Michelle Obama: The Light Podcast - Erika Alexanders Journey From Starlight Inn To Stardom

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Actress, producer and Living Single star, Erika Alexander opens up about her childhood home, which was at one point room in the Starlight Motel off Route 66. She shares how the foundation of poverty shaped her creative journey and resilience as an adult and how she found comfort in the flavors of a TV dinner. Plus, we learn how to make her mama's Crispy Tuna Salmon Croquettes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your Mama's Kitchen is brought to you by Rivian. I learned that, you know, tomorrow like food is not promised. You got to make the most of what you have. Make it a meal and be nourished by it. Sometime you're nourished by the absence of things. Again, you know, you're eating lunch meat sandwiches and, you know, what are those dinners that you put in the oven? Those were treats. How TV dinners.

TV dinners. That was a treat. I remember being grateful for the flavors, you know, not for the portions. Hello, hello, welcome back to your mama's kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids, not just the food, but all the stuff that happens there. The laughter, the sibling rivalries, the secrets shared at the kitchen table, the homework. I'm Michelle Norris.

And my guest today is Erica Alexander. You know her. You have seen her in several of her iconic roles as Maxine Shaw in Living Single as Detective Latoya in Get Out, Cousin Pam in the Cosby Show, and Coraline in American fiction. But she's not just an actress. She is also activist, a podcast host. She's an entrepreneur and a producer and a director. She produced the fantastic John Lewis documentary that was released back in 2020. She co-wrote a graphic novel. You should check that out. And she even created and co-wrote an incredible true crime podcast. It's called Finding Tamika. And she stars in season three of Apple TV's Invasion, which just premiered. And she's working on another show that's going to be on NBC. Girl, what don't you do?

Obviously rest. I mean, you know, the only thing we left out was Chief Bottle washer in there or something. Hey, let me tell you something. I do a little of that, too. You got to be busy to stay busy. The hustle is real. And I'm gratified. It's a 42-year career you're talking about. So I learned that you cannot. People say stay in your lane.

I said, I'm an off-road vehicle. That's how I paid a rent. And, you know, and really today, you have to work across several platforms and have all, you know, in my world of cooking all six burners going at the same time. And you definitely do. I am so glad you're with us. Thank you, Michelle. You know, by the way, I'm a fan.

have always been. I love what you do. I love who you are. I love how beautiful you are. I love your presence in this world. Oh my goodness. You are aspirational and inspirational all at once. So thank you for the invitation. And I feel the exact same way about you. I got to meet you a couple years ago in California. And I kind of embarrassed myself because I got all like googly and wobbly and noodly because I was so excited to finally meet you because, you know, I have been riding your train for a really long time. It felt very easy and very natural. And like I said, to be invited here, means that I must have made some impact. So I'm like, oh, she must be to come on the show?

Perfect. You made a strong impact. Because we met at Leading Women Define. It's a conference for women in California. And you told your origin story. And I thought she's got to come on the show because it was just so interesting to hear about growing up in the Southwest. And I thought you had great stories to tell. And so I wanted to be able to share it with our listeners. And so here you are. And that's how we begin in this podcast. We always ask Okay. People to go back, down memory lane, and talk about the kitchens they grew up in, what they remember.

And in your case, it's interesting because it's almost like out of a novel. You grew up for the first several years of your life in a motel called the Starlight Inn. Starlight Motel. Yes, I did. I'm from Arizona. I was originally born in Winslow, Arizona. And then my parents moved to Flagstaff. They are both from the Southwest.

I'm one of six. Both my parents were orphans, and I spent the first 11 years of my life in a hotel called Starlight off a Route 66. And my father was an itinerant preacher, and my mother was an educator and also a minister in, like, a music education ministry. My father was one of those types of people who had been ordained since he was six years of age. And both my parents were orphans. So a lot of our lives vary Dickensian. And it's memorable. memorable for what it did not have. So what we have and what we had, we remember very well because we didn't have much. You know, when I listened to you, tell that story again that you grew up in the Starlight Motel off Route 66, it sounds like the beginning of a song sung by Rosetta Tharp. And you stand in your story, you know, despite the difficulties that you faced, you tell that story, it seems willingly. I do because it's level sets. Some people can see you.

I've been in showbiz since I was 14. People have a projection of who you are. And I say that and then it sort of reframes it. So we can now have a conversation and maybe they can also, you know, give me a space to be myself as opposed to some kind of character they might have seen. or have some kind of special, I don't know, luck around me. I'm very much like them. And one of the things you said about I tell it willingly,

because I am a storyteller and my parents were, obviously being pastors, preachers, but just this year I got honored with storyteller of the year from the moth. And I sang my song about Arizona with my niece in the style of an old country song. And it says, I was born in Arizona. Yes, off highway 66, but don't want to be associated with those cowboy hicks. My Baptist daddy turned to Lutheran while Mama pay the rent.

We get old and wiser, but the money's always spent. So I always wanted to create a song. That's how I did my acceptance speech. So it's funny you should say so. You'd be smart enough to figure that out. But you're the first one who've ever said that, so it's funny. You know that introduction I read where I listed all of like 18, 50, 11 things that you do? I think you're going to be adding to that soon because I see a musical career ahead of you.

You know, either cutting records or on Broadway or something, because you have bars. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I am taking some vocal lessons and I was taking it just as an actress to make sure I had, you know, I had some respiratory issues. and it was messing up my voice. And I've always loved to sing. I come from a singing family. All my nieces sing. My mother sang.

She put a piano in that roach motel that we were living in, and a chandelier and curtains that were red velvet with golden tassels because she wanted us to be cultured. And so music is a very large part of who we are. And plus, that's how they literally sang for their supper. So you never know, but I appreciate you saying it. Always write your future in pencil because you do never know. Oh, come on.

Oh, that's a bar right there. Come on. I love that. So introduce me to a young Erica Alexander. What was it like for you? Were you with your siblings, your six siblings running up, the six of you, at least. Were you running up and down the hallways in the hotel? Were you playing in the parking lot?

Paint a picture for me of what? what your childhood was like there. And then if you ran in to get, you know, a snack from the kitchen or your mom called you to come in to eat, what was the kitchen like at a motel? Sure. So we rented the shack that was offside of the hotel because it was a long-term place. And it was a white and turquoise wood house with two-bedroom. one for the five of us at the time

my sixth sister hadn't showed up yet and my mother's father's bedroom and it had wood floors I always hated wood floors because our wood floors were like

kind of the ones you might see in a slave plantation they weren't nice I used to always wonder why people like wood floors because you'd get splinters in hours and it was just those boards were just over the ground

there was no insulation and you have to stand. That's really harsh in the cold of the mountains of Arizona, Flagstaff, Arizona. So that's what I remember. I remember how simple it was, and we had, in our view, Mount Eldon. So looking at it now, I think of how people pay for these types of views. But for us, it was that mountain was kind of, well, it watched over us, Mount Eldon. And then the San Francisco peaks were just to the left of it. And that's how it was. And you didn't just run into the house and get a snack because it wouldn't like that.

He didn't have much food. And you had to ask permission to eat. And you had to ask permission to get anything. So we did get, you know, we could eat a little cereal if there was any there. But my mother did most of the cooking. And it wasn't like we had a house full of snacks or anything. Yeah. Yeah.

I should have been careful in asking that, you know, because I shouldn't always assume that people, this whole notion of a snack is kind of American because most people in the world don't snack. Describe the kitchen. What it looked like? It was a very small kitchen. It was linked to a small dining room and it had a sink that looked over Highway 66. You'd see all the trucks going by and the railroad. The railroad ran right next to Highway 66 right through Flagstaff, Arizona. And yeah, there were a couple of cabinets, and there was a laundry room in the back that we didn't have a washer and dryer. It never worked. So it was a very cold space. And there was a door that went straight through there. You could either go to my parents' room from one side or the other.

It was a small little passage to their room. And so that's what it looked like. And spent a lot of time in that kitchen because, you know, from a very young age, we all did chores. And I remember climbing up on chairs to reach to put dishes, to push dishes, excuse me, into the cabinet. So, and standing on the chair to wash dishes. So your mother is Sammy. Sam, Jean Alexander, yes. And your father was the right Reverend Robert Alexander.

Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Yes. I did a little research. I see that. Did they both cook or was that your mother's domain? They both cooked. So my mother did, I think the majority of cooking, like she would always tell us, she might call and say, take out the chicken to thaw, because everything was frozen. Nothing was fresh. She would take it out to thaw and we'd put it in water or something. And my father, would cook, not a lot, but he knew how to cook. And he would make spaghetti and those types of things. But my mother did most of it because we ate a lot of Mexican food, enchiladas and that type of stuff. Not the stuff you see in L.A., but, you know, fry bread from Navajo and enchiladas, a lot of native food. Was that what your community was like when you went to school, was that did you grow up with that kind of regional diversity?

We were the only black family in our school for a very long time. How was that for you and your siblings? It sucked. It sucked. At the time, I didn't really realize how much to you start to grow up and realize that people make groups and start to self-segregate and create the type of segregation that existed in the world. We were fast, though. I hate to say it was not a stereotype. we would go and break each other's records.

The Alexander boys and girls were, at least me and my sister, we were faster than anybody else without trying. And the boys were champion runners. So I'm just going to clarify that because you said when you were fast, that could have been interpreted two ways, that you were fast because you ran track, which you did, or you were fast because people were chasing you on the way home. And just want to make sure that people understand

that you were out there winning ribbons, that you were winning trophies. That's right. Coming in first. Coming in first. Winning ribbons and trophies and being good at PE. How did your mom and dad get to Arizona? My father was born in New Mexico. And he had been there with a, his mother was a, I don't know, she did a lot of things. You know how black people are. We do a lot of things. No one thing. But she had a little diner, it said. And she would go back and forth to the deep south. more New Orleans and whatnot for Goofa Dust. And she would get it to get people to come into her diner. She needed a stronger, a stronger potion. Because she was in touch. Did you say, what was that word you, to go back to get what? It's called goofah dust. Goofa dust. Okay. I was in my head. I was like, you know,

let me just ask. And she was into black magic and whatnot. Okay. All right. And she would leave my father a lot. She was not a very responsible parent. So my father would be left on the streets. She was just leaving. And he had a grandmother that he could have stayed with, but she just really wasn't, sounds like she might have an addiction problem. The grandmother, though, had, when he was born, said that he was going to be a man of God. And so he had been ordained

by her church as a boy, as a boy preacher, at six years of age. So he was a very, he was a very, he was a prodigy who would go around and preach. And also, even though he had a crazy life. And then my mother's adopted mother made her like the choir director. And she said they put me on a chair, Erica, at four years of age. And I would direct their little church choir. And so they met at a revival when my father came to preach the revival at 13 years of age.

My mother was choir director, Aunt Pian. at 11. That's the first time they met and they married at 19 and 20. Wow. That's a hell of a story. That's incredible. And you said that their lives were Dickensie and your dad is almost like the Artful Dodger, you know, figure it out how to how to get by. Yeah. On his own. And that's how he stayed in life. That's a great example. Yes, the Arford Dodger. How did they get to the hotel? How do they get to the Starlight? That's just one of their many travels. So they married, I'm fourth. Okay, so they had many years to go before they got to Starlight.

I was born in Winslow, Arizona. Starlight Hotel was in Flagstaff, Arizona. So as an itinerant preacher, that means that you don't have a church home. And so you were invited, and he did a lot of revivals. She would, like a tag team, she would play the piano, and then he would preach. And they would cast out demons and devils and sleeping people's garages. And they would take up an offering for the young. couple just enough maybe for them to get to the next town and or he would take up a temporary job as a

Pullman Porter. She would clean houses, whatever she had to do. They were both going to Bible College and they got there. She got, she definitely got her degree. He did too from Bible College. And yeah, they just traveled around and eventually they got to Flagstaff because it was just the next They were in Winslow where they had cut off. They had, I think they were, he removed a chain from the door because the people said that it was, the church was possessed by a demon. And I said, Mom, what did, what did y'all do? And he says, Robert just went got a chain cutter, cut off the lock.

And then said, praise the Lord, it's over. And so they were there for a little while, and that's where me and my sister were born. She's two years apart. They were there for four years. But then after that, that kind of ended, and they went on to Flagstaff. And that's the first place they landed at the Starlight Hotel. And they stayed there for 11 years. That, you know, just cutting the chain makes me think the hardest jails to escape are gaitless.

Sometimes we are victims of our own. You are dropping the bars. us, my God. You know, that all these people are afraid to go in a building and then here you comes and boom, you know. You said your parents would cast out demons. Is that something that you'd hear about at the kitchen table or is that something you actually witnessed?

I did not witness it. My mother talked a lot about the early years and going and demon possession was big back in the day. Just was. What did you talk about? What'd you hear from her about that? Listen, for demon possessions normally, you just can't just take them on right away usually, which I think they did in the church. It was a healing. My father was

one of those healing pastors. You usually had to fast for three days and get a group of women to fast, and then you come back and pray over that person so you'd have the strength and bring oil for anointing and all that. So just like you see in the exorcists in Catholicism, You just couldn't, you didn't usually go to a demon and just do it. But as for demon possession and those types of things, it was talked about all the time. Again, my life feels very much like, I don't know, like, well, I call it, it was Southern Gothic. You know, these stories everyone told. I spent most of my time in church like my other siblings

and they told those stories all the time like it was no thing. And I'm asking you this not through judgment at all because I know people who are Pentecosts, they sometimes don't talk about this because they sometimes face judgment because people don't understand what happens in the church in a process like that. And so it's just interesting if you were willing to, to talk about it because a lot of people aren't. Oh, yeah. No, no, my mother's very proud of that.

I mean, I don't think my mother has any sense that she should be ashamed of this. She's a godly person and this is her life, you know, and the type of demon possession that she experienced also comes in the family because the grandmother, meaning my father's mother, it was said she died from demon possession

that because of her going back and forth of the South came back one day, wrapped up around herself and barking like a dog. And they had to go get the person who became their god parent, their god father to come and pray over her. And he, you know, cleared himself and fast. And then they brought her out of it after prayer. And then he warned her.

He said, sister, if you go back, the Lord told me to tell you that you will come back in a box. Don't go back. You will come back in a box. And she said, no way, whiff, I'm not. going to. I'm not going to. And my father's last, one of his last memories of his mother was her going into a red Cadillac with her boyfriend Red and pulling out and him begging, please don't go. And she said, don't worry, Robert, I'll be back. And two weeks later, she came home in a box.

Oh. Oh, my goodness. So I think she told us that too for us to know that for her God was real. and that their wages of sin was death and that you should not mess around with things you don't understand and that this world had different dimensions that weren't always working for us. And I think to a family in poverty, those messages rang real, they were true because she couldn't watch over us.

And we had to be, it kind of made our, we self-policed because we really didn't believe in demons. We believed in all that. I know I did. I don't know so much anymore, but then it was how she watched us. Your family wound up moving from Arizona to Philadelphia. How old were you when that happened?

Seventh, eighth grade. Seventh, eighth grade. Okay, and that's right around the time that you started acting also. Yes, exactly. Was that through school? No, my mother put me in a summer program. It was one of our chances, you know, she didn't have a lot of money,

and she would try to give us, again, cultural opportunities. She really believes that I think she didn't, say this, but I think she thought she thought that if her children were cultured and could speak well, that people would be kind to us and that we'd, they wouldn't, they wouldn't think they were just any old black people, black kids, you know? This was the woman who put the curtains and the candelabra out. That's right. She had the chandelier. She had the curtains and all of that. But she's partly raised by the richest

woman in town. She happened to be in. poverty, but she was raised with elocution lessons and pronunciation and I mean, she sang a German opera and went to NAU. She spent her little money to give her classes. She was an educator. She understood the power of education. So when we were in Philadelphia, it was my time to get a class. And she said, you know, she saw me perform in fourth grade.

I played Groundhog Day. Sorry, I was in a play about Groundhog Day, and I played a lawyer. You played a lawyer? Oh, my goodness. In all things, you played a lawyer. I was defending Groundhog's Day. And she remembered that, and she thought that I liked acting. I never said otherwise.

I wanted to be a scientist. I never really thought about acting. But she put me in a summer program at New Freedom Theater. It was a six-week program. And in the fifth week, a movie came to town. they said that we should audition because if we didn't want to be an actor, it was a great opportunity. And my mother taught us also, if you had an opportunity, you should take it. And I did, and I showed up at 5 o'clock in the morning.

I was second in line. By the end of the day, they had handed me the script for the lead role and said they wanted me to read that script. Several auditions later and three, four, five screen tests, they cast me in the lead role of My Little Girl, Immersion, Ivory Film. with James Earl Jones and Geraldine George. Wow. Wow. That's exactly how quickly my life changed. Your first film was a merchant ivory film. Yes.

Did you always have that voice? Because you have a great voice. Oh, you have a great voice. But you have this timber in your voice. It's really, it's a beautiful voice. And sometimes when you have a deep voice like that, you develop it later. But sometimes you, as a kid, sound like you've been, you know, smoke and cigarettes and drinking whiskey. It's gotten deeper. It's always been unusual, I think. I never thought about my voice until my niece

showed up, and she has a very unusual voice. And suddenly, I could hear what people heard in me, in her. Because if you didn't hear her, you just would turn and say, who's got that voice? But apparently, in my family, which is known for singing and known for pastors, we have unique voices. And I've got one of them. Yeah, you do. You do. I'm going to ask. I'm going to continue with the acting in a minute, but I did read in my dossier about you that you at one point wanted to be a scientist and you wanted to study muscular dystrophy. I did. I did.

Which is so honorable, but I was just wondering, is there a specific reason that you wanted to study muscular dystrophy? Yes, because I watched the Jerry Lewis telethon. Okay. All right. And I was that there's a child. Because that was on Labor Day weekend. All the time. And my mother's, it was appointment.

viewing, we would sit there, my mother would say, come on, Jerry, you can get through it. You'll never walk a go. And we would sit there and I would be like, the world's waiting for me to become a scientist and I'm going to cure, I'm going to find a cure for muscular dystrophy. And that was my goal because I wanted to be Jerry's champion for those children. Jerry's kids. That's why. Jerry's kids. I didn't know anybody with muscular dystrophy. But we had grown up in a world full of people who were disabled. My parents were always going to pray for people who were impoverished and or disabled and are mentally ill. I have no doubt that if you had become a scientist, that you would have been fantastic.

But I'm glad that you took a sharp right turn and decided to pursue acting because we are all the better for it. So that first film, my little girl, then where did you go from there? I graduated Philadelphia High School for Girls. I was going to NYU. And two weeks into getting there, Peter Brook, the great Peter Brook, the English director came and he cast me in a play, an eight-hour play called the Mahabarata with the Royal Shakespeare Company. And I went around the world with this troop from 28 different countries. I was the only American on it and went around the world and then we did the movie in Paris.

And that's what I did. I dropped out of college and did that from 17 to 18. I just kept working in all these different places. And at some point, you're becoming the family's major breadwinner because you're, you know, earning coins doing all this work. What was that like for you? Did that add a level of pride, but also a special responsibility because you were sending checks home? Yeah. You know, not so much sending checks home, but making sure. that my needs weren't theirs. I didn't, I could pay for myself in life. And then after a while, what happens, you just start paying for things. You know, my mother never asked for those things.

So my father got sicker. And she wasn't more distracted. She just had a bigger burden. I still had two younger sisters younger than me. There still were houses and things that would break. And I would just be like, no, ma, I got it. You know, she hated that. She didn't want that at all. But I'm very stubborn, and I wanted to make sure that I was, you know, not only helpful, but it gave me great pride, as you say. After a while, I did start to do larger things. My father was at his church. After he graduated the theological seminary, they sent him to East New York, one of the most rough places you could be sent in the 90s, or 80s and 90s, excuse me, 80s. And it was mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood.

Most people had their churches. It's a place for a young pastor to build a congregation, not for an older pastor with heart failure. And then he died. And it was a long death because he had had his first heart attack at 35 in Arizona. So it was just a matter of time before he just couldn't take it anymore. His body couldn't take it. But he was at the parsonage and we were living.

the parsonage and my family wouldn't have had anywhere to go. So I just bought it. The church let me buy it at cost. Yes, for like $69,000 at the time. That's what the people who donated, this little white women donated to the church, but they let me buy it at cost. So then we had some place to live. And then the house in Philadelphia need to be renovated. So I paid for that. So that's what kept happening. Michelle, it just was one of these things where I just wanted to be helpful. And that is its own burden after a while, because really, Really what came the burden was the fact that people resent you, your good fortune. And there was a lot of unspoken resentment.

And I've talked about it with my siblings, from my siblings who kind of abandoned me. And it was very difficult to live in that world. It's hard because they think that you're Sididi. Girl, you changed. You're brand new. You're smelling yourself. You know, there's all these kind of things that you hear. There was this comedy.

Was it with Cedric, the entertainer? And where he goes home, he's become an entertainer, and he goes home. And everybody's giving him the business. And he has such a hard time because they think he's grand. But there was a lot of business that was done in that film because for people who have written that escalator, you know, up and out of their community, it is hard to go back.

Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to be growing up and being college age and paying for things that your friends cannot afford, but you want to stay with them. You want to be with them. So you end up paying for lunches and all of those things. And then it goes on and on and on. But again, you don't know how people are receiving it, you know, how difficult it could be for a boyfriend to be on that end. You know, stuff like that.

Yeah. How did you take care of yourself in that period? I didn't. Absolutely not. I'm barely taking care of my. myself now. I'm dead serious. I didn't know anything was wrong. I just kept trying to do more, trying to prove to them that I hadn't changed, that I was benevolent and humble and all the things that my mother taught me to be to prove to them that, look, I'm no, I'm not special.

There's nothing special about me. See, you can have this. You can, you know, I have my friends who have careers now got it because they came to L.A. and got a chance to be on living single, event Lee Bowser put them down in parts, featured parts. They started coaching, dialogue coaching, all these young stars that became big stars and leading them to Oscars and things like that. They're happy for it. And now we're grown up. They're cool.

But it wasn't always easy. And it was strange for me to feel that no matter what I did, it seemed to put me in hot water and deny me the love that I so sought. Oh, this is hard to hear you say that. Yeah. So the time that you were actually blossoming, at least outwardly, that's what it looked like. It sounds like it was a pretty lonely time for you. Oh, it was awful. It was awful. It is awful. I think that you know, people say, you know, it's just, it's just difficult being the one for whatever reason. And you're grateful for it. You're grateful for it. You don't want to become jaded or closed off, but you almost need to in order to endure and survive and thrive.

The idea of having to protect myself, to have armor to protect myself, came way later because nobody was speaking to black people like that, let alone black women. Come on, we just barely learning how to be for ourselves as opposed to everyone else. It's the same for me, but then that just made it a little worse. All right, all right. Game day is back. And my go-to for making it stress-free, whole foods market.

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I like the mac and cheese bites in the freezer for a last second touchdown. especially if sometimes you don't think you're having people over in ding-dong. Suddenly people are over to watch the game. You just go to the freezer and pull those out. I fill a cooler with October Fest beers and non-acoholic options from athletic brewing so everyone can cheer and everyone is satisfied. And the best part, you don't even have to leave your house to get all of this. You can get everything delivered right to your door at a window of your choosing,

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avocado pits to cannoloop rines and mill runs automatically while I sleep. I can keep filling it for weeks and it never smells. What really surprises me is the peace of mind. I used to feel guilty every time I tossed out wilted spinach or half-eaten leftovers. Now I just drop. I just drop them into the bin, open the lid, drop them in, and I know that they're going to a better place. You can use the grounds in your garden or feed them to your chickens, but me, I have Mill, get them to small farms for me so farmers can grow more food. You just send those grounds off to farms in little boxes that Mill can provide, and they will turn that back into real food for real animals. That's such a good feeling. It's a full circle moment that I didn't know that I

need it. You can have your own full circle moment. Try Mill, risk-free, and get $75 off at mill.com slash YMK podcast. That's mill.com slash YMK podcast. When you were on Living Single, did you all have each other? Because it appears, at least in watching it, and can I just say that that still holds up? I mean, I will find it on TV to this day and sit down. If I'm having some kind of day, I just watch Living Single. It's like a glass of Chardonnay. I'm just going to watch a little single. That's beautiful.

It's going to make me feel good. I know I'm going to laugh. I know I'm going to say, were we really wearing, were our collars really that big back then? Yes, they were. I know that I will have all kinds of running commentary, and I still will go back and watch it. But you all looked, I mean, talk about Ensemble television.

It looked like you were, that you really had a close, family unit. And I've gotten a note, Yvette Lee Bowser, the creator, and she is got that strong mama bear energy, so I assume that that's very much what was going on. Am I correct in that assumption that you all had, a fairly close unit? I think it's partly correct. I'd, you know, shout out to Yvette Lee Bowser for the enduring resonance of living single. Definitely, you know, we loved each other, but you're together all that time. You know how it is. The last thing you want to do is hang out. But we did hang out

and do birthdays together and that type of thing. But I don't think I told them much of my life. The person I got closest with was Kim Colts. We had a natural sort of, you know, you know, synergy.

And I got close to her. Dana was in a whole other world musically. So when she left, she became Latifah. And Latifah is different from Dana on set. because where she's ruling as queen, they don't have the same rules as we do in terms of time.

And it's like, when does the party start? When I get there? When are you going to get there? You say eight, you come in at two. You know, it's like that. And so it's difficult. I'd say that we had great respect, mutual respect for each other. Love.

We hung out enough for it to feel like a unit. But looking back, I do believe that a lot of us, we all as individual had, some issues with really kind of creating the type of trust where you could rest and be safe. You know, it was respectful. There was always a layer of like, you know, that. I don't know how to really define it because right now we're doing the Reliving Single Podcast. And I have to say, a lot of the feelings are coming up and I'm realizing, well, I started the show, reliving.

Sorry, living single. And just two months before, my father had passed. So, yeah, I was cut off from my emotions. And no wonder, I don't really... So you were the walking wounded right there. Yeah, I don't remember even the first season as much. And you played the strong person. You played the intellectual. You played the one that everybody turned to Maxine.

How are we going to solve this problem? So... Well, no, no, it was that was Khadija. I played the straw that stirs it up. I just happened to be full of solutions as Maxine Shaw. But she was not very... They're very dependable. I mean, you know, I...

That's interesting, because I always saw her as a fixer, but... We'll see. But that's interesting. That is interesting. Why? I... Because she had a lot of sass because she had... You were confident.

You walked into the room. You didn't walk into the room all the time. Exactly. And you were argumentative? And that's true. And that's partly down to me, too. I have a lot of energy. I have a lot of boy energy.

I came from the mountains. I ran with the boys. I got scarred all over. I wasn't interested in being a girl. Like all of this stuff, whatever. Me and Latifah, we have the same, you know, tomboy attitude where we're like, okay, finish this makeup, please, so we can leave.

I don't even look in the mirror before I leave. Sometimes I look and I'm horrified, is how I'm going out through the door to this day. I guess I was a fixer in my home, but they were so strong individually. I didn't necessarily have to be the fixer there. But inside of the character, she certainly had remedies. So I can totally see that. But it was the Khadija character that carried.

She cared. She was sentimental. I don't think Max was sentimental. She was sort of just like, okay, good. Whatever. Bye. I mean, she's so selfish. She was a little selfish.

Yes, yes. She definitely. She was. So did you have any ideas? You know, you know about it. You've talked about it on the podcast. You've talked about it elsewhere. The Maxine effect. That as many as one in three women of color who've gone to law school cite her as an early influence. That is incredible. I mean, that is incredible. Talking about sending ripples out into the world. Did you have any idea at the time that you were having that kind of impact on people? No. No. And what does it mean to hear to know that now? I'm grateful. I just think that comedy does that stuff.

Tommy can do what nothing else can do. We don't all cry at the same time for the same reason, but we all laugh together. When a joke hits, everyone laughs at the same time. And it may be as slow rumbling as we all get it, and then it's electric. And it's kind of like we don't all agree about the song, But for the most part, if something's funny, we laugh like, ah!

And so I think it has something to do with what comedy can only do. And once it's in your heart, you just have that good feeling that once you see that person, you go, oh, that's joy. They're connected to joy. They're connected to joy. And that character is connected to a lot of people's joy and growing up nostalgia and all that. And I'm proud of that. The fact that Maxine Shaw, attorney at law, resonates, is.

a powerful sort of collaboration between me and Yvette Lee Bowser. I did not know who Yvette Lee was when I started that role and I actually didn't know her during the filming of it. For five years, I didn't know who she was. I played a part and I would learn about the character. Each show, I'd get a new puzzle, you know, that would tell me more about the character. But I came fully formed as Erica Alexander. Eric Alexander had been built by Whoopi Goldberg, Felicia Rashob. George Gloria Foster, Cecilie Tyson, Philadelphia

High School for Girls, New Freedom Theater, preacher father, mother, orphans, all that. I came in knowing that you didn't, they told me at Freedom Theater that said, you didn't have the right not to be good. You had to show up. At Girls High, they warned us. They said, you will compete

against men and we expect you to win. I mean, that's just what it was. So I knew how to play that part. I didn't need anybody to tell me. I just needed her words and her evolve and tell me who she was. But I am playing my very best Eric Alexander as informed by all these other people. And then I find out who she is. So I think that over time, through the character and the love of living single, there's a lot of young women from Stacey Abrams to Diana Presley

to, you know, who said it. It really mattered. And they looked at it. It made them feel like, you know what, that person? I could be that person, but I also want to say this. The dark skin and the Newlock Bob, that's here, Brooklyn, Deborah Harba, you know, and all the Jamaicans who used to dress me. The Newlock Bob was iconic. It was iconic, but I was trying to grow up my hair from a different part.

And she said, don't worry, I got you. And this yarn. She's just going to look older and it's going to mimic. Lox. And I didn't know. I got the part with that hairstyle in. Like I said, it just was a confluence of things that came together, bam, to make the look. And the persona is mine, except the part is someone else's. And so I'm using it as a collaboration. I think that at that time, if you look at maybe when those people might have gone to school, it really mattered to see somebody with natural hair. hair and that attitude of like, I'm playing with the boys. I'm not going to apologize for any of this. I can sleep with them or not. It wasn't, by the way, a lot of black women especially were bogged down by religiosity and expectation. Not Maxine Shaw. She was like this. So, okay, bye. I mean, it literally was like, I'm for self. To be selfish, unapologetically. But also by your-

She put her life mask on first. She was- First, first, I'm playing a character that I am yet not. Wow. Wow. That's where she's different. She's projected into the future. She, to me, is an example of Afrofuturism. We were all wanting to be her.

Me too. I think I was her in a lot of ways, like I said, but not in that way. I'm still not like that because I have a different story than Maxine Shaw. See, I think that's why people responded to her, all those things. but they were also responding to you, what you brought to that character. Because there were other people on TV who didn't necessarily ignite an army of attorneys

who marched off to law school. So, you know, you should take credit for that because that's for real. Maybe you can help us. There's this debate about whether Friends was actually an offshoot of Living Single. Because Living Single came first. And then, oh, there's this other show

that has three guys. Is there really a debate? Because it definitely is. Okay. That's a settled law. That is settled law. Asked and answered. Settled law.

That's right. That Supreme Court can't change that. It's true. It's very true. Yeah. There's no doubt about it. You know, Yvette knows it's true. You certainly know it's true.

It wouldn't be the first time that that's happened. And I think here's the problem. It's not that there's a template that people borrow or, you know, whatever to do their thing. Appropriate or that type of thing. The problem is the branding and marketing that goes into building the other platform never will ever match anything from the program or project that it, you know, it gained leverage from. And that's the problem. That's why I don't, I mean, I really have a conversation about even how we say, people say it was, it was our, it was a black show.

I said, there's no such thing. There's a show with a black cast. We can't say that because then they, they're the ones who created that. I always said, was the Jefferson a black show? Was the Cosby Show a Black show? What's happening? Was even Fred Sanford, Sanford and son a Black show?

It was a show with Red Fox in it. And the number suggested that a whole lot of people who were not black were watching. That part. Because we were all, there was only three networks you could be in, they were all on the same right next to MASH, you know, you'd see whatever. But when we started having so-called black shows, it's put us in the cultural ghetto. And we never recovered. And somebody recently asked me, yeah, Erica, but isn't there a way that, you know, having something that's ours, you know, uniquely ours and sort of labeling it, you know, sort of defining it that way is

empowering? And I said, okay, fine, let's say black basketball then. Let's say black basketball. then. Let's say black football. Let's say black sport. If that's the case, where you're saying because it's got, you know, a heavy amount of black people in it or whatever, I said, let's own it. That's own it all. You don't say that. Let's go watch our black basketball game. You don't. And that to me is the damage. It tells people you don't have to invest in it. You don't have to spend money to, you know. Make sure you have the white. at the after market. Widest, not whitest, widest, widest, biggest.

There you go. You said the right thing. And we can put it only in, you know, Philadelphia, D.C., Atlanta, whatever, and call it a day. So it limits their thinking, as opposed to thinking, I got Friday nights to sell. And on Friday nights is all of this. But again, I'm getting ready to be on a show where it's going to be a uniquely, mostly black cast. And it's a Tina Fey comedy. And no one will ever call it a black show. So what did you learn?

You had several kitchens. We never talked about your kitchen when you moved to Philadelphia, but I want to go back to that kitchen at the Starlight Hotel. What did you learn in that kitchen that has helped you find the success that you enjoy today? I learned that, you know, tomorrow, like food, is not promised. You got to make the most of what you have. Make it a meal and be nourished by it. sometime you're nourished by the absence of things.

Again, you know, you're eating lunchmeat sandwiches and, you know, what are those dinners that you put in the oven? Those were treats. Oh, TV dinners. TV dinners. That was a treat. I remember being grateful for the flavors, you know, not for the portions. With girls, we got less than the boys. That's how my father ran it.

you'd get this much, they'd get this much. It didn't matter if you were still hungry. What pieces of the chicken did you get? We would be allowed the wing and the leg. And a lot of times, not the leg. It depends on what he didn't take. I was the youngest, so sometimes you got a little piece. You don't even know what is this.

What is that? Exactly. Is that the hind part? Is that? What is that? All I do. know is that we used to go to church. And, you know, we spent all day there.

And they have the whiting fish with the bread, of course, with soaked with grease. And literally, we'd have to share one between three of us. You're starving. But you get your little piece of bread and that fish, and you eat it slow. Now I can get whatever I want, Michelle. And I literally, that's one of the things that is weird. If you ask my brothers and sisters,

We all kind of hoard food a bit. Oh, do you? Yeah. In your pantry? Or do you keep you? Yeah. Buy a bulk. Are you, do you have a little squirrel purse where you always have something in your bag right now?

Yes. Yes. I do. Do you have a protein bar in your bag? Always. Always. Always. If you ask, oh, Erica E, she's going to pull out something and be like, here, look.

Jarpeed butter. Jar, and you know what, that's what it was. Can a tuna fish. You got six kids. My mother had all sorts of stuff in her purse. I go to set with every bag in the world.

My ex-husband used to say, where are you going? You look like a bag camel. And I was just like, just in case, I have this feeling of not being able to, because there's no stability. There is no home in my heart. There literally is just wherever I am is where it's at.

And so in that kitchen, you talked about, I see a lot of poverty. It was, that kitchen was infested with roaches. Invested with roaches. And my mother tried her hardest. She did. We closed everything. She would do this bomb, this bomb that you'd set off. And then you'd walk away everybody to get out the house.

And then the roach was supposed to come out and be all killed from wherever their hidey holes were. she'd do it we come back and some of the other ones would be dying whatever we'd stomp them again sweep up wipe off everything disinfect and then two nights later you see these roaches still walking and my mother was just like

I can't she tell you now she said I don't know what happened and then she said Erica I finally figured it out years later it used to haunt me she said those floors that were over the ground they would just go aground waded out and then they'd come out there was no way she could ever

stopped them. But you tell the story, and I keep going back to the woman who put the red curtains up. That's so much pride, right? And so to be such a prideful person and a person who spoke with elocution and sang opera in German, dealing with roaches and trying to protect her kids from roaches, had to just be, you know, so difficult for her. And such a psychological wound almost. It was, because I think she thought about how the white people saw. We had a lot of white visitors, you know. One time we came home from a trip where, I don't know, my parents were preaching or something, and it was for a couple of days.

And all our furniture was gone. And the white people would come and taking it and put in new furniture, but it was all white. And my mother looked at it and was horrified. For one thing, she's thinking, oh, God, what did they think of my first furniture, which was up on blocks, you know, you know, these cement blocks. And, you know, we did our best to make bookshel. My brother, who was the Philadelphia cop now, was into decorating then.

Then I didn't know that, but he would always, every now, every two months he'd changed the room around to make it fresh. That's what he loved to do. But all that was gone. They put that white furniture in there. And she's thinking, I got six children. What do I need the white furniture? I'm thinking that.

White furniture with six kids. She said, what? And guess what? they couldn't keep up the payments. They didn't pay for it. And they had to come take it away. And she said, there I was, but now no furniture and because they had thrown out the other. And now, so we're going out on the road because we used to go and people would throw out stuff and bring in a couple of things so we could sit on. Yeah, that's the type of person. She was horrified that they saw her and yet had to be grateful. And of course, Tiri, oh, thank you so much. They're so proud of themselves. But then they, they're.

They themselves had to take back the furniture. Yeah, it was, it was tough. So you have survival instincts deep, deep down. You know, people talk about kitchen and stuff being places where it was warmth. It was warm. My mother would, it was always, the pipes were always freezing. And so you couldn't cut on the water. And so she would try to, you know, do her best to thaw out, you know, the pipes maybe in the kitchen and bring.

and she'd bring a pot of boiling water. Oh, no, she didn't. She didn't throw off the pies. What I'm talking about? She'd go out and scoop some snow into a pot, put it on the heater, and then warm it up, make it hot. Then put it in the bathroom, you could take a cup, and that's how you washed yourself up. We didn't even have a stopper. It's so funny, I haven't thought about this thing.

I haven't talked to anybody about it. We take a paper towel, not a paper towel, but a clock towel, stick it in a stopper, and that would stop the water. And then you would do a bath like this. We only got a bath once a week, which was usual. And my mother would open up the stove to heat up the house. And if you were cold, you'd go in the kitchen and stand by the stove. This was like, it just seemed like someone had a little house in the prairie.

I mean, like, we were like in nowhere's feel. Yeah, but people think of Arizona's heat as desert. But, you know, deserts get very cold at night, especially when you're in high elevations up by the mountains. So yeah, you're... Yeah, but we weren't in the desert. We were in the mountains. Yeah.

We had six feet of snow. We had four seasons a year. It's a dark city. So it's at Lowell's Observatory up there. It's got skiing. It's like snow dance. I mean, yeah, it's like Sundance. It has four distinct.

The icicles were this big. Oh, Lord. Six feet and they would go into... And they would just fall off. They would kill you if they struck you. It was so big. And those fur trees. and those alpines. And, you know, I mean, that's where Bigfoot is. We're in the mountain mountains.

It's so high. Bigfoot? Michelle. Like, is there really a big foot? Yes. There really is a big foot. There's a big foot there. I didn't see him, but he likes to be in the mountains. But they were so high that, you know, to this day, runners go up there to train for the Olympics because it's very thin air. And up there, you know, you're really getting the hard snow. It's one of the highest places you could be in America. Well, so there is a metaphor. there. Then I'm going to ask you about your recipe because I know I've got to let you go. But there's a metaphor there because you were raised in the mountains where the altitude

is high. And many people have a difficult time with altitude. But people who train in altitude when they descend and they are living in spaces that are closer to sea level, they're hearty. They're sturdy.

That's you. Come on. That is you. That is you. So, you know, you were out there running track in high altitudes, living in high altitudes, dodging icicles in high altitudes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And warming ourselves up by the stove. The kitchen becomes a place that I have to say that my mother tried her best to bring us different cuisines and create

different experiences for Hawaiian food, all these things. It wasn't just a place of poverty. It was a place where poverty was apparent because of maybe how little some time there was to eat, but the food was rich in flavor, rich in meaning. And she tried to bring us the world through those doors. Come on. Honor to Sammy. Now, we always get a, to miss Sammy, and let me not call her by her first name. Oh, Newkin. I don't know, please. She wants you to call her sous. Okay. She likes to be called sous. You'd be, she'd be your sushi, which means grandmother in Africa. She loves that. I like that. Yes. We always get a recipe from our guests that means something to them. What are you sharing with us?

I'm sharing my mom, Sammy Sousou, Alexander's crispy tuna, salmon, croakets. Are we using canned tuna and salmon? You are. And what does she use to bind them together? She uses eggs and breadcrumbs, panco or crushed saltine crackers. Okay.

All right. Did you ever use ritz crackers? I know some people use ritz crackers in their croquets, okay? And she would do it and make like six of them. We think we live in high after hog, we split it. And again, you'd have your little croquette. And she'd feel really good. She said you could eat it with, of course, eggs and toast for breakfast or alongside salad or soup with rice and vegetable maybe for dinner or enjoy it on a snack on their own.

She said for children. And it's a high protein sort of thing. But she would make it for us as a sort of special treat. A fried egg on top of a croquette is... That's good for that. Good God. I can't wait. Why can't I be invited over to your house?

You can. You can. You can. We'll figure out how to get you to the kitchen and we'll cook together. I'd love it. I'd love it. Let's do that. Let's definitely do that.

I'm ready. I have loved this conversation. As I knew I would. Thank you. I love being asked these questions because now my mind is starting to trigger. There's all sorts of feelings I have. There's a feeling sometimes of overwhelm and sadness and then also a real victory when I think about how well my parents did with these huge. obstacles to raise six children, decent children. None of us ever gone to jail or arrested,

you know, good decent citizens. And that was by willpower and good fortune. And they'd say God. And they worked hard. They put a lot of themselves into you. And I would say that the best of them lives in you. Oh, thank you. Another bar. I love this conversation. Love you. Look forward to cooking with you sometime soon. Michelle Norris, thank you very much for the opportunity. I hope you write a book because your stories are beautiful and they're bountiful. And I think that there's a lot of them. So, you know, just a, I would read it. I'm writing something about my mother. It's called Goldbrick. And that right there was her nickname from her garden.

And I hope to put some of her life in there she recognizes, but also expanded a bit. and make it otherworldly, like the way I received it. I love it. I love it. Thanks for being with us. I knew that was going to be a great conversation, and it was just beyond wonderful to hear about Erica's origin story and how she fills both sorrow and victory when she looks back on it about her character, Maxine, about all the projects that she's done, and to see how she shows up in the world and how she carries all. all the things she learned in that kitchen with her.

This is a great conversation. Now, I just want to remind you that we want to hear your stories also. Our inbox is always open for you to record yourself and send us either a recording or a video with thoughts on your mama's recipe, the kitchens that you grew up in, maybe some thoughts on some of the previous episodes. You can send either that audio or video to audio recording or video

to YMK at higherground Productions.com for a chance for your voice to be heard on one of the episodes, or maybe your video to be used on YouTube since you can also see the episodes there. If you want to try making those crispy tuna salmon croquettes, and I hope you do, make sure to check out the website, your mom's kitchen.com. At the website, you will see all the recipes

from all the previous episodes. There's a lot of good stuff there. For everyone at home, thanks for watching us. Thanks for listening. Thanks for coming back, because I hope you do come back next week because we're always serving up something delicious. Until then, be bountiful.