Mr T explains why he’s late, but he wants to make one thing clear – this is not an apology. “You caught me in my devotion, and nothing comes before God. So I won’t say I apologize for the delay. I just want you to know that God comes first in all my life. For allowing my success, I give God the glory.”
He’s here to talk about a new Netflix documentary, Untold Mr T: I Pity the Fool. At 74, he rarely gives interviews. But when Mr T decides to talk, he really talks. What Mr T thinks, Mr T says. And I’ve never heard anyone trash the very thing they’re there to promote quite like Mr T does today.
The actor, former wrestler, and cultural icon is full of surprises. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that he’s still famous. As he says himself, he has no right to be. It’s been over 32 years since he was in a wrestling match. Thirty-five years since he had a major acting role in a TV show. Thirty-nine years since he starred as BA Baracus in The A-Team, and 44 years since Rocky III – the only TV show and movie he’s really remembered for. And yet, somehow, he’s still a household name.
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‘I don’t need gold now.’ Photograph: Nolis Anderson/The Guardian
In the 80s, many boys and girls wanted to grow up to be Mr T. The A-Team was shown all over the world. This action-adventure TV series about four US army special forces commandos turned mercenaries became a huge hit and helped define the era.
Movie star George Peppard was supposed to be the show’s main attraction. But much to Peppard’s annoyance, Mr T turned out to be far more popular. His character BA (Bosco Albert or Bad Attitude, take your pick) Baracus was a mechanical genius and problem-solver; a top-notch fighter and human battering ram, who wore an African Mandinka-style haircut, jangled with gold chains, and had an incredibly high pain tolerance. In some ways, BA Baracus and Mr T were alike. In others, they couldn’t have been more different.
Born Lawrence Tureaud, Mr T grew up on the south side of Chicago, in poverty. His minister father left home when he was five, leaving his mother, Willie, to raise their 12 children. The family survived on her work scrubbing floors for the wealthy, plus welfare. Lawrence was known to his brothers and sisters as Little T. While growing up, everyday racism had a devastating impact on him. He was horrified by the disrespect most white people showed his family.
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The A-Team. From left standing: Dwight Schultz, Melinda Culea, Dirk Benedict. Front: Mr T, George Peppard. Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
At 18, he changed his name to Mr T. “Let me explain that,” he says. “See, everything I do, there’s a reason behind it. My father was a minister, and I watched him being called Boy. And I watched my uncle being called Boy. I watched one of my brothers, who was a marine, come home from Vietnam in his beret and uniform, and some white guys were calling him Boy. So at 18, I had to register for the draft. I said, if I’m old enough to fight and die for my country, I’m old enough to be respected as a man. So I first self-ordained myself Mr T. Then later on, I legally changed my name to Mr T, so the first word out of everyone’s mouth would be Mr.”
We meet on a video call. At 74, he looks great. He’s wearing a stars and stripes bandana and a T-shirt that says Lord’s Gym, with a picture of Jesus doing push-ups with the crucifix on his back. His face, less full than it once was, is wonderfully lined and creased, full of laugh lines.
“My mother taught me to take the high road.”
Mr T is part preacher, part poet, part fighter. Close your eyes, and you could be talking to Muhammad Ali in his prime. It’s all there in the rhythm of his speech, the wit and wisdom, the fighting talk. And yet, over the decades, he’s often been portrayed as a muscle-bound meathead. He says if he had been that, his mother would never have forgiven him.
He takes me back to his early years.In his early school years, he wanted to be tough like his older brothers and dreamed of becoming a successful footballer or boxer. But even more than that, he wanted to pass his exams, because Willie had taught him how important education is. She told him the story of Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist who was born into slavery. Douglass was taught to read by his enslaver’s wife, and then his master told her, “Don’t teach a slave to read, because if you do, he won’t be a slave much longer.” Education was the path to freedom.
What did he study? “Philosophy and theology. A teacher in high school said, there’s no money in that, and I said: ‘Sir, that’s disrespectful. That’s insulting, because not everybody’s about money.’ They didn’t take the time to know who I am.” I tell him I’ve read a lot about him, but this is the first I’ve heard of him studying philosophy and theology. “See, that’s the problem. I’ve told journalists the same thing I’ve told you, but they don’t print that. They didn’t want people to know what Mr T is like. I was born and raised in the ghetto, but the ghetto was not born and raised in me. We were poor financially, but we were rich spiritually. I never robbed anybody, I never raped anybody, I never broke into anybody’s house. I never snatched a purse.”
By the age of 15, he was a famous school athlete and looked like a grown bodybuilder. But his peers made fun of him. “Growing up in the ghetto, even though I played football and wrestled, the thugs called me a sissy. You know why? Because I never robbed nobody.” He talks louder and louder. Soon he’s shouting. “They called me a sissy for listening to my mother, for listening to the teachers, for doing my homework. They didn’t go to school. They were dropouts. They were thugs. They’re in jail now or dead. They didn’t become anything. As the Bible says, ‘Unless two agree, they can’t walk together.’ I told my mother I was going to be something in life. I was going to buy her a house and pretty dresses. They weren’t going anywhere.” At times like this, he reminds me less of Ali and more of Samuel L Jackson’s Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction. Except Mr T’s Bible quotes are real, and they focus on the loving side of the Old Testament rather than the hellfire and damnation.
Despite all this, the new Netflix film focuses on a violent incident from Mr T’s teenage years. In the documentary, he describes how some local thugs robbed his mother of her welfare money, and he knocked their teeth out with the butt of a rifle, and told them that was just the beginning. He leaves the story hanging.
I mention this and he scowls. “There is too much emphasis on that scene. These thugs kept on robbing poor black women, who didn’t have no recourse. So we did what we was supposed to do. We’ll leave it like that. We don’t have to get into gory detail. You touch my mother, you got to pay. Bottom line. Then I would have been a real sissy if I didn’t take care of it.” But he’s not proud of what he did. “Revenge on the guys went against my God’s teaching, because Jesus said, vengeance is mine. But then we wasn’t dealing with the Bible stuff. It’s Dodge City. Somebody got to pay. Case closed. There’s nothing else to talk about. We’re going on to the next thing.” Did the guys live to tell the tale? “We’re going on to the next thing.” Silence.
After college, he won a football scholarship to Prairie View A&M University, a predominantly Black college in Texas, where he majored in maths and was deputy president of the freshman year. But he was thrown out in 1971 for being part of a protest and uprising against the expulsion of the editor of the student newspaper, The Prairie View Panther.Photographs from that era show a very different Mr T – a neatly dressed, clean-shaven student in a sharp suit.
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A yearbook photo of Mr T. Photograph: Alamy
He went back to Chicago and took on physical jobs (working as a janitor at a local bank and doing housekeeping at a hotel) while attending local colleges on athletic scholarships. In 1975, he joined the US Army’s military police corps and was named the top trainee out of 6,000 recruits. He left the army in 1978 with an honourable discharge. After a knee injury ended his dream of playing in the National Football League, he started working as a bouncer.
That’s when he developed his signature look. While working at Dingbats nightclub, he collected gold chains from customers who either dropped their jewellery or left it behind after late-night fights. His image was carefully crafted. He says the gold was his way of reclaiming history. Instead of wearing steel chains like his ancestors had, he would wear chains of gold. “People were concerned that I had too much gold and asked if it was too heavy. Nobody said to my ancestors: ‘That pregnant lady shouldn’t be in chains.’ Nobody cared about that, but all of a sudden they’re worried about this Black man, Mr T.”
The jewellery and haircut were a way to grab attention, he explains. “See, my mother and father taught me it takes a smart man to play dumb. In order to catch a rat, you gotta have cheese, so they want to see this man with the gold, with this funny haircut. Who is this guy? So they give me a chance, and I slip my message in. Maybe he looks crazy, but he’s not crazy. Now I’ve got your attention, I can tell you about me.”
He explains why he used to wear seven earrings – three in his right ear and four in the left. “The three is symbolic of the father, son and the holy ghost; the three wise men; the three Hebrew boys – Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego; the three parts of the day – morning, noon and night; the three graces – faith, hope and love; the three civil rights workers that were killed in Mississippi trying to register blacks – James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. And the four in my left ear are symbolic of the four seasons – spring, winter, summer and fall; the four directions – north, east, south and west; the four gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You put the three and the four together, it’s seven. There were seven times the Israelites marched around the walls of Jericho, Samson had seven locks of hair, there are seven colours in the rainbow, there are seven musical notes, God made heaven and Earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. I am the seventh son. So everything I do, there is a reason behind it.”
Mr T became a personal bodyguard to the stars, including Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Steve McQueen and Ali. I ask who he was closest to. He gives me a look that suggests he’d have to kill me if he told me. “No, I don’t want to name names. Everybody protected was important to me, ‘cos it’s a life. If there was a gun, I’d take the bullet; if there was a knife, I’d be stabbed.” Did he ever have to take a bullet or knife for anybody? “No, no, no, it didn’t come to that. But if it had, I was ready.”
He had first met Ali when he was 16. “I was a sophomore in high school. One of my teachers knew Muhammad Ali, and told him about me and he came to my school. He said, ‘I want the baddest kid in the school to meet me in the gym’, because I’d just won the city wrestling championship. Ali became my hero because he stood up during the Vietnam war and said: ‘I have no quarrel with the Viet Cong, they never called me nigger, so why are we fighting the Viet Cong?'”
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As Clubber Lang in Rocky III in 1982. Photograph: Collection Christophel/Alamy
In 1980, Mr T won an NBC show called America’s Toughest Bouncer. The thing is, he says, there were tougher men than him in the competition, but they didn’t have the right look.I didn’t win because I was the roughest, toughest, or meanest—there were some tough guys there. Sure, you had to be a bit tough and physical, but I won because I had a bigger purpose than the others. One guy said if he won, he’d buy a car; another said he’d party. I said, when I win, I’m going to feed the homeless in the community.
It was on this show that casting director Rhonda Young spotted him and suggested him to Sylvester Stallone for Rocky III as his rival Clubber Lang. Mr T’s performance is amazing, especially since he had never acted before and many of his lines were made up on the spot. (Most famously, when he taunts Rocky by telling his wife, “Bring your pretty little self over to my apartment tonight, and I’ll show you a real man.”) It was in Rocky III that he first said “I pity the fool,” which became his catchphrase. The film was the second highest grossing movie of 1982, right behind ET the Extra-Terrestrial.
Mr T was on a mission, but he insists it had nothing to do with fame. “My pastor, Reverend Henry Hardy, said: ‘When you are in Los Angeles filming Rocky III, find a place where you can help out.’ So when I was out there, I got connected to this homeless center called the Midnight Mission.” Half a century later, he can still list the names of the other shelters he worked with while making Rocky—the Fred Jordan center and Union Rescue Mission. “I brought them food and clothes. They didn’t know who I was. Since we were filming Rocky III, I brought a lot of Nike stuff. I left it at the door. Eventually, at the Midnight Mission, they found out who I was, and they asked if I’d come in and pray and give a sermon, so I started preaching there.”
A year later, in 1983, the A-Team started, and Mr T became a global superstar. It aired in more than 70 countries, and he soon became the highest paid cast member, much to Peppard’s annoyance. He then became a global superstar twice over as the face of the US’s most prominent anti-drugs campaign.
“The president and his wife, Nancy Reagan, heard about me telling kids ‘don’t do drugs’ and ‘don’t rob and steal,’ and Nancy Reagan says ‘Mr T would be great for my program Just Say No.’ So they check your background. And when they checked mine, it blew them away. They said ‘Wow! He grew up in the ghetto, his mother raised them on welfare and food stamps, and they have no police record! Run that check again!’ They ran it again. ‘And one of his brothers is a Chicago police officer, another is a Chicago fireman—how do they do that?'” Mr T answers his own question for me. “Because we loved and respected our mother.” There’s a famous campaign photo, taken in December 1983 at the White House, with Mr T dressed as Santa Claus, while Nancy Reagan sits on his knee and kisses his forehead.
In 1985, he became a global superstar a third time when he starred in the first WrestleMania with Hulk Hogan at Madison Square Garden. Liberace was the guest timekeeper, and Ali was the special “outside” referee. By then, you couldn’t move for Mr T merchandise. There were Mr T dolls, Mr T costume sets, Mr T cereal, Mr T lunchboxes, and a Mr T cartoon series.
Does he think Peppard, who reportedly called him “the worst actor on the set” and refused to use his name, was jealous of him? “My mother taught me to take the high road. I don’t want to get into that. My job is to love people, and I did. I always respected him. See, I don’t have to hate anyone. How can I claim to be a man of God if I’m hating somebody?”
I was surprised, beforeDuring our interview, Netflix told me how much Mr. T loved the documentary and how eager he was to promote it. The film suggests his fall from fame was as quick as his rise, driven by bad choices and poor behavior. When I bring this up, he says it’s a false story. The real reason, he explains, is that he no longer wanted to act. “I don’t want to sound arrogant or full of myself, but if I never earned another dollar or appeared on TV again, everything I ever wanted to achieve is already done.” What was that? “All I wanted was to buy my mother a beautiful house and nice dresses. I did that in the ’80s, so the goal was met. It was finished. I was already stepping away. When they called me for the A-Team, I was at the wrap party for Rocky III. They told me, ‘The producer wants to meet you,’ and I thought, ‘I’m going home, my work is done. I’ve finished Rocky III, and I’m returning to my old life.’ My mother once said, ‘Son, there are some things money can’t buy.’ As the poem goes, if you can walk with kings and queens without losing your common touch, then you’ll be a man, my son. How many people have sold their souls chasing money? I’m not chasing wealth. I never did.”
He says the problem with the Netflix film is that it focuses on his tough-guy image and overlooks who he really is. “The documentary upset me because they left out so much. When I watched it, I thought, ‘What the heck?’ It’s rubbish. You build me up, then try to tear me down. I said, ‘Wow, man, I’m more than that.’ They interviewed my pastor for two days, and he only gets 30 seconds on screen.” In his view, “That’s what we call, in the black community, a white man trying to change the story and control the narrative. If you don’t know me, you’d think I’m some kind of monster.”
Mr. T seems most upset about the attention given to his former agent, Peter Young. He says they had a falling out and claims he sued Young after discovering that Young was allegedly signing contracts without Mr. T’s knowledge. Meanwhile, in the documentary, Young says Mr. T made terrible decisions, pointing to the film Freaked, a comedy set in a sideshow where Mr. T played the Bearded Lady. Young claims Mr. T left three days before filming ended.
“I had no issue playing in Freaked because we were challenging the stereotype,” Mr. T insists. “Brooke Shields was in it, Keanu Reeves was in it, Randy Quaid was in it. It was a good role, but he’s putting me down for taking it. He wants to diminish me. The time spent on that part of the documentary could have been used for my pastor talking about the people I’ve helped in the community, but you don’t show that.” To be fair, the documentary does show some of that. He starts addressing me as if I made the film. “You see what I mean? Why not show Mr. T working with Make-A-Wish kids, or Mr. T serving in the army? So you show Mr. T being tough, then you show Mr. T as the Bearded Lady. That’s an agenda. It was a hidden agenda—they had to undermine what I stand for. What a joke!”
He’s not finished yet. “Here’s the part that really angers me. My manager and I had a conference call with Scott [Weintrob, the director], and he asked, ‘What about Peter Young?’ I said, ‘We had to sue him, so no, we want nothing to do with him.’ Then we asked Scott, ‘Okay, we’d like to see some footage of what you’re working on, because when we make a movie, we review the dailies.’ But he didn’t show it to me. We started filming last year around Easter. I didn’t see the final version until a month ago. I saw nothing during production. So now that I’ve seen it, I think, ‘Wow, isn’t this something.’ We told them…”Don’t put Peter in my documentary, but he did.
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‘I’m doing what my calling is.’ Photograph: Nolis Anderson/The Guardian
When he finally saw the film, he says he had to pray for self-control. “I said: ‘Lord, don’t let me lose it. Don’t let me lose it.’ Because I wanted to go off on Netflix. And I thought: ‘If I lose it in here, it’s not going to be pretty.’ I said: ‘Take the high road.’ So I took the high road.”
A message flashes on my screen from the Netflix representative, who is listening in on the interview, pleading with me to change the subject. But Mr T isn’t quite done. I’ve asked about the comment in the film that he would only show up to events if a white limousine was booked for him. “What’s wrong with white limousines? Shouldn’t I have a choice of color? I wear white underwear. Does that make me a bad guy? Let’s get real here. I wear white T-shirts sometimes—does that make me a bad person? I wear white socks. So what’s the problem with that? Sure, I like a white limousine. When Elvis Presley died, he had a white limousine, so why can’t I have one while I’m alive? But Mr T’s a bad guy. They don’t care about him feeding the homeless, but, you know, ‘He wanted a white limousine, he wanted a certain kind of soap in his hotel room. Wow, he’s a bad guy.'”
Mr T is furious. “I’m not supposed to tell you what I like? I’m just supposed to take what you give me? No, no, no, no, brother, it doesn’t work like that. ‘When he became successful, he told them if they don’t fly his whole family, he ain’t flying,'” he says, as if quoting his critics. “That’s what I told them too. My family is coming along. If they’re not part of it, I don’t do the deal.” Sure, he got the best deal he could, he says, because he was in a position to, and he knew his worth.
We asked Netflix, Weintrob, and Young whether they wanted to comment on the views Mr T has expressed about the film. Young replied: “Please give Mr T my best, and let him know I forgive him.” Netflix and Weintrob have so far declined to comment.
I try to change the subject, and I tell him I love his daughter Erica’s comedy. (She is one of his three children, and a former teacher.) “I don’t go to see the comedy because it’s got four-letter words in it and stuff,” he says. He’s still seething at Netflix. I ask him what he’s doing at the moment, and he tells me he’s visiting family in Chicago and spending time with the Pacific Garden Mission. “Once or twice a week I take them hand and foot warmers, because it’s so cold. See, my life is like a rose. You gotta get past the thorns to get to the beautiful rose. So I take all the garbage, the lies, the lawsuits. As my brother would say, in a fight, ‘That’s all you got?'” Somehow the anger has dissipated and calm is restored.
He says he’s so grateful for the difficulties he has faced in life—his childhood poverty and the T-cell lymphoma that almost killed him in the 1990s. And there’s been plenty worse than a film that doesn’t treat him with enough respect. “You ain’t gonna hear me crying the blues about ‘we were treated rough.’ Life ain’t supposed to be easy. That made me who I am. I think of Maya Angelou’s poem. She said: ‘Still I rise.’ So, whatever you throw at me, I’m gonna rise from that. If you give me lemons, I’m gonna make lemonade. If you give me crap, I’m gonna make fertilizer.”
I ask him if it’s true that he stopped wearing gold after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Yes, he says. After helping with relief work in Louisiana, he felt it would be disrespectful to show off his wealth while thousands of people had lost everything. Has he started wearing it again? “Sometimes I wear gold. Maybe one earring. I don’t need gold now. My hMy heart is gold. You know why I don’t need to wear gold? Because gold gets you attention. It’s like making an announcement: ‘Attention! Attention! Attention!’ And now he’s grinning like a little boy. ‘So, once you’ve got that attention, people slowly get to know this guy, Mr T. They know his rap; they know what he stands for.’
I tell him I’m going to expose him for having a cute smile, and it will ruin his reputation. I catch another flash of it before it turns into a hammy snarl. ‘Then I’m going to say: “Don’t believe what they say.”‘
Netflix asks me to wrap up, though it seems like he could talk forever. He’s barely taken a breath in almost two hours. I’ve never met a man in his seventies with lungs like Mr T. Okay, just a few more questions, I say.
Is there a lady in his life at the moment? (In the mid-80s, he and Phyllis Clark, the mother of his three children, divorced.) ‘Oh, there are a lot of ladies in my life. There’s my daughter, my sisters, my nieces. And then there are the ladies at church.’ I ask Mr T if he’s teasing me. ‘Yes, I am. Actually, there is a lady in my life, yes. We’re about to get married. Yes. Now, go with that.’ What’s her name? ‘I’m not going to tell you. I’ve given you enough now.’
If you were offered a decent role in the next Rocky film, would you take it? ‘No, no, no. I’m doing what I’m called to do. The money I made allowed me to have this free time.’
Has he got much money left? ‘No. Let’s say I’m broke, because that sells better. People want to hear that he’s broke and out of money. It works better.’ I tell him I don’t want to say it if it’s not true. He’s grinning. ‘You have no choice. I’m not going to open my wallet to you. See, if I’ve got God, I’ve got all I need anyway. All I wanted to do is done – buy my mother a house and pretty dresses. I am complete. I. Am. Complete. All right, brother, God bless you.’
Untold Mr T: I Pity the Fool premieres globally on Netflix on 8 September.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs about the life and philosophy of Mr T based on the quote I dont chase the dollar I never did
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 Who is Mr T and why is he famous
Mr T is an American actor and former bodyguard best known for his roles as BA Baracus in the 1980s TV show The ATeam and as Clubber Lang in the movie Rocky III He is also famous for his distinctive mohawk hairstyle gold jewelry and his catchphrase I pity the fool
2 What does the quote I dont chase the dollar actually mean
It means Mr T doesnt make his life decisions based on how much money he can make Instead he focuses on doing the right thing staying true to his values and helping others He believes that if you do that money will come to you naturally
3 If he didnt chase money how did he get so rich
He got rich by being really good at what he did He worked hard as a bodyguard which led to his big break in Rocky III Because he was authentic and memorable opportunities came to him He didnt negotiate for millions upfront he earned them through his unique personality and work ethic
4 What did Mr T do before he was an actor
Before acting he was a bouncer and a bodyguard He famously protected celebrities like Muhammad Ali Steve McQueen and Michael Jackson He was known for being tough but also very polite and professional
5 What are some of Mr Ts core values
His core values are faith family and hard work He is a devout Christian he loves his mother and family deeply and he believes in treating people with respect He also famously encouraged kids to stay in school and avoid drugs
Advanced Philosophical Questions
6 How did Mr Ts childhood influence his not chasing the dollar philosophy
Mr T grew up very poor in a Chicago housing project with 11 siblings He saw how the pursuit of money could corrupt people and break families apart His mother taught him that your word and your character were more important than possessions which shaped his entire worldview
