To this day, Robert Townsend has Oakland to thank for helping preserve his directorial vision.
It was early 1993, and he was finishing post-production on “The Meteor Man,” an action comedy that he directed and starred in. It was one of the first Hollywood films to feature a Black superhero, and MGM was nervous about how it would play to audiences. So the studio arranged a Saturday morning test screening at the Grand Lake Theatre.
More Information
Robert Townsend Artist in Residence Film Series: Wednesday-Sunday, Aug. 5-9. $12.50-$15 per film; $15-$20 double features. Balboa Theater, 3630 Balboa St., and 4 Star Theater, 2200 Clement St., S.F. www.cinemasfbay.org
Full Schedule
Wednesday, Aug. 5, Balboa
7 p.m.: “Hollywood Shuffle” (1987) directed by Robert Townsend, on 35 mm. Followed by Townsend in conversation with San Francisco author and CinemaSFbay Board President Robert Mailer Anderson.
Thursday, Aug. 6, Balboa
4:30 p.m.: “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), directed by Norman Jewison. Followed by Townsend in conversation with director Carl Franklin.
7:30 p.m.: “The Great White Hope” (1970), directed by Martin Ritt. Followed by a prerecorded video of Townsend in conversation with actor Jane Alexander.
Friday, Aug. 7, 4 Star
4:30 p.m.: “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), directed by Elia Kazan. Followed by Townsend in conversation with CinemaSFbay founder Adam Bergeron.
8 p.m.: “Network” (1976), directed by Sidney Lumet. Followed by Townsend in conversation with Chronicle film writer G. Allen Johnson.
Saturday, Aug. 8, 4 Star
4:30 p.m.: “Claudine” (1974), directed by John Berry. Followed by Townsend in conversation with actor Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs.
7:30 p.m. “The Five Heartbeats” (1991), directed by Robert Townsend. Followed by Townsend in conversation with TBA.
Sunday, Aug. 9, 4 Star
4 p.m.: “B*A*P*S*” (1997), directed by Robert Townsend. Followed by Townsend in conversation with screenwriter Troy Byer.
7 p.m.: “The Meteor Man” (1993), directed by Robert Townsend. Followed by Townsend in conversation with Oakland director Boots Riley.
The East Bay movie palace was packed with kids, recalled Townsend, who had flown up from Los Angeles for the special screening, and he was a bit nervous as he waited downstairs while the movie played.
“Suddenly I hear the theater go, ‘Rah, rah, rah!’ Everybody’s going crazy,” Townsend told the Chronicle. “The security guards were like, ‘Oh, my God, let’s run upstairs,’ like it was a riot or something. But it was just people loving the movie. That was one of those moments where you go, ‘You know I’m trusting my instincts and I know this is funny.’
“That’s the magic of being in a theater. Everybody gets it all together and everybody’s laughing. It was just one of the best memories.”
“The Meteor Man” (1993), directed by and starring Robert Townsend, center. (MGM)
Townsend is set to make more memories in the Bay Area with a first-ever artist-in-residence for CinemaSFbay, the new nonprofit that runs the Balboa, 4 Star and Vogue theaters in San Francisco.
Townsend plans to present four movies he directed, plus five films that influenced him as an artist over five nights at the Balboa and 4 Star, from Wednesday-Sunday, Aug. 5-9.
The residency starts with a 35 mm screening of his masterpiece “Hollywood Shuffle” (1987) at the Balboa. The series will also include a screening at the 4 Star of “The Five Heartbeats” (1991) on Saturday, Aug. 8, about the rise of a Temptations-like singing group in the 1960s, which Townsend is currently trying to turn into a Broadway musical. The series concludes at the 4 Star with a double feature of Townsend’s “B*A*P*S*” (1997), a comedy starring Halle Berry, and “The Meteor Man.”
In between, the two venues will also screen such classics as Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), Norman Jewison’s “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), Sidney Lumet’s “Network” (1976) and two films starring his hero, James Earl Jones, in “The Great White Hope” (1970) and “Claudine” (1974).
Actor, director and filmmaker Robert Townsend in Berkeley in 2019 ahead of his one-man show “Living the Shuffle,” performed at the Marsh Berkeley. He is CinemaSFbay’s first artist-in-residence, bringing a film festival to the Balboa, 4 Star and Vogue theaters Wednesday-Sunday, Aug. 5-9. (Courtesy of Daniel Baumer)
Townsend will introduce and then discuss each film after their screenings, with many special guests slated to appear in person. Highlights include Townsend in conversation with filmmaker Carl Franklin (1992’s “One False Move” and 1995’s “Devil in a Blue Dress”) after “In the Heat of the Night”; “I Love Boosters” director Boots Riley after “The Meteor Man”; and actor Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs after “Claudine,” in which he co-starred.
Townsend will also show a prerecorded video interview he conducted with actor Jane Alexander, Jones’ co-star in “The Great White Hope.”
“I’m gonna be sitting in the theater watching all these movies with my popcorn,” Townsend said, his voice giddy with excitement. “Just looking forward to turning an audience on to these great classics.”
The genesis of the residency began last year, when Townsend was invited to the Balboa for a screening of Jewison’s “A Soldier’s Story” (1984), in which Townsend has a small role. He brought his daughter Skye Townsend along with him. She had never seen the film, which was nominated for three Academy Awards including best picture, and was thrilled to experience the film with an enthusiastic audience.
Robert Townsend, right, directing on the set of “Hollywood Shuffle” (1987). (Courtesy of Robert Townsend)
Townsend was a guest of his friend, San Francisco novelist Robert Mailer Anderson, who helps organize special events at the Balboa. Shortly after the visit, Balboa Theater owner Adam Bergeron and Anderson began working on the residency with Townsend.
At the time, Bergeron and wife, Jaimi Holker, were transitioning their ownership of the three theaters into a nonprofit, a process that lasted more than a year and was finalized in April. Bergeron said becoming a nonprofit has allowed his theaters to expand their art house programming.
In light of that shift, he views Townsend as the perfect inaugural artist-in-residence.
“Robert is truly an independent filmmaker in every sense of the word, and a groundbreaker,” Bergeron said. “I am such a huge fan of ‘Hollywood Shuffle.’ As a young man, my brother and I used to watch that movie over and over. His movies are very much of the time they’re made in, and they definitely mirror the world that existed at the time.”
Jimmy Woodard, left, and Robert Townsend spoof Siskel & Ebert in the “Sneaking in the Movies” skit in Townsend’s “Hollywood Shuffle” (1987). (The Samuel Goldwyn Company)
Townsend said he never aimed to be a groundbreaker, though. It came out of necessity.
Born and raised in Chicago by a single mother, Townsend developed an interest in acting as a boy while watching some of the films he’s bringing to the Balboa and 4 Star on TV.
While he was still a teenager, he worked with Chicago’s X-Bag Theatre, aka the Experimental Black Actors Guild, and the Second City, a foundational comedy improv workshop, before moving to New York to try his hand at both stand-up comedy and acting.
As a stand-up comedian, Townsend hung out with a group of fellow hopefuls, including Eddie Murphy. In 1980, both of them auditioned for “Saturday Night Live.” Murphy got the gig and soon made the jump to movies, becoming a huge star. Townsend, meanwhile, was barely getting by, appearing in small roles but unable to make the leap.
He found that he was not alone among Black actors, who were rarely offered more than stereotypical roles. Townsend channeled his frustration into “Hollywood Shuffle,” a $60,000 episodic movie satirizing a Black actor’s plight in Tinseltown that took him two years and several maxed-out credit cards to make.
Celebrated actor, director and filmmaker Robert Townsend in Berkeley in 2019 ahead of his one-man show “Living the Shuffle,” performed at the Marsh Berkeley. (Courtesy of Daniel Baumer)
The film became a cult hit and established Townsend as not just an actor but a director as well. In fact, it led directly to his second directorial job, thanks to a bit in the film that satirizes Murphy and his persona.
“(In the film) I have a nightmare, and I go, ‘They want an Eddie Murphy type,’ and there’s 20 guys in blackface and leather jackets laughing like Eddie,” Townsend said with a chuckle.
Before the film came out, Murphy heard about the bit and asked to see it, so Townsend arranged a screening.
“I had the screening for him, and they’re loving the movie. And then when he gets to (that) scene, the room is dead. His head goes down, and I’m like, ‘Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,”’ Townsend recalled. “Then Eddie starts laughing. He goes, ‘Hey, man, this is funny. This is brilliant.”’
Murphy immediately hired him to direct his 1987 stand-up concert movie “Eddie Murphy Raw.”
Natalie Desselle Reid, left, and Halle Berry in “B*A*P*S” (1997), directed by Robert Townsend. (New Line Cinema)
It’s a story Townsend has fondly retold, most recently onstage at the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award tribute to Murphy in April, which is now on Netflix.
In recent years, Townsend’s “Living the Shuffle,” a one-man stage show about his career, made its world premiere at the Marsh in Berkeley in 2019. He has also become a ubiquitous director of TV episodes, including “The Chi” and “Poppa’s House,” and continues to act onscreen, most notably as the father of Ayo Edebiri’s character in “The Bear.”
Josh Senior, from left, Carmen Christopher, Lionel Boyce, Edwin Lee Gibson, Abby Elliott, Corey Hendrix, Joanna Calo, Ayo Edebiri, Oliver Platt, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Matty Matheson, Jeremy Allen White, Cooper Wehde, Jamie Lee Curtis, Paulie James, Ricky Staffieri, Chris Witaske, Adam Shapiro and Robert Townsend attend a dinner for the cast and producers of “The Bear” at Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood in 2025. (David Jon/Getty Images for FX Networks)
“She’s just amazing. That young girl, I call her the baby GOAT because she can do seven pages of dialogue like that,” Townsend said of Edebiri. “I feel blessed to be a part of something so wonderful.”
In a sense, it’s the generations of Black performers that came after him – including Edebiri’s – that Townsend made “Hollywood Shuffle” for.
“Back then, you didn’t have doctors, lawyers of color in positions and leads on television series,” Townsend said. “Some people say, ‘Well, we should do “Hollywood Shuffle” now.’ But who would the targets be? Now you have Black television networks, African American leads on different shows and what have you.
“It’s a different time.”
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This article originally published at Oakland helped save Robert Townsend’s vision. Now he’s back in the Bay Area with the movies that made him.