Sitcom star dreams big
By Joanne Weintraub
of the Journal SentinelAugust 17, 1997
Burbank, Calif. -- "If I'm sad, I want you to feel sad," actor Lamont Bentley says of his craft. "If I'm angry, I want you to feel it."
Fair enough. Watching him shred his third slice of Italian bread and drain his second glass of ice water while waiting for the pasta to arrive, his audience of one is beginning to feel just the way Bentley feels, which is restless.
As the ravioli comes and goes and the conversation continues, it becomes clearer what accounts for this jittery, skittery feeling. The 23-year-old sitcom star isn't one to sit around talking. He'd rather get up and do.
Twelve-hour days on the set of UPN's "Moesha," in which he plays Hakeem, the sweet-natured, somewhat puppyish friend of the title character. Nights working on the hip-hop music he hopes to parlay into a second career. Downtime spent touring, promoting both the show and the music all over the country, including his hometown, Milwaukee.
He wants to become a Hollywood player, he says, "like Eddie (Murphy) or Wesley (Snipes) or Will Smith," the kind of actor for whom parts are written and big deals are struck.
Bentley isn't that kind of a household name, of course. But the success of "Moesha," the 2-year-old network's top-rated comedy, hasn't gone unnoticed, nor have Bentley's smooth features and dazzling, camera-ready smile.
The New York Daily News called him "one of television's hot young hunks." YM, the teen magazine, in a breathless story on "TV treats," cooed over "Moesha" star Brandy Norwood's "babelicious boy bud."
Bentley feels about this sort of recognition the way he feels about the autographs-seekers, the hug-hunters and the occasional screamers: It's all fine, as long as you don't let the noise of the cooing and ooh-ing distract you from your work.
His mother taught him that a long time ago, when he started showing a flair for performing back at Milwaukee's Webster Middle School.
A singer herself, Loyce Bentley knew that flair goes nowhere without discipline, so she urged Lamont to take acting lessons. When he was 13, the single mother and her son moved to Los Angeles so that Loyce could pursue a recording career and Lamont could get professional coaching.
Soon he was winning small roles in TV series -- "Adam 12" was one of his first -- and commercials. High on his early success, he dropped out of high school, thinking he'd perform full time.
But fate, or L.A.'s casting directors, wouldn't cooperate. Between auditions, he worked in a movie theater, a grocery and a fish market and waited for something better.
It came along in 1994, when he got a weekly role in a Fox TV series called "South Central." Though it lasted only a single season, the drama won wide critical praise for its portrayal of hard times and high hopes in inner-city Los Angeles.
Bentley played star Larenz Tate's best friend in "South Central," so, when creator Ralph Farquhar developed a series around pop diva Brandy for UPN, the young actor was on the inside track for a similar role.
In "Moesha", Hakeem Campbell is still in high school, which makes him a good five years younger than Bentley. But the wiry, five-foot-seven actor, who recently got tired of his fashionably bare scalp and now sports a headful of short, neat braids, says he isn't worried about growing out of the part.
"On TV," he explains with a grin, "you only age a year for every two years in real life."
A few months ago, Bentley finished work on a very different kind of project. In "Buffalo Soldiers," a cable movie scheduled for airing on TNT in the fall, he plays Cpl. David Sea, the youngest of a group of black cavalrymen who helped settle the American West.
The calm self-assurance of the movie's star, Danny Glover, made an impression on him. So did the soldiers' itchy woolen uniforms, their heavy carbine rifles and their heroism.
"The buffalo soldiers are a part of history, but it's hidden history," he says. "Most people, even my people, don't know anything about them."
His people -- African-Americans, particularly young black males -- are on his mind much of the time. The more visible he becomes, he says, the more important it is to spread the right kind of message to his peers.
That means urging the inner-city kids he meets on tour to "stay off drugs, stay alive and stay focused." It means steering away from violence, sexism and cynicism in the music he writes and performs with his hip-hop group, Uprise.
This month, Bentley will bring Uprise to Milwaukee for the National Black Music Festival, scheduled for Aug. 30 in Washington Park. He's also been looking for a label to record the group.
Bentley has a house a short drive away from the "Moesha" studio, in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. He's also not far from his mother, who still gives him advice and even braids his hair.
But Milwaukee still feels like home, he says. With his grandmother, Janie Bentley, and other friends and relatives still living in the city where he grew up, he gets back to Wisconsin as often he can, especially in the spring, when "Moesha" isn't in production.
In fact, he says, L.A.'s fast lane is just his route, not his destination: "I'm here to get rich and build a big house in Milwaukee."
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