A thought on what goes clear to the bone

“Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.”
— Redd Foxx

Redd Foxx is best-known for playing Fred Sanford in the show Sanford and Son, although many people didn’t know that Sanford was his real surname. Fred Sanford, in fact, was the name of Foxx’s father (and his brother, too, for that matter). The show was based on the British series Steptoe and Son, and transferred the setting from London to the Watts area of L.A. It made Foxx — whose take-no-prisoners style of standup comedy had made him a profane nightclub legend — a household name around the world.

It was also his career peak. He left the show prematurely, and never quite got the combination right to keep a career. Eddie Murphy cast him in 1989’s Harlem Nights, and when Foxx — once a rich man whose wealth slipped away — died two years later, Murphy stepped in to pay for his funeral and burial. “For some strange reason,” Murphy told Vanity Fair, “a lot of people in show business, when they die, they don’t have their stuff in order.”

An underrated part of Sanford and Son was Desmond Wilson, whose Lamont was often the mature one in his many scenes with Foxx’s Fred. Wilson died just last week, at 79.

If you’re of a certain age, you might still be able to hum to the theme for Sanford and Son, or at least nod vigorously. It’s a Quincy Jones song called The Streetbeater, and here it is in full: