10 Totally Surreal Moments From ESPN’s O.J.: Made in America
O.J.: Made In America, ESPN’s new five-part documentary (the first segment premieres tomorrow on ABC), revisits O.J. Simpson’s meteoric rise to mainstream American stardom and his equally spectacular fall from grace. Directed by Ezra Edelman, the film does a fantastic job of establishing the complex racial, sociological, and historical context for the O.J. trial, and makes a case for why its hugely polarizing verdict was both a triumph for black civil rights and a tragedy in its failure to bring a criminal to justice.
Edelman marshaled an incredible trove of footage to paint a picture of a country and a man divided. His film runs almost eight hours long, and it’s well worth the time investment. Below, a few of O.J.: Made in America’s most striking and surreal moments.
1. In his first seasons playing pro football for the Buffalo Bills, O.J., already a huge college star, had a rough time at the hands of coach John Rauch who tried to turn the running back into a receiver, in spite of the fact that O.J. couldn’t catch the ball. Rauch resigned in 1971, and the Bills hired Coach Lou Saban, who brought back a running offense, and in so doing, paved the way for O.J.’s superstardom. “I tell you,” Simpson’s Bills teammate Booker Edgerson tells the camera. “If Lou Saban hadn’t a come in, we wouldn’t be doing this story right now.” It’s an eerie sentiment: On the one hand, if O.J. hadn’t gotten famous, he most certainly would not, decades later, be the subject of a documentary. On the other hand, as the rest of the film demonstrates: His pathological need for public adoration, and the immunity that fame offered, almost certainly contributed to his belief that he could behave with impunity outside of the law.
2. When Hertz Rental Car tapped O.J. as the star of their 1975 ad campaign, their decision to make a black man the face of the company was seemingly groundbreaking. But then–Hertz CEO Frank Olson didn’t quite think of it that way. “For us,” Olson remembers, “O.J. was colorless. O.J. portrayed success.” Fred Levinson, director of those Hertz spots, took it even further: “He was a good-looking man. He has almost white features.” And the Hertz ads that show O.J. hurtling through the airport with characteristic speed and grace worked for white America only because everyone else in the shot was white. “O.J. was the first to demonstrate that white folks would buy stuff based on a black endorsement, as long as it was not pressed as a black endorsement,” explains the sociologist Dr. Henry Edwards. “The way they did that was to remove black people from any scene that O.J. was in.”
4. When the police came to O.J. and Nicole’s Brentwood estate, Rockingham, following a 911 call on New Years Eve, 1989, it was the ninth time they’d dispatched to the house in response to a domestic violence call. But it was only the first time that they’d attempted to arrest O.J. (attempted because that night he actually fled police custody). Though he was eventually sentenced to community service—which he spent organizing a celebrity golf tournament—the media response to the event revealed an adoring public very much not ready to accept O.J. as anything but a hero. Case in point: footage from the show Sports Look, in which host Roy Firestone gives O.J. a very easy out on the wife beater charge. He sidles into a conversation about the events of New Years Eve, suggests the whole thing might be chalked up to O.J. having a bit too much to drink, and, ultimately, turns it into a media critique. My point, says Firestone, is “not to dredge it up again, but more or less to talk about how things can get distorted to such a point that you are portrayed as the bad guy.”
5. Shortly after O.J. was arrested for the 1994 murders of Nicole and Ron Goldman, Peter Hyams, who directed the Juice in the 1977 space movieCapricorn One, snuck into jail to visit his friend. “He was shackled to the desk in front of me,” Hyams remembers. “He looked at me on the other side of the plexiglass, as close as he could be, and he said, I swear to God I didn’t do this.” He also asked Hyams to write a book about the trial, which Hyams refused to do. “Then, in a moment of ultimate surrealism,” Hyams remembers, “I’m sitting with O.J. and Lyle Menendez walks behind him. I just went, Shit! This is more than my little pea brain can handle.”
6. The O.J. trial was held at the courthouse in downtown Los Angeles, where the population skewed heavily African American. Eight of twelve of the jurors were African American women, a demographic with whom prosecutor Marcia Clark didn’t poll well. Carl Douglas, one of O.J.’s defense attorneys, remembers gleefully: “We were about to walk into the lockup from the court room. O.J. looked back one last time, it was me, Johnnie [Cochran], we were going back to talk about everything, and O.J. said, “Guys, if this jury convicts me, maybe I diddo it!” Later, Douglas, describing preparations for the jury to tour Rockingham, remembers taking the civil-rights-themed Norman Rockwell painting “The Problem We All Live With” from Cochran’s office and hanging it in Simpson’s house, so that “the home setting reflected the themes we wanted to reflect.” Later he theatrically recalls denying that they’d tampered with the decor, in front of Maricia Clark, and then further justifies having done so: “If we had had a Latin jury, we would have had a picture of him in a sombrero! There would have been a mariachi band out front! We would have had a piñata at the top of the staircase!”
7. O.J. had only been in jail for two or three days when, per his agent Mike Gilbert, he gave instructions to start “marketing and merchandising and generating a lot of money.” Gilbert and memorabilia dealer Bruce Fromong brought in fabric numbers for O.J. to sign, which would later be sewn into jerseys, and leather panels that would eventually become footballs. Demand, says Fromong, was through the roof, and as photographs reveal, an O.J. autograph signed from behind bars could go for hundreds of dollars. “He sat in jail,” says Fromong, “and we did 3 million dollars in autographs.” One photograph of O.J. and Johnnie Cochran got both their signatures. “I look back,” says Gilbert, “and think, this sucked. I can’t believe we did this.”
8. If a single phrase from the O.J. trial has stood the test of time, it’s Cochran’s closing statement: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” In a major blunder for the prosecution, Chris Darden insisted that O.J. try on the bloody glove recovered from Rockingham. O.J. was wary of doing so, though the glove had visibly been warped by exposure to the elements. “I said, if you’re worried about the glove fitting or not fitting, just don’t take your arthritis medicine,” remembers Gilbert. “His hands would get swollen, he couldn’t bend his knuckles. So he didn’t take his arthritis medicine for, like, two weeks.” That tactic, former Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti recently told ABC’s Good Morning America, was news to him. His response? “My God.”
9. After O.J. was acquitted in the criminal suit, the Goldman and Brown families brought a civil suit against him. The videotapes of his deposition reveal a different side of the athlete: cocky, bored, and immature. He behaves like a recalcitrant child, whispering under his breath, rolling his eyes, doodling pictures of golf holes. At one point he changes the pitch of his voice and says, “I gotta take a leak.” When asked about the Bruno Magli shoes that matched the bloody footprints at the crime scene, shoes that he’d been photographed wearing, he retorts: “I would have never worn those ugly-ass shoes.” The documentary invites viewers to compare O.J.’s conduct with that of his friend A.C. Cowlings, who also testified: presented with a picture of Nicole’s mutilated dead body, Cowlings is overcome with emotion, begins weeping, and has to excuse himself.
10. In 2008, O.J. finally saw prison time after being convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in Nevada following a 2007 incident in which he and several cronies attempted to reclaim sports memorabilia O.J. claimed had been stolen from him. Tom Riccio, a memorabilia dealer who helped broker the fiasco, remembers being with O.J in his hotel room as they plotted the confrontation. The TV was on in the background, and suddenly, “this pretty beautiful brunette comes on,” Riccio explains. “He says, ‘that’s my goddaughter, her name is Kim!’” Kardashian was appearing on the Tyra Banks show to discuss the premiere of her new reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” “I didn’t know what the hell a Kardashian was,” Riccio says laughing. “‘That show ain’t going to last two weeks!’ O.J. goes.”
OJ: Made in America': The 5 Biggest Shockers (Photos)
The first episode of ESPN’s “OJ: Made in America,” focuses on OJ Simpson’s early years, and only hints at the tragedy to come: and the trial that involved Johnnie Cochran,Robert Shapiro, Marcia Clark, Chris Darden, F. Lee Bailey, Judge Lance Ito, Kato Kaelin, Mark Fuhrman and many more.
He Married His Best Friend’s Girlfriend
Childhood friend Joe Bell recalls how Simpson “stole his best friend’s girl” — convincing his first wife Marguerite to marry him instead of Al “AC” Cowlings.
Also Read: OJ Simpson's Robbery Sentence Too Harsh, Says DA in Murder Case
Cowlings, of course, was the endlessly supportive friend who took the wheel as Simpson fled police in the white Bronco.
“I’m Not Black. I’m OJ.”
Sociologist Harry Edwards — featured prominently in “Made in America” — tried in the late ’60s to get black athletes to take political stands.
Also Read: Here's OJ Simpson's New Mug Shot (Photo)
“We were trying to get black athletes to understand they have a role in the current Civil Right movement,” Edwards said. “His response was, I’m not black. I’m OJ.”
Though Simpson was skeptical of the gesture at the ’68 Olympics, one of the jurors in his case — a former Black Panther — raised a fist to Simpson after finding him not guilty of murder. (The moment was dramatized in “The People v OJ Simpson”)
There’s also the story of his first date with Nicole Brown Simpson. She and her friend Ron Goldman were murdered in 1994, and Simpson was acquitted.
