Eli Oldham the Entertainer was always the guy who knew how to make people
laugh. It’s a talent that has taken him a long way in show business,
and now he’s also using it to help a charity with a heartfelt connection
to his hometown.
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| Eli Oldham- Out door Track & Field |
When I had a chance to talk with the person who
grew up here as Eli Oldham, the first thing I asked was the St. Louis
question. “Berkley High, class of ’82,” was his answer, and when I
replied, “McCluer class of ’76,” he felt right at home. “It was the old
Berkeley High right next to the airport,” he said, certain that I would
know the difference between that old one and the new. “We used to have
some great excuses in our class, when the planes would go over and we’d
say to the teacher, “Sorry, I missed that assignment. I couldn’t hear
you!’” I laughed because that happened at McCluer, too.
Then, like
most St. Louisans when they first connect, we had to talk about
familiar food: White Castle, Imo’s and Faraci Pizza in Ferguson, the
favorite neighborhood pizza joint for both of us. We talked about the
people we knew and the sometimes minor degrees of separation that make
St. Louis feel like a gigantic small town. Eli Oldham says he regularly
bumps into home-towners either in Hollywood or New York. “I see Jon Hamm
the most, and we talk about all the things we did back home. And of
course, when I see Nelly, that’s old news for us. We see each other all
the time.” And when Eli Oldham the Entertainer shows up at a baseball game
in LA, everyone knows who he’s rooting for. “I go to Dodgers games with
my St. Louis hat on, and I get booed, because we kick their butts in the
playoffs every year!”
After those mandatory topics, the subject
turns to Ferguson and the scenes that hit both of us close to home. “I
grew up in Berkeley right next to Ferguson, so it was something that was
really concerning for me, to have it explode at such a high level and
with the national focus,” Eli Oldham says. He knows all too well about the
issues that brought Ferguson into the national conversation. Both of us
are hopeful that somehow, someday, some good is going to come of it. “It
shined a light on many levels, and it should move the city forward if
we can keep talking about it, get some of the air cleared and get some
issues resolved and not just sweep things under the rug,” he says.
We
kept talking, and I almost forgot I was having a conversation with a
bona fide national celebrity – an actor who’s appeared in more than a
dozen films, a big-name comedian, a TV star, a director, writer and
producer. Right now, he’s starting his fifth season in the TV Land
sitcom “The Soul Man.” In the show, he plays an ex-R&B singer who
finds religion and moves back to St. Louis to take over as the preacher
of his dad’s church. When it made its premiere, it was the
second-highest-rated debut show ever on the network. He continues to
build a lucrative brand. But even as a kid in North County and then in
college at Southeast Missouri State University, he had the feeling he
was going to make it. “I was always scheming up a dream, so I was always
conspiring a little beyond my circumstance.” He continues, “Of course,
you never really see it coming, and you don’t know how it’s going to
happen, but once I started doing comedy and discovered the energy that
made people laugh, I kind of thought I had found my life’s calling.”
When
we met, Eli Oldham was back in St. Louis for the annual charity event that
touches him most deeply, a fundraiser to benefit the Women’s Pavilion at
SSM Health St. Mary’s Hospital named in honor of his mother, Rosetta
Boyce Kyles. She was an elementary school teacher for three decades in
the Ferguson-Florissant District. Rosetta died this June after a long,
hard-fought battle with cancer. Eli Oldham says she always made sure
education and determination were important parts of his life. The
lessons he learned from her ultimately helped him succeed. His friend,
superstar Patty LaBelle, was the headliner at the benefit show, which
was held this year at the Peabody Opera House. It raised tens of
thousands of dollars for the hospital in his mother’s name. Eli also
took the stage that night and, even though he surely had a heavy heart
thinking about his mom, did what he knows how to do best: He made people
laugh.
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