By Chris Carney
“So, here’s some advice I wish I woulda got when I was your age: live every week like it’s Shark Week.” So says Tracy Jordan, the fictional star of a fictional variety show on NBC’s hit sitcom 30 Rock. The Emmy-nominated actor who delivered this suspect advice is Tracy Morgan, and despite the initial sense of absurdity engendered by the statement, it holds a core of wisdom shared by character and actor alike.
This is not to suggest that Tracy Jordan is a wise man. In truth he is a bit of a buffoon, who has lost touch with the world that made him famous. Thankfully, even with numerous successes and accolades, Tracy Morgan has never lost sight of the reasons he does what he does.
“It’s all about family for me,” says Morgan. “My kids and my family keep me grounded. Everything I do is for them.”
This dedication to family is not just lip service. It is both the heart of his success and the barometer that keeps him in check. Born in the heart of what he calls Ghetto, USA, the Bedford—Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn in 1968, Tracy’s early life was surrounded by a combination of love and violence.
The second of four children, Tracy, known as Tray to his family and friends, was named after a red headed Irish army buddy of his father Jimmy Morgan. Jimmy met Tracy on an Army transport en route to Vietnam for the fi rst of what would be fi ve tours. Tracy and Jimmy hit it off. They were two men from very different backgrounds whose lives had crossed, forever changing both of them. For Jimmy, Vietnam would lead to a heroin addiction, night Terrors, and AIDS. For Tracy, Vietnam lasted a mere 24 hours before a land mine ended his life.
Like many kids of the 80s, Tracy is the child of divorce. While Jimmy and Tracy’s mother, Alicia, loved each other, Jimmy’s heroin addiction became a very real danger to the children. The resultant split created a great and lasting anger in young Tracy. He eventually learned to turn the anger into a fierce dedication to comedy. A craft he deems “his bulletproof vest,” and credits with literally saving his life.
In his book, I Am the New Black, Tracy states he does not want our sympathy. “I don’t feel like any kind of hero. I’m not God’s gift, but my life wasn’t dumb luck either. I made a series of choices—some bad, most good—that led me here.”
Here is a pretty damn good place for Tracy Morgan these days. He is the star of the hit sitcom 30 Rock, he is a Golden Globe winner, an Emmy nominee and recently returned to host an episode of his old stomping grounds Saturday Night Live. He’s starred in several movies, including Cop Out with Bruce Willis and the recent comedy gem Death at a Funeral, sharing the screen with his old buddy and mentor Martin Lawrence.
He has finally taken control of his health, which was severely damaged by years of neglect and ignorance of his diabetic condition. He’s even found love once again after a recent divorce from long time wife Sabina. Indeed, here is pretty good for Tracy Morgan.
Enroute to his success Tracy learned and relearned a most important lesson. “Don’t believe the hype,” his father told him. “Everyone is going to tell you you’re great until you’re not great. Until the day you let them down. And on that day they’ll hate you.” Despite the accolades, the success, the wealth, Tracy remains humble and has finally become grounded.
Tracy’s success was never a guarantee and even a cursory examination of his life suggests it may just be a miracle. As a young man Tracy was on a path all to familiar to many poor African American men. Few opportunities and a deep-rooted anger combined with the need to be a “baller” and Tracy soon found himself dealing on the street. Yet even then comedy was his defense mechanism and his primary method of survival. Starting with weed and eventually moving on to the new plague known as crack, Tracy used and developed his comedic skills on the street.
“I took to crack like it was an open mic night, and I was pretty good at it. I had people laughing, even when they were jonesing for a fix. It was like comedy—they were paying me for a good time.”
But soon the luster of the life began to tarnish. One night his buddy Spoon, who Tracy says was ”funnier than I,” was murdered. By sheer luck Tracy was with a girl. Otherwise, he says, “I’d probably be dead right now.” Spoon’s death was the reality check Tracy needed. If he stayed on the streets, they would kill him, probably sooner than later.
While Spoon died, Tracy kept his memory alive in puppet form as Spoonie Love on Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla’s Crank Yankers. This was just one of numerous characters, comedy bits and skits Tracy dredged up from his childhood and it set the stage for his variety of very open and extremely personal style of comedy.
It was about this time, with the support of his first love Sabina, that he made the choice that would eventually lead him down the road of fame and fortune. He decided to become a stand up comedian. While most wives would demand a stable income from their man, Sabina believed in Tracy and was the rock that pushed him.
“I’ve got you,” Sabina told him,” but you’ve got to keep at this no matter how hard it gets. You’ve got to keep at it until you make something of yourself.” Tracy started appearing at open mic nights and comedy clubs across the Bronx. Eventually he landed a gig at the Apollo, the legendary comedy club in Harlem responsible for launching innumerable careers.
From there he heard riotous laughter and choruses of boos on Uptown Comedy Club and the Def Comedy Jam, where he met Martin Lawrence.This chance encounter led to Tracy’s first sitcom gig, as Hustle Man on the hit sitcom Martin.
Eventually Saturday Night Live came calling. For most comedians, this would seem to be the pinnacle, the dream job, the nadir, but Tracy, in an uncharacteristic display of insecurity and nervousness was resistant.
“I can’t do it,” he told his agent Barry Katz. “That’s where Eddie [Murphy] came from. I can’t go up to Eddie’s house. No way, I can’t do it. I’m not good enough, man.” Yet, Barry, like Sabina before him, did believe and in a classic bit of subterfuge told Tracy that the SNL producers were begging to see him. In truth Barry had to bludgeon the producers into giving Tracy his shot. From their perspective it was a long shot indeed.
Terrified, Tracy took that fear and used it. He took his anger and used it. Today his audition tape can be seen by the world on the Saturday Night Live: The Best of Tracy Morgan DVD. While he was a bit huskier, a bit more disheveled, he was, even at that early date, still very much Tracy Morgan.
He did a bit of Biscuit, the propeller beenie topped kid that had long been a classic Tracy Morgan character. “Biscuit is me as a kid. He’s the character most like the real me out of all that I do.” The producers liked what they saw and Tracy became an increasingly important fixture on SNL for the next seven seasons. During these years Tracy immortalized characters as diverse as Brian Fellow, the gay, self-centered and paranoid host of an animal talk show, Dominican Lou, the overzealous building super based on a guy Tracy knew from his days in the Bronx and pervy, folk singing space adventurer Astronaut Jones.
It was during these years that he and soon-to-be SNL head writer Tina Fey really hit it off. “She’s my sister, Tina Fey,” Tracy says. “Tina understands who I am as a person and what my strengths and weaknesses are as an actor and a comedian more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Though he couldn’t have known it at the time, this camaraderie would eventually lead him to the greatest role of his life. As is often the case in the entertainment business, as in life, Tracy needed to fall before he could climb to even greater heights. In 2003, well into his seventh year on SNL Tracy decided to leave the show and move on. The decision wasn’t easy. SNL was lucrative, it was a sure thing, but Tracy didn’t want to be the one who held on too long. It was ultimately the prompting of his younger sister Asia that pushed him to take the leap. “You’ve got to promise me something,” Asia told Tracy. “ Don’t be there [SNL] too long. Keep challenging yourself and try new things. Don’t get too comfortable.”
As luck would have it he didn’t have to wait to long for the next new thing. NBC commissioned The Tracy Morgan Show, which Tracy originally envisioned as a Sanford and Son meets All in the Family with stories and characters based on Tracy’s childhood. The producers changed the show into a modern day Cosby Show that limped through one lackluster season and ultimately died a mostly unseen death. “In the end the show that aired wasn’t even my show anymore,” Tracy laments.
After his show was cancelled Tracy began to extensively tour once again, and as the road began to take control his personal issues came to the fore. Alcoholism, loneliness and frequent appearances by his dark side alter ego he dubbed Chico Divine started to damage him in subtle yet serious ways. Chico was fun, crazy and was slowly killing Tracy. Tracy and Sabina began having the issues that would eventually lead to their divorce. He talks about it freely. “Once that love turns, believe me, you’re done,” Tracy writes. “When a good woman’s love goes cold, it never comes back.”
It was about this time, when Tracy was at his lowest, that his old friend Tina Fey offered him a hand up. What a hand it would turn out to be. Tracy Jordan, the character on 30 Rock that would earn Tracy Morgan an Emmy nomination was hand crafted for him. Tina Fey has said that “Tracy Jordan is Tracy Morgan if Tracy Morgan was insane.” One wonders if she knew Tracy’s current state of mind when she made the offer.
Tracy Morgan has pushed through the bad and the good to surface a better man, a better father and a better actor and comedian. By any measuring stick his life can be deemed a triumph. He’s even returned to the comedy circuit that gave him his start and almost ended his career, with an upcoming show at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas June 5th.
So take Tracy Jordan’s advice and live every week like it’s Shark Week. When your opportunity comes a knocking, take it. Do everything all the way. Learn from the past, but look to the future. Keep your family close and never miss a chance at reconciliation, because in this crazy world of ours you never know when you’ll get another chance. There are sharks around every corner, and when they strike nobody can help you, except you.
Tracy Morgan has lived his life by this mantra. It has led him to never be satisfied, never stop working and even though he has achieved more than he could have ever dreamed as a kid in the Bronx, he remains forever hungry, forever unsatisfied. For our sakes, let us hope that he always remains so.
