Be ‘True to Yourself,’ Filmmaker Tells Youths : Service: Robert Townsend talks to 100 boys at Camp Holton probation facility as part of the L.A. Theatre Works’ Arts and Children Project.

SAN FERNANDO —  Right in front of their eyes, without props or wardrobe, actor-filmmaker Robert Townsend transformed himself into pieces of his past.

As an audience of young men at Camp Holton probation camp looked on intently, Townsend slipped easily into real-life characters: the neighborhood drug dealer, his grandmother, his “homeboy” from Chicago, who shot down his dreams of making it in Hollywood.

“You on welfare like everybody else,” Townsend said mimicking his street-smart friend. “You ain’t gon’ be the next Billy Dee Williams.

“It’s hard ‘cause that’s supposed to be your boy,” Townsend told the crowd in his own voice. “You gotta check out who your friends really are . . . If a friend says you can’t do it, he’s not your friend.”

To the 100 teen-agers in the gym at the camp on Friday, Townsend’s past sounded a lot like their own lives, and after his nearly hour-long motivational presentation about holding on to and reaching their dreams, many left believing that maybe their futures could be as bright as his.

“I’m going to try,” said Tommy, 16, after hearing Townsend speak. “I might not make it but I’m going to try. Everybody’s got a dream, but it’s hard to stay committed to that dream.”

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Townsend, who wrote and produced, “The Five Heartbeats,” “Hollywood Shuffle,” and “Meteor Man,” appeared as part of the L.A. Theatre Works’ Arts and Children Project. LATW recruits artists to teach visual, performing and literary arts to incarcerated youth throughout the county.

“There’s tremendous talent in the (camps,)” said LATW spokeswoman Gale Cohen. “It’s a resource you have to mine.”

The young men at Holton delivered raps written especially for Townsend, shared their poetry and plans for the future, then gave the actor-filmmaker several boisterous standing ovation after his presentation.

“I think it’s important that kids see someone who came from a similar situation--on welfare, no father figure--who went on to make something on himself,” Townsend said an in interview.

Actor and writer Tommy Hicks, who conducts dramatic workshops with Holton youth, invited Townsend as part of his own effort to help fill a gap he sees all too often in the lives of today’s youth.

“This generation does not have the mentoring that past generations have had,” he said. “My generation had mentors. We had someone telling us what to do.”

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Hicks said that as a young man, he was lucky to be taken under the wings of men in his neighborhood who would not let him become involve in crime--even if they were.

“All I’m doing is what guys did for me when I was growing up,” Hicks said. “ . . . Even though I have a career, I have to do this. I feel a need.”

During the presentation, young men sat transfixed by Townsend’s comic but serious stories about “growing up eating government cheese,” and about his teen-age friends who all wanted to be pimps after the movies “The Mack” and “Superfly” came out.

“The reason I do movies on the real tip is because they’re telling you a lie,” Townsend said, pointing out the negative and stereotyped images of Latinos and African Americans found in some Hollywood films.

“I remember when I first started acting,” he said. “The first thing they wanted me to do was be a pimp. Then every role after that was a pimp. It was like 29 pimps,” he said as the audience roared with laughter.

Townsend’s vignettes also stressed the importance of being “your own man,” and of saying no to the temptation to commit violent crime in hopes of gaining status.

“I saw people get beat down over dumb stuff, stupid stuff,” he said, remembering a child who was brutally killed over a watch.

“Was he a man? No?” he said of the killer.

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Then he told the group about the drug dealers from his neighborhood who had nice cars but, “never really enjoyed them.”

“He’s thinking, ‘somebody could take me out at any second if I sell them the wrong stuff,’ ” Townsend said, acting out the role of a paranoid drug dealer.

If Townsend’s stories about growing up and rising above the negativity around him were not enough to convince the young men of their own power to achieve, his true story about making an independent movie with credit cards--a movie that eventually made $16 million--might have turned the doubters into believers.

“Hard work really does pay off,” he said.

Seated near the front, Jonathan, 15, was the first to stand up when Townsend opened the floor for questions.

“I was thinking about when I get out of here of publishing a book,” he said. “How do I go about doing that?”

Townsend explained the process of publishing and encouraged Jonathan to send him a copy of his manuscript.

Later Jonathan recited a poem he wrote about Black History for Townsend.

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One young man in the back stood up and asked Townsend squarely:

“How do you rise above the rest if everybody is trying to bring you down?”

“You gotta be true to yourself,” Townsend said. “A lot of it comes with being your own man . . .”

After the presentation, some young men said they saw parts of themselves in the stories Townsend shared.

“It’s like me, you know?” said Alex, 15. “I’m happy he came and shared with us. A lot of people are happy he came.

“That was very inspiring,” said Thomas, 17, who wants to be a real estate agent. “He told the truth.”