The Temptations Documentary
Ariano Waiker
"Temptations 60," the anniversary record that became a passion project for Tempts founder Otis Williams, arrived overnight Friday. It's the iconic Motown group's first album since 2018 and its first of new material since 2004.
Friday's release was accompanied by the second chapter in a three-part Temptations documentary series on YouTube, chronicling the group from its early Detroit days up to the present, with reflections from Williams, Robinson and longtime Tempts manager Shelly Berger. The final installment will be out Feb. 4.
Also Friday, the Motown Museum and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame announced they've partnered for an upcoming virtual interview with Williams and Berger to dig into "Temptations 60" and the group's history. The session will run on the museums' respective YouTube channels at 7 p.m. Feb. 4.
All the activity is part of an ongoing Temptations' 60th anniversary campaign announced last year. Williams and the group have returned to the road for live dates, while the hit Temptations musical, "Ain't Too Proud," has resumed touring the country.
Watch this video on YouTubeClick to load videoThe documentary offers brilliant insight into the group and the history of Motown Records. In Chapter 1: The Beginning, Smokey Robinson remembers the early days.
This morning, I discovered the harrowing story of Donald Crowhurst, who set out to circumnavigate the world in late 1968 as part of a race sponsored by the Sunday Times. The novelty of this event is that was non-stop. Landing, even to repair the boat, would incur disqualification.
As he found himself locked into increasingly diabolical dilemmas and after nine months at sea apart from an illicit repair stopover in Brazil, his mind went crazy and the log entries were increasingly bizarre with their weird pseudo-philosophy. Finally, as the evidence would suggest, he jumped overboard and drowned. His life raft was unused. The boat was found by a cargo ship in the middle of the Atlantic, apparently not knocked over by a rogue wave and the cabin was still still more or less dry. His body was never found.
The isolation is less absolute in a monastery than at sea alone, in a man who is spiritually unprepared. He might be good at sailing and a brave man, but can he face his true self? The documentary shows that there was a lot of falseness in Crowhurst, and it got its own back against him. Sexual perversions and addictions alike take their toll, and are only magnified in solitude.
Of course, we can say from the comfort of history that if he had loved his wife and children more he would have gone back to face the music. But I suspect we diminish the enormity of the pain that that would have represented. I feel so very sorry for his wife and children, but by golly! what one of us has not done foolish thing from which return seems hopeless, or, if not, what one of us is not capable of doing so?
In a certain way, many of us TAC people have had that kind of trouble (apart from not being at sea in a boat) when Archbishop Hepworth threw in his lot with Rome. Beyond a certain point, there was no return.
To anyone who would like to follow in his wake, he said: Be as simple as possible, and you can go without having all the instruments they try to sell you at the Boat Show. What is important is to get going.
I know well the type and the background, as I am myself the son of a Moitessier-without-the-boat, so to speak. Curiosly, my generation [1970s-1980s] is evenly split between the eternally Peter Pans (a minority and generally from very affluent families) and a more conservative block, similar more to our grandfathers than to our fathers. The great majority of my college and university circle is married and often with more than one children, hard-working in an economical environment with less career possibilities than few decades ago, but generally more satisfied than their parents with their lives. Their spirituality is obviously post- or a- christian, but maybe things would be different if they could find something else than guitar masses and social assistans behind the door of the local parish.
His career is an interesting one, and not because of hyperbolic hot takes that even Peele himself has to laugh at. Despite a vibrant lineage of Black horror (as cataloged in Horror Noire, a really good documentary from a few years back**), Peele is the first consistently bankable Black horror auteur, even if he\u2019s too humble to admit it.
The numbers don\u2019t lie. Get Out set the world on fire in 2017, grossing a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide\u2014even though Blumhouse was the only studio willing to give him a shot (and only a $5 million budget). Us was an impressive follow-up, this time with a major studio (Universal), even though they still only gave him $20 million to play with. And guess what? That movie also made a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide.***
James Bond III (it feels wrong to only use his first or last name, or his number) made his way in the film world as an actor with appearances in several TV series in the late 70s and early 80s (and the occasional feature film, such as The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, a movie that definitely exists) before landing a supporting role in Spike Lee\u2019s School Daze.
Being on set with Spike and his crew of regulars changed the trajectory of James Bond III\u2019s career (or so he thought). I imagine this is where he met fellow actors Kadeem Hardison and Bill Nunn as well as legendary director of photography Ernest Dickerson. And then just a couple years later, James Bond III had recruited all three of those men to help him with his first writer/director gig, a horror film called Def By Temptation.*****
It\u2019s the sort of film that should\u2019ve launched a lucrative career for James Bond III\u2014especially in 1990 when the 80s vibe was dying out and the major slasher franchises were losing steam and horror audiences were eager for something fresh. (Candyman was just two years later.) But it didn\u2019t do that. Even though it was produced by the notoriously low-budget Troma Entertainment, it managed to scrounge up a respectable $2.2 million in theaters, all at the domestic box office.
But James Bond III\u2019s seemingly promising career coming to a grinding halt is more intriguing to me. Considering that industry executives were (somehow) surprised by the success of Get Out in 2017, I think it\u2019s likely that James Bond III was just \u201Cahead of his time.\u201D
Tremendous. Yes, it\u2019s been five years since that image was created, and more clues did not, in fact, come. I should also note that his web domain expired since that time, which is tough. But less than a year ago, James Bond III created an Instagram account and uploaded that same image from Facebook. (It is still his only Instagram post.)
Is James Bond III just bored and teasing his dozens of fans with hints of a comeback? Or does he really have something in the works? Even if he never makes another film of his own, I think he\u2019s primed for an acting comeback at the very least if a savvy director lures him back in front of the camera. Just this year, we saw Ke Huy Quan return to the big screen in a big way. It could happen!
On August 17, 1973,[1] Williams was found dead in an alley, on the ground next to his car, having just left the new house of his then-girlfriend after an argument.[2] A gun was found near his body. His death was ruled a suicide by the coroner; Williams had expressed suicidal thoughts to Otis Williams and Melvin Franklin months before his death.[2]
Williams' funeral was held on August 24, with his family, friends, and former bandmates in attendance. He was survived by his wife, Mary Agnes Williams, and six children: Sarita, Kenneth, Paula, Paul Lucas, Mary and Paul Williams, Jr., the 6'"1" newest member as of March 1, 2008 of a Temptations splinter group, The Temptations Review featuring Dennis Edwards. Paul also had a seventh child, Derrick Vinyard, with a girlfriend.[2] Williams is buried in Clinton Township, Michigan's Lincoln Memorial Park.
The circumstances surrounding Williams' death caused the Williams family to suspect that some form of foul play was the actual cause of Williams' death.[2] According to the coroner, Williams had used his right hand to shoot himself in the left side of his head.[2] In addition, a bottle of alcohol was found near Williams' left side, as if he had dropped it while being shot. The gun used in the shooting was found to have fired two shots, only one of which had killed Williams.[2] Williams' family has continued to investigate the circumstances of Williams' death to this date.[2]
I always thought his mistress' boyfriend killed him. They said he was found in his drawers so he probably ran out of the house after the husband found him and then ran in his truck until the guy caught up and shot him and then made it seem like Paul committed suicide.
wasn't his mistress Florence Ballard's cousin named Winnie Brown who was also the supremes hair stylist? Paul and her opened up a clothes boutique but it wasn't successful and paul owed $80,000 in taxes
The Williams family has been fighting for Motown royalties since Aug. 17, 1973, the day Paul Williams died at age 34 of what police said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had left the Temptations in 1971.
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