Mr. T was one of the most iconic celebrities of the 1980s. He broke out with roles in Rocky III and The A-Team, and his unique style — his Mandinka-inspired frohawk hairstyle, his gold jewelry, his unusual stage name — quickly drew the public’s attention.
But Mr. T’s unique style was his way of expressing himself, and many of his signature looks held a deeper meaning for the actor.
During one interview, a woman asked him about his beat-up old shoes boots — and his answer reveals a lot about him as a person.
Mr. T explains “tacky” shoes
In 1983, Mr. T sat down with celebrity interviewer Bobbie Wygant. At the top of the interview, Wygant points out that Mr. T is wearing “ten million dollars” worth of gold and jewelry, but is also wearing a pair of noticeably beat-up shoes.
Wygant laughs and calls them a “disaster.” “Will you explain to me, what’s with these shoes, all taped-up looking tacky?” she asks the actor.
Little did she know, there was a special significance behind the shoes, which Mr. T calmly explained. “Some people might see it as ‘tacky,’ but there’s a message in these shoes,” he says. “These shoes keep me humble.”
Mr. T grew up in Chicago, the youngest son in a family with 12 children. The shoes, he explains, were a hand-me-down, passed down from his father to his older brothers to him, which is why they are so worn and taped-together.
“They let me remember that I have brothers and sisters back in Chicago, that I have a mother and father that I must take care of,” Mr. T says.
“Out in Hollywood, especially with all the money I’m making now, it’s so easy to get caught up in all this material stuff and forget where I come from. So wherever I be, whether I’m with a governor or a reception or whatever, I look down at my shoes and they let me know, ‘hey, you’re too carried away here.'”
“It keeps me level… I keep my feet on the ground and my head toward heaven.”
Mr. T goes on to say that, despite his flashy and seemingly ostentatious style, he stays humble and frequently gives back to his church with donations. He also says that he owns other pairs of shoes, but chooses to wear his hand-me-down pair during press appearances.
Honoring his roots
Like his shoes, a lot of Mr. T’s trademark looks are rooted in a deeper personal meaning. For instance, his frohawk hairstyle was a tribute to the Mandinka Warriors of West Africa.
And while it may seem like Mr. T’s gold and jewelry were him flexing his wealth as a movie and TV star, like the shoes they also come from his humble beginnings: Mr. T worked as a club bouncer and bodyguard before being discovered as an actor, and the gold chains were all items left behind by customers, often after a fight.
Even his self-given name Mr. T (he was born Lawrence Tureaud before legally changing it in 1970) has a deep personal meaning for him, his way of demanding respect in a time when Black people were often denied it in society.
“I changed my name because as a black man growing up in white society, I watched my father being called ‘boy,’ and he was a preacher,” he told HuffPost. “I watched my brother coming back from the Marines and Vietnam and being called ‘boy.’ I watched enough black men in my family being called ‘boy,’ so I point to the fact: What does a black man have to do to get his respect as a man? So, when I became 18 years old, I legally changed my name to Mr. T.”
Mr. T is a cultural icon, and throughout the ’80s his face was on everything from cereal boxes to Saturday morning cartoons — but beneath the larger-than-life persona there was a humble man who never forgot his roots.
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