DON CORNELIUS (September 27, 1936 – February 1, 2012)
As a child of the 70's, I grew up watching two shows. "Soul Train" & "American Bandstand" were the two staples in my weekend TV diet. I loved the interviews that Don Cornelius conducted in that beautiful,baritone voice of his. I was in total awe of this elegant, sophisticated man.
Sure, the acts & dancers were absolutely terrific but he was one of the main reasons why folks tuned in every weekend to "Soul Train". He was a soulful being who seemed to embody the very essence of soul.Folks like Don Cornelius & Billy Dee Williams made it that much cooler to be black. Don Cornelius will remain a black cultural icon.
It saddens me to have to give an affirmative answer to the question I posed in the title of this post.Did Don Cornelius commit suicide? Unfortunately, that seems to be the awful truth.It appears that Don Cornelius has died from a self-inflicted gun shot. What made him take his own life? That is the question that many are pondering at this very moment.
Here's more from Business Week:
"Don Cornelius, the creator and host of “Soul Train,” the television show that brought R&B music and the moves of young black dancers to a U.S. audience, has died in an apparent suicide. He was 75.
Officers responding to a report of a shooting
found him at his Mulholland Drive home at around 4 a.m., Los Angeles
police told the Associated Press. He was pronounced dead of a self-
inflicted gunshot wound at 4:56 a.m. at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los
Angeles County Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told AP.
The
entertainer was recently divorced, the Los Angeles Times said.
Cornelius was a part-time news announcer on AM
radio in Chicago when he left to create “Soul Train” in 1970. From its
local start on Chicago’s WCIU-TV, the show generated a national version
based in Los Angeles that grew through syndication to more than 130
stations in 1989, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Like its pop music counterpart, Dick Clark’s
“American Bandstand,” Cornelius’s “Soul Train” became a fixture of
Saturday-morning television.
“‘Soul Train’ was a new idea,” Cornelius told
United Press International in 1984. “It was special-market television in
a general audience medium before cable came along. It was very
difficult to compete and survive out there. We took the ‘Bandstand’
format and gave it another look, created another character. We have
white viewers, of course, but it wasn’t practical to sell the show in
areas of low black population. Some of our sponsors were definitely
looking for the black audience.” (End of Excerpt) Read more here.
