The African-American actor, 68, was born in New York City, but spent his formative years living in Germany and Japan as his father, Joseph Sr., was a U.S. Army intelligence officer in the late 1940s and ’50s.
“My father’s job was to integrate the armed forces overseas,” he explained on U.S. morning show Live! With Kelly and Michael. “Basically we would arrive on any army post racially unannounced, because they knew that all kinds of stuff would break loose as soon as they found out that there was a black captain on the post… So life for us was very interesting.”
His dad died when Joe was just 10 years old, and his mother moved them from their home in the German city of Dachau back to the Big Apple, to live with his grandmother in Harlem.
The relocation proved to be somewhat of a culture shock for young Joe, and his experiences growing up and learning to adapt to his changing surroundings has inspired him to write a movie script.
“I have written a screenplay called Strangers,” he revealed, “because from my point of view, we were strangers when we were on the army post because of my father’s job, and then when we came home (to New York), I hadn’t lived here, it was the first time I had been ‘home’.
“I was 10 years old, so when I came back to the United States, we went right back up to Harlem, we lived with my grandmother for a while, I was gonna go to school with other black kids! I’d never been to school with a classroom full of black children. I thought, ‘This is gonna be exciting!’, but of course, I spoke German, I spoke Japanese, I think I showed up at school wearing a suit!”
Joe admits he has no idea if or when the project will come to fruition, but he is keeping his fingers crossed.
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