With his instantly recognizable face, Roscoe Orman has become the personification of the perfect male friend and father figure while performing the role of Gordon Robinson on Sesame Street for more than thirty-two years. He is an experienced performing artist who provides an exemplary model in his television role, its influence evident by the recognition and love he sees on the faces of all who recognize him (even when he's not with Big Bird or Oscar).

Roscoe Orman's beautifully crafted memoir, Sesame Street Dad: Evolution of an Actor traces a lifetime of performances, punctuated by the events and movements that define the decades in between.

A strong element of Sesame Street Dad is Orman's belief in honing the onstage and film personification of the black male, reestablishing the concepts of honor and integrity. His appearance on Sesame Street as a trustworthy friend to children places him at the forefront of this "movement," his image being emblematic for trust, honesty and friendship for millions of Americans.

As important as his presence on this classic children's television program are Mr. Orman's ongoing contributions to theater during his forty-year professional career. His acting credentials are impressive and he, along with Ossie Davis, Morgan Freeman and untold numbers of other black actors helped define Black Theater as we now know it.

While cast in these roles, Orman has come into contact with many celebrities with whom he has established friendships. Sesame Street Dad pictures a number of these artists, either in their appearances on Sesame Street or on other occasions. He is quick to credit Sesame Workshop, a confluence of amazingly dedicated and talented television writers, producers, actors, puppeteers and behind-the-scenes people who have contributed to the long-lived popularity of this amazing program.

Roscoe Orman has lived a most enviable life, achieving success both personally and professionally. Sesame Street Dad leaves a legacy of his work and constitutes a tribute to all of those who worked with him in the early years and who continue to influence his work.

From the Introduction -
Certainly, my three decades as Gordon on Sesame Street have provided one of the most enriching and edifying stories of my life. If I could boast of no other major career accomplishment, having played a central role as I have in the development and continuation of this landmark series would alone have made my life sufficiently meaningful. The historical significance of Sesame Street and its surprising longevity have made my association with the show, in many regards, my life's crowning achievement. Reviewing the entirety of my career, however, has given me an opportunity to examine the political, moral, social, cultural, and artistic connections and influences that have defined all its aspects. Within the realm of theater, for instance, it is clear that my early affiliations with The Free Southern Theater of New Orleans and The New Lafayette Theatre of Harlem between the mid-1960s and the early-1970s have been, arguably, even more influential in defining the content of my personal character and my life's work than have my many years as Gordon. This is not to mention my first twenty years of life, the richly mentored, Bronx-bred childhood and adolescence which laid the entire foundation for all that was to follow.

From Chapter I: First Steps -
People often ask me what I am most proud of about my association with Sesame Street. In this, my thirty-second anniversary year of playing Gordon Robinson, it strikes me that what the character most significantly symbolizes, his most distinguishing and praiseworthy attribute, may lie in the simple fact that he is a man of African descent who for over three decades has been a respected and beloved father figure to young people of all races and all social classes all across America and beyond. Although born in a country that was founded and has continued to thrive upon the subjugation of his ancestors, he harbors no hatred or thirst for revenge but, on the contrary, is a model of patience, understanding, and civic responsibility who embraces all of humankind. He has, in fact, gained audiences' affections not for being the wealthiest, most famous, the most athletically endowed or powerful black man in America (despite "Trash" and the occasional delusion on my part of being such) but, instead, for his sensitivity, intelligence, lack of guile, and his enduring ability to be everyone's friend (even Oscar the Grouch). All of these virtues, especially in marital partnership with Susan, Loretta Long's exemplary model of African-American womanhood, stand in sharp contrast to the prevailing images of black men that have been projected within mainstream American culture since and especially prior to Sesame Street's premiere and certainly during the formative years of my own generation.

From Chapter IX: Sesame Kaleidoscope -
There was one particularly memorable moment which for me stands out as a powerful example of the service provided by the work we do on Sesame Street. Sometime in the mid-1980s I performed my "Gordon" show before a large audience at a local college auditorium in Topeka, Kansas, under the auspices of the area's PBS-TV affiliate. My performance that day was highlighted by what began as a casual invitation halfway through the show for a few kids from the audience to come forward and join me but which unexpectedly led to a gradual but irreversible invasion of the stage by every single child in the 500-plus seat theater. After a few feeble attempts to stem the rushing tide, I finally surrendered and accepted this new configuration as part of the event, in the process learning a valuable lesson. Never again would I extend such a tempting invitation to an audience of preschoolers.

During the customary meet-and-greet session after the show, a chair was positioned outside of the theater, allowing for a long single-file line of children and their accompanying adults to approach me one by one. Despite its size and enthusiasm, the crowd was patient, polite, and appreciative in the warm and pleasant afternoon sun. About midway through the line, a young girl of approximately seven or eight years of age slowly approached me, her mother moving rather apprehensively alongside the wall facing my chair. Although the woman's quiet anxiety had caught my attention, I was totally unprepared for what followed.

As the girl reached me, her arms opened for a hug (one of the frequent and most enviable rewards I receive for my work) and, without saying a word, wrapped her little arms around my neck. I couldn't help but notice the unusually ardent, almost desperate quality of her embrace, and as I looked up to see her mother's reaction to this scene, tears were streaming down her emotion-filled face as she uncontrollably, but silently, sobbed. After what seemed like much longer than the several seconds that had actually transpired, the child released me, I composed myself to ask her name, she told me, I handed her an autographed photo, and the procession continued. When the last person on line had finally been greeted and I began to wrap up my visit, I saw the mother walking toward me, her tears now subsided and her hand extended to grab mine. In the course of expressing her gratitude, she explained that her daughter had been sexually abused by a family member some time ago and that I was actually the first adult male that she had been either able or willing to approach since the incident had taken place. As I looked into this mother's eyes, I held back my own tears and knew that the humbling effect of this encounter would stay with me for a very long time. I also knew that there were countless other families and individuals around the globe whose needs had been and would continue to be met by Sesame Street in ways that none of us will ever fully know. This had become just another part of our unique job description. All the fame, fortune, and artistic fulfillment in the world could not begin to compete with the honor and distinction of such service.

From Chapter II: Southern Journey -
My rude initiation into Southern realities occurred early one day after just moving into my first apartment in New Orleans' French Quarter along with my roommate Murray Levy, a twenty-eight-year-old Queens native and Broadway, Off-Broadway, and one-year FST veteran. We had help from two of my fellow newcomers, Robert Cordier, a burly, curly-headed Belgian theater director in his early thirties, and the company's new technical director David McLaughlin, the twenty-two-year-old son of a Massachusetts judge who had made the long trip from New England to New Orleans astride his Harley Davidson motorcycle, a feat which automatically raised him and his arrival to heroic status within the group.

After moving Murray's and my meager belongings into our second-story flat, the four of us decided to celebrate over a few beers. Our bodies slightly fatigued from labor, we sauntered unassumingly into the local neighborhood pub right down the block from the apartment house. We perched ourselves on the vinyl-covered stools at the bar for several minutes trying, unsuccessfully, to attract the barmaid's attention. Finally, she approached us with a terse "I cain't serve ya'll." Our request for service had not only been denied but, to our great surprise, within just a few minutes, was also met by a full squadron from the New Orleans Police Department, which had literally surrounded the bar. My three white friends and I, who had stumbled unintentionally into this sit-in protest, were each handcuffed, charged with violating the archaic "vagrancy" laws (a common ploy used to detain civil rights workers), then carted off to spend that day in one of the Crescent City's segregated jailhouses.

I didn't know where the others had been taken, but I was detained for several hours in a cubicle with the dimensions of an average size bathroom along with about ten to fifteen other mostly young black men who were being held on undetermined charges. Eventually I was brought upstairs where, during an unnecessarily rough finger-printing session, two of New Orleans' "finest" attacked me with the most vicious barrage of obscenities and racial epithets I'd ever heard. With one holding me in an arm lock from behind and the other forcefully jamming my fingers into the ink blotter and printing cards, they both taunted, "I bet you like bein' aroun' them white gals, eh, Sambo? Come down here from up no'th ta get some o' that white poontang, huh, nigger? Goddammit, who in the hell you think you are, boy?" My heart filled with rage, and the effort to contain it was all consuming. For the first time in my life, I felt the vengeful urge to kill another human being, a kind of impulse which my straight and narrow Catholic upbringing had successfully taught me to suppress. In just that instant, however, the indignity and pain of America's legacy of slavery and racism had hit my gut like a jackhammer, igniting the fires of outrage within me as never before and fueling my determination for the battles that lay ahead. Suddenly, I was also forced to appreciate how difficult in practice was the philosophy of non-violent resistance and of "loving one's enemy" to which Dr. King and his followers were so deeply committed.

A multi-faceted performer with over forty years of experience as an actor and entertainer in theater, film and television, Roscoe Orman's career, particularly as the beloved "Gordon Robinson" on TV's most highly acclaimed children's program Sesame Street, has touched literally millions of people the world over. Orman studied acting at Circle In The Square Theatre School and singing at the Manhattan School of Music. An early member of the Free Southern Theater in the mid-1960s, he toured throughout the South for two years and was also a founding member of Harlem, New York's famed New Lafayette Theatre from 1967 to 1972. As an award-winning theater actor, he has performed in over 50 productions on the stages of Broadway, off-Broadway, regional, and repertory theaters across the country.

Orman made his film debut in the title role of Universal Pictures' Willie Dynamite in 1973 and has also appeared in Follow That Bird, FX, Striking Distance, New Jersey Drive, Full Court Press, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, and Twilight's Last Gleaming, his most recent film project. In addition to the multiple Emmy Award-winning Sesame Street, television audiences have seen him on such programs as Sanford and Son, Kojak, All My Children, Hard Time on Planet Earth, A Man Called Hawk, Law and Order, Cosby, and Sex and the City. A busy voice-over artist, Orman has narrated and/or hosted such documentaries as Langston Hughes: The Dreamkeeper for PBS, Heritage of the Black West for National Geographic, Lifeline for the Discovery Channel, and Images in Black and White for ESPN.

Mr. Orman has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean with his Gordon of Sesame Street concerts and with Matt Robinson's one-character play, The Confessions of Stepin Fetchit. He is a board member at Luna Stage where he also teaches acting.

Media Events and Appearances:

• NBC's "Today Show" - Weekend Edition, feature interview (NYC) - December 17, 2006
• Blacks & Books, feature listing, (NYC) - December, 2006
• Black Issues Book Review, review (NYC) - November/December 2006
• Barnes & Noble, signing (Hackensack, NJ) - December 2, 2006, 2:00
• Shrine of the Black Madonna, signing (Detroit, MI) - October 21, 2006, 2:00
• Teaneck Film Festival, signing (Teaneck, NJ) - November 5, 2006
• Watchung Elementary School, performance & signing (Montclair, NJ) - November 18, 11:00
• Wisconsin Public Television, online interview (Madison, WI) - September 21, 2006
• American Library A'ssn. mid-winter conference, signing (Seattle, WA) - January 22-29, 2007
• WISC-TV, "Live at Five", interview (Madison, WI) - September 20, 2006
• WMTV, "The Morning Show", interview (Madison, WI) - September 21, 2006
• Post-Tribune, review (Detroit, MI) - September 28, 2006
• Progressive Magazine, interview (Madison, WI) - September 20, 2006
• Maplewood Art Museum, keynote address & book signing (Maplewood, NJ) -- September 30, 2006
• Tavis Smiley Show taping, LA (national) -- September 27, 2006
• Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore (Los Angeles) -- September 25, 2006
• Holman United Methodist Church, book signing (Los Angeles) -- September 24, 2006
• Borders Books, book signing (Madison, WI) -- September 19, 2006
• Borders Books, book signing (Oakbrook, IL) -- September 18, 2006
• Barnes & Noble, book-signing (Merrillville, IN) -- September 17, 2006
• Westside High School, back-to-school rally & book-signing (Gary, IN) -- September 16, 2006
• SonEdna Literary Salon, reading and book-signing (Charleston, MS) -- September 8, 2006
• Turnrow Books, book signing (Greenwood, MS) -- September 7, 2006
• Square Books, book signing (Oxford, MS) -- September 6, 2006
• Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, narration for Random House Audio (NYC) -- August 9-11, 2006
• Washington Post Radio, Lunch and Later with Sam Litzinger, 15-min live interview with Jabari Asim (WADC) -- July 25, 2006
• Washington Post Op Ed page, interview for "Invoking Responsibility" (WADC) -- July 24, 2006
• C-Span, on air recording of Biography/Memoir panel at Harlem Book Fair (national) -- July 23, 2006
• Harlem Book Fair, signing, children’s pavilion, memoir & bio panel (NYC) -- July 22, 2006
• Premiere Radio Network, multiple interviews with 18 major markets (national) (NYC) -- July 19, 2006
• Glenn Beck Show interview, CNN Headline News (national) -- July 18, 2006
• KISS-FM, interview with Michael Carter (NYC) -- July 10, 2006
• National PTA conference, keynote speaker, (Phoenix) -- June 25, 2006
• NYC’s Kids’ Day host, 11th annual celebration, 100,000 attending (NYC) -- June 10, 2006

Endorsements for Sesame Street Dad:

Download the Endorsement Sheet for Sesame Street Dad.

Pictures from Sesame Street Dad:

Book Cover - (High-res, JPG)
Book Cover - (High-res, TIF)
Roscoe Orman
Roscoe Orman, Denzel Washington and Oscar the Grouch
Roscoe Orman and Elmo
Roscoe Orman, Maurice Woods, Peter Francis, Morgan Freeman, Peter Jay Fernandez, Count Stovall and Robert Christian
Roscoe Orman, Loretta Long, Bob McGrath and Ray Charles
Roscoe Orman, Telly, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and Elmo
Roscoe Orman and Alicia Keys
Roscoe Orman, circa 1972
Roscoe Orman - (Formal, High-res, JPG, Credit: Eduardo Patino)
Roscoe Orman - (Formal, High-res, JPG, Credit: Eduardo Patino)

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Roscoe Orman speaking at Target Children's Day

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