RICHMOND, Va. — Growing up on the streets of segregated Norfolk, Tim Reid learned the lessons of being a good storyteller at an early age.
His first stage: the dinner table at his grandmother’s boarding house.
“They'd sit around and start telling lies and talking about their lives, and I would listen, then my grandmother would say, ‘Junior, tell them about what thing happened at church the other Sunday,’ and I'd tell them and they'd laugh,” said Reid. “And I've often thought about the training I received, but also the art of storytelling that I gained from those people. A lot of their dreams had been deferred, they were broken in many ways, but they told of their lives in a way that I've always wanted to give honor to.”
Reid, one of Virginia’s favorite actors and comedians, sat down with Catie Beck on the latest episode of ‘Untold – A WTVR Podcast.’
The interview was conducted shortly before the death of Tom Dreesen, Reid’s longtime friend and former comedy partner. The duo is considered to be America’s first interracial comedy team.
“We were together for going on six years,” said Reid. “We were just doing everything we could do… you put a light on and we'd stand there. Even most of the time we didn't get paid anything reasonable, not like today's comics.”
It was through Dreesen that Reid met Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood, who once gave him a piece of advice that Reid said he would never forget.
“We were sitting at a table in a restaurant and someone walked up to Clint, I think Clint was 89 or 90 or something like that, and the guy said, ‘Clint, did I read you're coming out with another movie?’ And Clint said, ‘Yeah, got one coming out.’ I think it was Gran Torino or something like that,” said Reid. “And he said, ‘Clint, you're 89 years old! How do you do it?’ And he said, ‘It's real simple, never let the old man in.’ And I've never forgotten that, and it has served me well.”
While his career has spanned numerous television shows and films, Reid is probably best known for the role of disc jockey Venus Flytrap on the CBS sitcom ‘WKRP in Cincinnati.’
Reid believes he landed that gig, in part, because he was honest with the show’s creator Hugh Wilson about the initial version of the character being one dimensional.
Wilson fought to get Reid cast, but even despite the creator’s support, in the show’s first year, Reid still had to deal with some producers telling him he wasn’t acting ‘Black enough,’ something he had experienced on the set of a previous show.
But Reid said Wilson advocated for him, and together they crafted Venus into one of the most beloved characters in television history.
Unfortunately, not everyone at CBS was a fan of the show, despite its success.
“We were #1 when we got canceled,” said Reid. “All the network executives hated the show, because we were always doing things that made them uncomfortable. And hate mail, oh God, I used to get hate mail. Matter of fact, on one show, I think I kissed Bailey Quarters, Jan Smith, on the cheek at a baseball game and they had to bring security. I had security for a whole week of rehearsal. Yeah, times were different back then, to say the least.”
But the show made Reid famous, which led to him and costar Howard Hesseman (Dr. Johnny Fever) being invited to South Africa in 1981 to appear at a festival in Johannesburg on behalf of a radio station that was fighting against apartheid. It was a day that almost saw Reid get arrested, all because of his love of Bob Marley.
Reid had recently spoken on the phone with Rita Marley, who told him that her husband wanted to meet him.
So Reid began planning a trip to Jamaica, but while at the festival in South Africa, the Associated Press broke the news that singer had gone into a coma.
Heartbroken, Reid asked the radio station if he could play a song off a Bob Marley cassette he had brought with him on the trip.
They said yes, and he played the song ‘Survival.’
“Now this is during apartheid, what they don't want to hear is Black people singing they are the survivors,” said Reid. “When that song hit, 5,000 people, Black and white, went crazy, screaming, dancing….it was just euphoric.”
One problem: Marley’s music was banned in South Africa at the time, something Reid learned when the radio station’s manager came running in and ripped his tape out of the machine.
“He says, ‘You've got to get out of here. You’ve got to get out of here, they're coming to get you!’ I said, ‘Who's coming to get me?’ And he said, ‘You have just broken the law, you can't play that, they're sending two people here now,’” said Reid.
So they tried to make a run for the limousine that brought them to the show, but when they got to the car, two Afrikaner police officers were waiting for them.
“The reason they didn't arrest me was that they were really drunk,” said Reid. “And they were fans of WKRP, the show was one of the most popular shows in South Africa. And they were like, ‘I don't want to arrest Venus and Johnny Fever!’”
Reid said the officers let them leave, but told them they would be arrested in the morning.
“So they let us get in the limousine, we went back to the hotel, the Empresario, and the owner of the station who brought us over says, ‘Listen, be down in the lobby and packed at 4:00 in the morning, [the police] will get here around 6:00.’ And so we were, and we got on a private plane and we flew to a private area and we stayed there for a week and then we snuck out of the country.”
Reid now lives in Richmond with his wife, actress Daphne Maxwell Reid. The couple left Hollywood in the 1990s and moved to Central Virginia. In 1997 they opened New Millennium Studios in Petersburg. They sold it in 2015.
While he’s had a showbiz career like no other, Reid’s current passion project is mentoring film students at his alma mater, Norfolk State University. The Emmy-nominee also says his favorite place on a movie or TV set these days is behind the camera.
“What I truly desire to be is an excellent director,” said Reid. “I haven't reached that point yet because I haven't directed as much as I had wished to have done.”
“I just love being in charge… maybe I have a God complex or something.”
Subscribe to “Untold – A WTVR Podcast” on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.
📲: CONNECT WITH US
Blue Sky | Facebook | Instagram | X | Threads | TikTok | YouTube
This story was initially reported by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy. To learn more about how we use AI in our newsroom, click here.
