The Pantagraph from Bloomington, Illinois • Page 77

A Repertoire of Strong, Resilient Women At 15, she had found her dream. Back home, Bassett won roles in plays at the St. Petersburg Little Theatre, in the high school drama club and at church. Bassett attended Yale on a scholarship. After receiving her B.A.

in 1980, she went on to Yale's school of drama. That same year, she learned that her father was dying in New York of an aneurysm. "I went to the hospital to see my father," she recalled quietly. "He was drugged and lethargic. I stayed with him as long as I could, and then I said, 'Dad, I've got to leave now.

I've got to go back to school. Can I have a he said. It was the last time I saw him, and in his bravado or whatever, he could a I 1 1 In Waiting To Exhale, a 1995 hit celebrating the friendship of black women, Bassett (r) played Bernadine, who rebuilds her life after her husband cheats on her. Also shown are Loretta Devine (I) and Lela Rochon. Bassett achieved stardom in 1993's Whafs Love Got To Do With It with her dazzling performance as rock singer Tina Turner, who ended an abusive relationship with her husband, Ike.

In 1998's romantic fantasy How Stella Cot Her Groove Back, Bassett played a successful stockbroker who falls in love with a much younger man (Taye Diggs) on a Jamaica vacation. "I decided that I would like the honor and privilege of playing this woman who changed the world." aunt. "It just got to be too much for her," Bassett explained. Five years later, the marriage over, Betty Bassett took back her daughter. She found a home in the projects in a tough St.

Petersburg, neighborhood and survived on welfare for a time, then worked as an office cleaner and took night classes to improve her job skills. "I remember sit lk Si ting on her bed, helping herfr not give me a kiss. It's sad, but I don't let it hurt me anymore." After graduating, Bassett moved to Manhattan, working at odd jobs between auditions and acting roles. She did commercials, off-Broadway shows, brief parts on TV series such as Hie Cosby Show and on soap operas. She debuted on Broadway in 1985 in August Wilson's Ma Rainey 's Black Bottom and three years later returned in another Wilson play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

In 1988, Bassett moved to L.A. She won critical attention for a support WffJ prepare to take tests to become a secretary," Bassett said. "Get-1 ting an education was very im-portant to my mother, because it meant independence." Her mother was hired by the Florida Department of Health, from which she recently retired. Above: In The Rosa Parks Story, Bassett portrays the seamstress who in 1955 refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala. Her act of courage sparked a nonviolent protest that ended when the U.S.

Supreme Court declared bus segregation illegal. Dexter Scott King (I) makes an appearance as his father, Martin Luther King Jr. "To Mother, we were special and set apart," Bassett recalled. "She raised us in the church and put the fear of God in us about doing what was right. ing role in 1 99 1 's Boyz the Hood and for her portrayal of Betty Shabazz in Spike Lee's Malcolm in 1992.

A year later, her movie stardom was confirmed by Wliat's Love Got To Do With It. Her most recent film was The Score, co-starring Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. Her next release will be Sunshine State, directed by John Sayles. Bassett took the TV role of Rosa Parks after reading the script. "I decided that I would like the honor and privilege of playing this woman who changed the world," she said.

"Mrs. Rosa Parks came along at a time when police were beating our heads with continued your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had." In 1973, Bassett got involved in Upward Bound, a cultural-enrichment program for low-income kids, and was chosen to join an excursion to Washington, D.C. a journey that changed her life. "One evening, they took us to The Kennedy Center to see Of Mice and Men, with James Earl Jones as Lennie," she recounted.

"He's killed at the end, and it's very, very sad. 1 broke down in tears. The play is over, the audience is dispersing, and I'm still in my chair weeping, so affected and devastated by this performance, by theater itself." world, even though I might not have known another until I met my husband." Bassett excelled at school. A popular cheerleader, she was voted "Miss Boca Ciega High School" and also became the first black student to make her school's National Honor Society. "I once came home with a and defended the grade to my mother by saying a stood for average, not an offensive grade at all," she recalled.

"Well, it was offensive to her! She said, don't have average She cut my phone privileges, stopped extracurricular activities. I didn't like it, but I remember feeling pretty special. It was a lesson I never forgot: Don't settle for average. Bring She knew what a struggle it was, but she didn't see us as have-nots. Her attitude was like she was queen of it all." In St.

Petersburg, her mother got married again. "He beat her up, fractured her nose, took her to the hospital," Bassett said. "Seven days after the wedding, she got it annulled. She kept the gifts." The one adult male in Bassett's childhood whom she adored was her maternal great-grandfather, the Rev. S.S.

Stokes. "He was a strong, consistent, compassionate, truly loving man whom I could look up to and admire," she recalled. "His presence was so strong and his walk was so righteous that I knew there had to be other good men in this round PARADE MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 17, 2002 PAGE.