Lou Myers was so much MORE
than just “Mr. Gaines” from “A Different World”
than just “Mr. Gaines” from “A Different World”
Lou’s family is coping well, his mother Mrs. Dorothy Jefferies (age 95), son Melvin Myers and two grandsons Brayden and Christian are grateful for everyone’s well wishes. As his mother said this morning, “I am well baby, but not good.” This sentiment speaks for our hearts as well.
Lou completed his fifth appearance on Broadway in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” African American Style. “Oprah Winfrey’s The Color Purple” marked Lou Myers fourth Broadway appearance. He was the only performer in the play the audience recognized and applauded every time he appeared on stage and Lou said that was better than having his name in print. . Lou is best known as the irascible restaurant owner “Mr. Gaines” on the, hit Television series “A Different World”. Lou always remembered that he owes his introduction to Hollywood to Bill Cosby. Lou’s TV credits include: NYPD Blue, EVE, E.R., The Cosby Show, Touched By An Angel, Jag, and The Jamie Fox Show to name a few.
His movie credits include: Heirlooms, “Stains,” Life after incarceration, Dreams, A Funny Way of Looking At Things The Fighting Temptations, Lakawanna Blues (HBO) Wedding Planner, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Bullworth, Friday After Next, Passions of Darkly Noon (Showtime), Cobb. Tin Cup, Volcano, Everything’s Jake, The Stand In, All About You, …and Good bye Lover, ” “King Hedley II” represented Lou Myers’ second appearance in this critically celebrated August Wilson play.
He won the NAACP “Best Actor” Award and off-Broadway Audelco “Best Actor” Award for his role of Stool Pigeon in “King Hedley II.” He was recently awarded the coveted “Living Legend Award” from the National Black Theatre Festival. Lou first appeared on Broadway with the Negro Ensemble Company’s production of “The First Breeze of Summer,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and the Lovable, suit selling, gambling, piano playing, uncle in August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize Play, “The Piano Lesson.” He previously won the off-Broadway Audelco “Best Actor” Award for the tap dancing bodyguard in “Fat Tuesday.”
Lou also preformed at local New York concert halls, cabarets, night clubs, colleges and universities, Off-Broadway, American Place production of “Do Lord Remember me and a long list of Regional Theatres. He wrote, produced and co-directed off Broadway his critically acclaimed one man show “Just a Little Bit Something” and his historical play “Foot Steps from Before.”
He was founder and director of the “Tshaka Ensemble Players,” who for eight years, during Black History month, continually performed the historical and educational play “Foot Steps From Before” which was written and produced by Lou. They also toured in the acclaimed play, “Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar,” set in AFRICA. He served as the griot and dancer for several dance companies such as the Dinizula Dancers, Drummers and Singers. He was a regular feature at the New York Museum of Natural History for (8) years.
Lou was fluent in, French, German, Spanish and some African Dialects. In 2005, the Appalachian Education Initiative listed Myers as one of fifty "Outstanding Creative Artists" from the State of West Virginia and featured him in their coffee table book Art & Soul. He began singing Jazz and Blues with the touring company of “Negro Music in Vogue.” His Cabaret show has been acclaimed in Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and New York, as well as Los Angeles at the Roosevelt Hotel.. Lou is Chairman and Chief Enlightenment Officer for Global Business Incubation (501c3) and Chairman of the Lou Myers Scenario Motion Picture Institute/Theatre.
Lou was a futurist, historian, mentor, lecturer, trainer and has toured Colleges, Universities, and many other venues performing, storytelling our ancestral history and speaking on panels with professors and business experts around the world about new trends in business and urban community economic development.
LATEST UP DATE. Funeral arrangements are pending.
Tonia McDonald, President
Global Business Incubation, Inc. (GBI)
Bringing our Strengths together to model and simulate the "Corporation of the Future"
