THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 10, 1996 TAG: 9604100024
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
MAYBE ALL IT takes to tame a bad boy is marriage to a sweet Chesapeake girl.
Maybe.
Martin Lawrence, who makes his film directing-writing-producing debut with the current ``A Thin Line Between Love and Hate,'' used to talk RAW. Four-letter words poured from his mouth like water over Niagara Falls. Take a look at ``You So Crazy,'' the film record of his stand-up comedy act. Or even his big-hit action flick ``Bad Boys'' from last summer. As the naughty, street-wise guy who talks mostly about sex, he was the natural successor to Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy.
That was before he became Norfolk's most famous bridegroom.
On Jan. 7, 1995, in a wedding that drew a mob outside Norfolk's Waterside Marriott, he wed hometown beauty queen Patricia Southall of Chesapeake, a former Miss Virginia-USA.
Martin and Pat are now the parents of 2-month old Jasmine and, according to the new father himself, he's ``mellowing.''
``I'm more conscious of what I do,'' Lawrence said as he ended his longstanding silence with the press to sit for an interview at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. (His Norfolk wedding, with 18 bridesmaids, more than 1,000 roses and a sit-down dinner for 600 was barred to local press. Ebony Magazine had contracted for exclusive coverage.)
He added, ``I'll be more conscious around her, my daughter, until she's a certain age.''
He was wearing a coat and tie - looking very conservative.
Lawrence claims that all is well with the marriage although during filming of ``A Thin Line . . . '' he went off to work every day to make movie love to the stunning actress Lynn Whitfield.
``My wife is not jealous of my work,'' said Lawrence, 31. ``This is a big movie - a big breakthrough for me. She knows that.''
The movie is a comic version of ``Fatal Attraction'' with Lawrence playing a relentless sexual hustler. Whitfield's character proves a challenge until he finally gives in and uses the ``L'' word. When she finds he doesn't mean it, she turns on him, tracking him down, vandalizing his car and apartment and threatening worse.
The film has been greeted with mixed reviews from critics, most of whom found that the mixture of thriller and comedy didn't gel. It opened to big business in theaters, though.
More critical have been women's groups, who claim the females in the film are treated as sexual objects.
``I don't think it treats the women as property,'' Lawrence counters. ``These women know what these men are about. They're not fools. I mean, guys will be guys. Women know that. This guy, Darnell, loves the ladies. He is a single man. He thought he could have them all, but he runs up against the wrong one.''
``Thin Line'' is being called the flip side of ``Waiting to Exhale,'' the hit movie in which Angela Bassett, Whitney Houston and a cast of females effectively put down the men who have done them wrong.
``I didn't exhale,'' Lawrence said, when asked about the comparison. ``A lot of guys didn't go see `Waiting to Exhale.' I didn't agree with everything in it. Not all women are like those women. I liked the concept of the friendship, the camaraderie, those women had, but I'm not so sure it's all that simple.''
Lawrence said he took another look at Glenn Close in ``Fatal Attraction,'' and ``I wanted to see a black woman play that part.''
His first choice was Angela Bassett, but she was unavailable. ``I'm glad I got Lynn Whitfield,'' he said. ``It's good to give another sister a good role. Angela gets all the parts now. I had seen Lynn on television in `The Josephine Baker Story.' Now I can't imagine anyone else doing the part.''
Whitfield said Lawrence gave her very little direction. ``Martin just went on his gut reactions most of the time. We improvised a number of the scenes,'' she said. ``I thought of John Cassavetes and that style of movie making. It was a challenge, but it resulted in some good scenes. The film concerns some gender ills that need to be looked at.
``The main problem was to stop laughing. Martin goes wild on the set, and my character was definitely not supposed to laugh at him.''
Lawrence cast comedienne Della Reese as his mother ``even though I wasn't sure if I could work with Della,'' he said. ``She's such a strong force. She has something to say about everything, but when it's for the good of the movie, it's OK.''
He also cast his good friend singer Bobby Brown (the husband of superstar Whitney Houston) as Tee, his best friend in the movie.
Brown, who has had run-ins with the law amid persistent rumors of trouble in his marriage, echoes the claim that ``Thin Line'' is not unfair to women.
``I just see guys being guys in this film,'' Brown said. ``I don't see many men like the men in my wife's film `Waiting to Exhale.' That was a woman's film. There are guys like the guys in `Thin Line,' but the film doesn't speak for all men. The message is, `Men, it'll get you nowhere trying to have everything and everybody. It'll just get you hurt.' ''
Regina King, who plays the ``good girl'' in the film, said, ``Martin is just a big ham - make that ham and eggs. He knows how to get the bills paid.''
Indeed, Lawrence has become the success symbol for a new generation of African-American comics. An Air Force brat, he was born in Germany but grew up in Queens, N.Y., and Landover, Md. His first television experience came as a series regular on ``What's Happening Now.'' His stand-up comedy was featured for two seasons on HBO's ``Def Comedy Jam.'' His three-night booking at Radio City Music Hall broke attendance records formerly held by Eddie Murphy.
He made his film debut in Spike Lee's ``Do the Right Thing'' and followed with the two ``House Party'' comedies. He starred as Murphy's sidekick in ``Boomerang,'' a film with a plot somewhat similar to ``Thin Line.''
Lawrence is in his fifth season on television as a fictitious Detroit radio host in the comedy series ``Martin'' (Thursdays on Fox). In addition to the title character, he sometimes plays Sheneneh, ``the round-the-way-girl.''
He plans to return to ``acting, just acting'' for a movie called ``Nothing to Lose'' with Tim Robbins and then possibly ``Bad Boys II.''
Lawrence met Pat Southall in the summer of 1992 when she was working in then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's media office. He was appearing in Richmond for a ``Def Comedy Jam'' concert.
Their Norfolk wedding was accompanied by rumors aplenty - a bomb threat that caused it to be moved from the Third Baptist Church in Portsmouth to the Norfolk hotel and a bachelor party at a Virginia Beach club that resulted in bottles being thrown and a fight.
``The amazing thing to me was when I looked out the window of the hotel and saw all those people in the street,'' Lawrence said. ``I don't know where they came from. One thing is sure, I am definitely married.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by New Line Cinema
Regina King plays the girlfriend of Darnell Wright (Martin
Lawrence), who womanizing gets him into trouble in the film " A Thin
Line Between Love and Hate"
Photo by NEW LINE CINEMA
Lynn Whitfield and Martin Lawrence star in ``A Thin Line Between
Love and Hate.''
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB