CJ JONES: the Heart of a Performer--World Around You, Gallaudet University

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CJ Jones:
The Heart of a Performer

When he was little, CJ Jones saw his brother do a tap dance in a play.

"Something happened deep inside me," he remembers.

And he knew he wanted to make performing his life.

His first acting job came when he was six years old. He got a role on television. He was on "Captain Kangaroo," one of the children in the captain's audience.

There was a group of deaf children in the audience he remembers. There was no interpreter, but that didn't matter. He relished the experience.

"It was simply natural for me," he says. "I was a born actor."

Growing Up
CJ was born hearing. He got spinal meningitis when he was seven years old-and became deaf. Becoming deaf was not hard for him. The way CJ tells it, it was harder for his doctors. Slowly and sadly, the doctors brought the news to his parents; they said that CJ would not hear again. But his parents surprised the doctors.

They were thrilled.

"Both my mom and dad were deaf," says CJ. "When I become deaf, they had no problem."

As for CJ, he couldn't have asked for better family. "I was the fourth brother of four boys, and we had two sisters," he says. "And I was blessed to grow up in a home where everyone signed fluently."

His home was the center for the small deaf community near St. Louis Missouri.

"At night, other deaf people would come to our home to discuss their lives with my father. My father would help them with their decisions and problems. He would also make jokes—and make them laugh. I would stay up late, watching them sign by the light of the kitchen. It was almost like I was watching my father in our own movie."

By elementary school, CJ's love of drama was already in evidence. CJ went to the Gallaudet School for the Deaf in St. Louis and graduated from Missouri School for the Deaf. At MSD, he acted and directed student plays.

He continued his work in drama after becoming a student at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, in Rochester, N.Y.

After college, he went to work for Xerox. "But something was not feeling right," he says.

When the National Theatre of the Deaf offered him a chance to join, he gladly took it. He travelled and performed with the theatre for two years. Then CJ decided to go big time. He would try his luck in Hollywood.

Hollywood Performer

Photos of CJ Jones In Hollywood, acting, directing, and performing are highly competitive. Famous actors often talk about how hard it is to get jobs. Asked of it's tougher for actors who are black and deaf to find roles, CJ types each letter with a space after in on the TTY:
"O B V I O U S L Y," he says.
"A double whammy," some people call it.

"I wish they could see past the blue eyes and blond hair," says CJ. "I wish they could look at only the talent."

But perhaps to the astonishment of doubters, CJ began to chalked up some successes. He broke into TV with a role on NBC's "A Different World." He made 14 tapes as host of "Happy Hands Kids Club." He made his first stage debut at Deaf West Theatre and acted and directed plays at the California School for the Deaf in Frfemont.

He received the Los Angeles Cultural Arts grant to conduct "Deaf Culture Playwrights" workshops which resulted in "Everyday Café." He also directed a production of "Children of a Lesser God," winning a "Shellie" award for the production. His pilot "Say What," geared for TV comedy show has been recorded and will soon be distributed on videotape.

Well known in the deaf community, CJ is one of the few actors who supports himself totally in his work. Further, he recently became executive director of Hands Across Communications and is starting to produce more educational and family-oriented videotapes. He has become very active in getting other deaf actors opportunities to perform.

Life Into Art
Still there have been disappointments. Roles that have opened for black actors go to hearing black actors; roles that have opened for deaf actors go to white deaf actors.

"As a producer/director/comedian/actor/writer and teacher, I can succeed on my own terms," says CJ. "I care about creating as a deaf person—with other deaf people. We want to remove myths and portray our culture and ourselves. I want equal opportunity and accessible entertainment for all deaf people in the world!"

Like all artists, CJ need to work. Growing up, he learned some lessons in his own home—from a father who became sad and disheartened over the lack of opportunity for black deaf men. It was worse when his father was young.

"My dad applied to Gallaudet in the 1940's," says CJ. "But Gallaudet didn't accept black students at that time. So my father couldn't go to college. Instead he turned to boxing."

He won boxing's famous Golden Gloves.

Again CJ turned the experience into art. He wrote a play about his father's life. It is called "My Father's Mirror." It is about a man who "shadow boxes" at his own image in the mirror to keep himself frin giving into despair—exactly like CJ remembers his father doing.

"That's why I have to create my own work," hesays.

Other determined and talented people have done the same thing. Sylvester Stallone reportedly wrote the first "Rocky" to get himself a movie to star in. The FRAT—an insurance organization of, by, and for deaf people—began a generation ago when no hearing organizations would sell deaf people insurance.

Stallone and FRAT have chalked up major success. Perhaps CJ will too.

With many different irons in the Hollywood fire, CJ just needs one really big success to fulfill his destiny become a star. In a sense, he already is.

General comments may be sent to: ISCS.ClercCenter@gallaudet.edu