ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 6, 1997 TAG: 9701070125
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN JOHNSON KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Imagine being 27 years old with the chance to create and produce a show for a television network. Sounds as if it could be a daunting task for someone so young, right?
Meet Claude Brooks.
``I don't really go thinking about it in that order,'' says Brooks. ``When you're in it, you're in it and you're doing it. Every day's just about getting to that next level.''
Brooks, now 28, was asked by the USA Network about 1 1/2 years ago to come up with several story ideas. One of them was ``Clinton's Crib,`` a Generation X, multicultural comedy about a guy who owned a large home with several boarders under his roof.
``Clinton's Crib" became ``Claude's Crib," which had its series premiere Sunday on USA. The name change is just one chapter in an interesting history of a former kid actor turned producer.
Starting out as a 9-year-old doing commercials, Brooks played young Terry Freeman in Fox's interracial family comedy ``True Colors.`` It was on that 1990-92 series that the young actor became interested in what was happening on the other side of the camera.
``Right before [the show] went off, I kind of got the bug for just producing," Brooks said. He eventually wrote an episode of ``True Colors." After the show went off the air, the New York native was offered several acting jobs, but ``I had a little cash in the bank and I really wanted to delve into just straight-up producing,`` Brooks said during a telephone conversation from the dressing room on the set of his new series.
``You look at the world when you're young and you're like, [forget] it, I'll take a chance, what do I have to lose?" he laughed. ``And at the time, the only thing I had was me and my dog."
Brooks went on to produce specials for ABC, Fox and MTV, including an ABC Saturday morning show directed by another former child actor working behind the scenes, ``The Cosby Show's'' Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Brooks wrote and produced the documentary ``Todd Bridges on a Mission,'' about the life of the ex-``Diff'rent Strokes'' actor who has since had run-ins with drugs and the law.
``It was kind of like a `Scared Straight' documentary,'' said Brooks about the film, which is shown in schools, colleges and institutions around the country.
It was that documentary, as well some of his other projects, that caught the eye of the USA Network, who Brooks said was looking at him to help create programming. The network was especially interested in a series with a multi-ethnic cast.
``I just told them about `Clinton's Crib' on the spot,'' Brooks said. ``And at the end of it they were like, `Well, what do you feel about acting again? We'd love for you to play the lead role.'''
But it wasn't Brooks' inclination to be the star of the show, which he created with Linda Yearwood.
``When you become the actor in it, somehow your vision ends up getting taken away, because they want to bring on a producer over you and it just becomes like an ego-dynamic [situation]. Then your producer credit is more of a vanity credit, as opposed to people taking it seriously,'' said Brooks, who is a co-producer.
``I really wanted to make it clear to them that this is where I stood. And on their behalf they were like, `Look, that's perfect, because we don't know jack about Generation X.'''
Brooks plays Claude DuPree, a cocky but warm-hearted disc jockey and college student who rents out rooms in his late grandmother's home to a black aerobics instructor (Tembi Locke), a white Internet nerd (Matt Champagne), a valley-boyish Asian slacker (James Wong), and a white, naive aspiring model (Jennifer Aspen).
``Claude's Crib'' joins a small list of series with a black actor as the lead of a cast that isn't all black. UPN's ``Minor Adjustments'' and ABC's ``Benson'' are two other such shows.
``I think that it helps the show in making it feel, for most of us, a little more realistic,'' said Bill Boulware, executive producer of ``Claude's Crib'' and a former writer for ``Benson,'' ``in the sense that we all interact with a lot of people of different races, especially here in Los Angeles. And I think what it does mostly is make the show even more accessible to most people.''
Brooks, who would like to produce, and not necessarily act in, more projects for both television and movies, wants to make sure the humor isn't just racially motivated.
``Every joke isn't about the differences in our races,'' he said. ``If it comes up organically, though, we for sure hit it. Because that's humor, man. That's the beauty of life.''
LENGTH: Medium: 87 linesby CNB