Profile : Voice of the New South : ‘I’ll Fly Away’s’ Regina Taylor strives to make housekeeper Lilly real with dignity

Joshua Brand and John Falsey are the creators of NBC’s acclaimed drama “I’ll Fly Away.” Sam Waterston is its star. But Regina Taylor is the series’ heart and soul.

Taylor brings a powerful sensitivity to her role as Lilly Harper, a black housekeeper who works for Forrest Bedford (Waterston), a district attorney raising three children in the South during the late 1950s, just when the rumblings of civil rights are being heard. Taylor’s Lilly, whose husband abandoned her several years before and is the mother of a young daughter, is the voice of the emerging South. And she is not afraid to raise that voice in confrontation with her boss, who still wants to cling to the status quo.

In the series’ opening episode, which aired Oct. 7, Lilly was involved in a silent, nonviolent protest by some of the town’s black residents after a white bus driver was acquitted of causing the death of several black riders.

More turning points are ahead, beginning with this week’s episode, when Lilly becomes the first person in her family to file for divorce. And in an upcoming installment, she decides to register to vote despite possible retribution from the white community.

“She is, in a sense, a traditional character in the media,” said the reserved actress, who guards her private life and will not reveal her age.

“But (that character) has been given limited visibility. She has traditionally been portrayed as the ‘Mammy,’ a shadow in the household. For me, it is important to see her as a whole, fleshed-out human being. This person who has been so important in the black community has a life outside (her job). She is a mother, she is a daughter. She is not just a neutered piece of furniture.”

Each week, Lilly writes in her diary about her hopes, aspirations and disappointments. “I think the diary is very important in terms of her finding her own voice,” Taylor said. “It needs to be heard. I think with this woman, any person can identify with her. She is every woman. In the black community, we have always known who this woman is, but we have never seen her portrayed in a meaningful way in the media.”

Picked up by NBC for the entire season despite coming in third to its competition--ABC’s “Full House” and “Home Improvement” and CBS’ “Rescue 911”--”I’ll Fly Away” was recently voted one of the top dozen series in prime time in a survey last month by Viewers for Quality Television. Still, the series has taken heat because it is set in the past--the argument being that it is a “safe” show because it tackles issues that happened more than 30 years ago.

Taylor disagreed. “It is couched in nostalgia,” she said, “but I think it is thought-provoking. I think it should provoke conversation as to where we are today ... how things have remained the same and where are we going. I think it’s important to see where we come from.”

In filming this week’s episode Taylor discovered divorce was almost unheard of in black families in the ‘50s. “Back then when you filed for divorce, you had to wait seven years,” Taylor said. “Our society has changed a great deal in many ways. Divorce wasn’t as easily accessible. (Lilly) is discouraged to divorce. She is going against what is expected. It is a dilemma for her.”

Taylor, who appeared in the 1989 Morgan Freeman film “Lean on Me” and was the first black actress to play Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet” on Broadway in the mid-’80s, read the pilot script of “I’ll Fly Away” earlier this year. She had an immediate, visceral response to Lilly.

“I am from Texas, which isn’t really the South, it is a country into itself,” Taylor said, smiling, “but (the script reminded me) how I was raised. It reminded me so much of my grandmother and my mother and how they dealt with being in this period of time and trying to survive with as much dignity and grace as possible.”

Taylor’s grandmother was a sharecropper who moved to Dallas with her husband and eight children. “My mother would pick cotton in the summer and go to the school during the fall,” she said. Taylor found inspiration for Lilly by sitting down and talking with her mother.

“Her eldest sister and she would take turns going to school every other day, while my grandmother worked at this hotel in the kitchen,” she said. Her mother graduated from college in the ‘50s at the top of her class. But she soon discovered her college degree was useless.”

Employers billed themselves as equal opportunity to comply with laws, Taylor said, “but once you got there to apply for the job, they would say, ‘This job is filled. Do you want to work in the kitchen?’ Stories like that informed me about my character. (Her grandmother and mother) overcame a lot of obstacles and prejudices and remained very beautiful and giving human beings. They gave me a sense of there is nothing you can’t do. You can do anything. Everything is possible and that is my foundation.”

“I’ll Fly Away” airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC.