She Still Puzzles Over a ‘Murder Without Motive’

The tragedy was all too common: a young black man shot to death on the streets of Harlem. But this 1985 incident was a special case, and a talented cast offers up the tale Monday in the NBC film “Murder Without Motive: The Edmund Perry Story.”

It was a special case because Perry, 17, had just graduated with honors from the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy and had won a scholarship to Stanford when he was fatally shot at night by a white plainclothes policeman who said the young man and his brother attacked him.

In the production itself, another special case arose: Anna Maria Horsford, a versatile actress best-known for playing Sherman Hemsley’s wallflower daughter in “Amen,” had a personal interest in the story. She was a childhood schoolmate of Perry’s mother, whom she portrays in the two-hour film.

“The thing that was gnawing at me after I got the part,” says Horsford, sitting in the living room of her home in the Wilshire District, “was that I kept saying, ‘He (Perry) didn’t do it. It didn’t happen that way.’ I couldn’t sleep at night. Then one day I thought, ‘You’re the mother. Use it. Because the mother believes the same thing you believe.’ ”

Docudrama being what it is, the scene that culminates in the shooting is bound to rouse strong feelings about TV’s literary license. Perry’s brother had fled as the incident escalated. Thus, what really happened at the climax was known only to Perry and the policeman, and yet dialogue had to be written.

Horsford admits she is uncomfortable with the scene, which depicts Perry as an emotionally pained aggressor who has lost his identity by being rejected by old friends while failing to crack the social barrier in his elegant new world.

“I think that was artistic choice,” she says, but adds that “of course” she was upset by the climactic moment: “Because you know what it says--it says that we all, because of the stress and the turmoil of racism, might snap one day and kill a white person. And that’s not true. There would be no America. It’s not the way that a normal person deals.

“You know, there would be talk about artistic choices that you have to make. Now if he (Perry) were crazy, you’ll say, ‘OK, his mental history and this and that.’ But there’s no sign that happened either, that he had a nervous breakdown right before (the incident) and all of a sudden a monster came up in his head.”

Horsford never met young Perry but ran into his proud mother at the time he was making his mark in his new world away from Harlem. The actress herself was involved in the Better Chance educational program that enabled Perry and many other promising black youngsters to gain admission to outstanding schools.

“I didn’t see her for a while,” says Horsford, “and the next thing I remember vividly: The news flash came on. This was the night of the shooting. I said ‘No, no, it’s a mistake,’ because you hear the name and you almost don’t want to accept it. As many people as they have in New York, it must be somebody else. It can’t be. Why did it happen to him?

“The thing about growing up in Harlem is that it’s a very strange community--with a very strong community spirit. You see the kids, and some are on the street now and they’re a junkie or a wino, and you say, ‘Not you. We knew each other.’ You’re always dealing with yourself. You know, ‘How come that one went?’ It’s almost like a death in the family. Another one going down.

“So when one comes through a situation where you’re guaranteed that he got out, it’s rejoicing for all. But when you go by the rules and it kicks back on you, there’s no explanation. I tell you, it was a loss to everybody, whether you knew the kid or you didn’t. It was a week after graduation. He was starting a job that Monday on Wall Street, as a clerk. He was going to Stanford in September.”

The central role of Perry is played by Curtis McClarin, and the cast includes the distinguished veterans Georg Stanford Brown and Taurean Blacque as well as Cuba Gooding Jr. of “Boyz N the Hood.” Another veteran, Kevin Hooks, directed the script by Richard Wesley. One of the show’s executive producers, Leonard Hill, says rights were purchased not only to Robert Sam Anson’s book about the case, but from the Perry family as well.

Did Horsford ever talk to Perry’s mother about the film, and particularly its ending?

“Let me tell you something very strange now,” she says. “When we went back to the junior high school in the film and were standing on the steps, she got there right before lunch. I understood why she wasn’t coming down because they were shooting one of the funeral scenes and some other scenes of her son.

“We talked about everything except the movie. For whatever reason, for both of us, it was almost sacred ground. We talked about all the people from the block. Everybody else’s name came up. And we never mentioned Edmund or the movie.”

While Monday’s film may be a wholly new view of Horsford for those who remember her droll performance in “Amen,” she is, in fact, a well-traveled actor. Her motion pictures, for instance, include “Presumed Innocent,” “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Heartburn.” And she has appeared in 18 TV films, including “Bill” with Mickey Rooney and “Stone Pillow” with Lucille Ball.

She was born in Harlem to a businessman father and housewife mother, and, before achieving fame in “Amen,” she paid her dues in stage roles, soap opera and 11 years at New York’s public television station, WNET, where she progressed from a temporary office job to producing.

Now, however, her dream lies in 50 acres she bought in the Catskill mountains in New York, where she hopes to develop a retreat for actors and other artists, particularly black women, to develop and hone their craft.

“That property,” she says, “came from my father. He’s in real estate. One day he calls me and says, ‘I was just up in the country, and there’s a place I want you to see, and I think you should get it.’ And I said, ‘I don’t like the country. I don’t like trees.’ Well, we went up there, and I saw this lake and looked at these trees and saw this mountain and I thought, ‘Yeah, this is it.’ ”

Maybe so, but in conversation she returns repeatedly to her roots: “Harlem has changed a lot, but I still feel safer walking down those streets than I do walking in L.A. at night. Maybe that’s how you feel about home, regardless of what else is going on there.”