban high school in South Central Los Angeles.

Produced by Bruce Paltrow for MTM Enterprises, the show stood alongside Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere for their humorous and full treatment of characters. It was a sophisticated forerunner to shows such as Homicide: Life on the Street, The Sopranos, Boomtown and Six Feet Under. On November 8, 2005, this series' first season was released on DVD, with the second season following on March 7, 2006.

Cast

Ken Howard - Coach Ken Reeves
Joan Pringle - Vice Principal (later Principal) Sybil Buchanan
Jason Bernard - Principal James Willis (pilot episode)
Ed Bernard - Principal James Willis (Seasons 1 and 2)
Thomas Carter - James Hayward (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
Kevin Hooks - Morris Thorpe
Nathan Cook - Milton Reese (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
Erik Kilpatrick - Curtis Jackson (Seasons 1 and 2)
Byron Stewart - Warren Coolidge
Ken Michelman - Abner Goldstein (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
Timothy Van Patten - Mario "Salami" Pettrino
Ira Angustain - Ricardo "Go-Go" Gomez (Seasons 1 and 2, guest-starring in Episode 54)
Russell Phillip Robinson - Team Manager Phil Jeffers
Robin Pearson Rose - Katie Reeves Donahue (Seasons 1 and 2)
Jerry Fogel - Bill Donahue (Seasons 1 and 2)
John Mengatti - Nick Vitaglia (Seasons 2 and 3)
Larry Flash Jenkins - Wardell Stone (Season 3)
Stoney Jackson - Jesse B. Mitchell (Season 3)
Wolfe Perry - Teddy Rutherford (Season 3)
Art Holliday - Eddie Franklin (Season 3)
John Laughlin - Paddy Falahey (Season 3)
Roosevelt Grier - Wrestling Coach Ezra Davis (Season 3)

Trivia

The show's title is derived from a statement by Reeves in the last scene of the pilot episode, where he told the members of the team that he would support them and be right behind them, to quote Thorpe, "like a white shadow".
The White Shadow was the first ensemble drama on prime-time television with a predominantly African-American cast.
Having aired 54 episodes, The White Shadow is the second-longest running drama with a predominantly African-American cast in the history of American prime-time television. Only Soul Food aired more episodes (although The Wire is expected to pass The White Shadow in late 2007, with the fifth episode of its fifth season).
Reeves graduated from Boston College, where his roommate and best friend was Jim Willis.
Jason Bernard, who played Jim Willis in the pilot episode and Ed Bernard, who played Jim Willis for the remainder of Season 1 and all of Season 2 are not related.
Reeves played as a forward for the Chicago Bulls in the less-than-stellar, pre-Michael Jordan years, until knee problems forced his retirement.
Salami and Vitaglia were cousins.
Salami's car -- a 1963 Oldsmobile Cutlass -- was nicknamed "The Motel California", probably in tribute to the Eagles' classic 1976 album Hotel California.
Although the opening credits implied otherwise, Thorpe discarded his eyeglasses at the beginning of Season 2, and began wearing contact lenses.
John Mengatti had a walk-on role early in Season 2 before debuting as Nick Vitaglia.
Despite the fact that Carver High was located in South Central (presumably in Watts), there was a level of ethnic diversity among the team:

- Hayward, Thorpe, Reese, Jackson, Coolidge, Stone, Mitchell, Rutherford, Franklin, and team manager Jeffers were African-American

- Salami and Vitaglia were Italian

- Goldstein was Jewish

- Gomez was Mexican

- Falahey was Irish

During the first two seasons, the original eight players were frequently shown singing in the shower after practice, usually with Reese as the lead singer. Eventually, with the help of the music teacher, they formally organized themselves into a group, singing in harmony reminiscent of 50s and 60s R&B groups. They were known simply as "The Team". While their vocal ranges seemed to change slightly from episode to episode, the first season finale -- "LeGrand Finale" -- firmly established the following:

- Falsetto: Reese (although it is almost certain that his actual range made him a tenor)

- 1st Tenor: Thorpe

- 2nd Tenor: Hayward, Salami, Goldstein

- Baritone: Jackson

- Bass: Coolidge

Gomez was apparently tone deaf, as he was advised to simply lip-synch or play the tambourine.

Unlike The Partridge Family, the cast of The White Shadow did their own singing during the shower scenes. According to commentary by former cast members on the Season 2 DVD, Nathan Cook (Reese) was clearly the best singer.
Hayward was apparently the only member of the team to successfully enroll in college (although Coolidge's St. Elsewhere career as an orderly suggests post-high school training of some sort).
Only Thorpe, Coolidge, and Salami were on the team for the entire series.
For six seasons, Byron Stewart brought his character to the drama St. Elsewhere, where Coolidge worked as an orderly in a Boston hospital.
Thomas Carter (Hayward), Kevin Hooks (Thorpe), and Timonty Van Patten (Salami) all became successful directors in film and television.
- Carter directed the pilot episode for Miami Vice, and has won 3 Emmy awards. His films include Coach Carter (about a high school basketball team), and Save the Last Dance.
- Hooks, also an Emmy award winner, has an extensive resume, including directorial work on 21 Jump Street, Homicide: Life on the Street, 24, Lost, and the film Passenger 57.
- Van Patten directed multiple episodes of The Sopranos and Sex and the City. He is also a co-writer of the acclaimed "Pine Barrens" episode from Season 3 of The Sopranos.
Future film director Carl Franklin (Devil in a Blue Dress, Out of Time) appears in the second season finale as a musician involved in an altercation with Reese and Hayward.
Angustain bears a strong resemblance to Freddie Prinze, and portrayed the comedian/actor in the 1979 TV movie Can You Hear the Laughter? The Story of Freddie Prinze, co-starring Kevin Hooks.
Kevin Hooks and Erik Kilpatrick were friends long before The White Shadow, due to the friendship of their fathers, actors Robert Hooks and Lincoln Kilpatrick.
When the series premiered in 1978, Nathan Cook (Reese) was 28 years old, while Timothy Van Patten (Salami) was 19.
Although he was in almost every episode, Russell Phillip Robinson (Jeffers) rarely spoke, as high school basketball team managers are usually seen and not heard.
While the team flirted with drug use in one episode, it was clearly established in others that Jackson was a recovering alcoholic, and that Jeffers had been recovering from drug addiction since age 12.
Nearly two decades before schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau seduced her student Vili Fualaau, history teacher Ellen Jensen seduced Salami in the second-season episode "Salami's Affair".
Stoney Jackson (Mitchell) is a part of pop music history. In 1983, he was one of the dancers (gang members) in Michael Jackson's Beat It, one of the most popular music videos of all time.
In 1988, Nathan Cook died from an allergic reaction to penicillin. Prior to that, he appeared in the entire run of the Aaron Spelling drama Hotel.
Wolfe Perry (Rutherford) was a star basketball player at Stanford University in the late 1970s.
Roosevelt "Rosey" Grier (Coach Davis) played professional football in the NFL from 1955 to 1966. He was serving as a bodyguard for his friend presidential candidate Robert Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968. Grier and Olympic gold medalist Rafer Johnson subdued the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, with Grier jamming his thumb behind the trigger of the gun to prevent further shots from being fired.
Hill Street Blues actor Michael Warren appeared in the first-season episode "Wanna Bet?" as a basketball street hustler. Warren was an excellent basketball player, having been an All-American at UCLA, where he was a teammate of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and won two NCAA championship titles.
In Season 1's "Spare the Rod", future Broadway superstar Brian Stokes Mitchell (in his first credited acting role) portrays a troublemaking student, in an episode depicting both student-on-teacher abuse and attempted rape.
In the early 2000s, Ken Howard and Byron Stewart appeared as Reeves and Coolidge in a TV commercial for ESPN.
The Season 3 replacement of Hayward, Reese, Goldstein, Gomez, and Jackson with newcomers Stone, Mitchell, Rutherford, Franklin, and Falahey is considered to be the series' "jump the shark" moment.
Arguably, Coolidge's sustained presence on St. Elsewhere places The White Shadow firmly within the Tommy Westphall universe.

External links

]]