Massive Non-Trendiness (I'm Rerun, Bitch! And I'm Dead!)
This Blogpatrol hit mystified me:
26/07/2005 13:20:05 Fred Berry from what's happening in casket at funeral (AOL)
The first thought that popped into my mind - did this actor attend Rick James' funeral?
Bear in mind that I never watched "What's Happening," so I couldn't tell Fred Berry from Fred Flintstone - well, actually I could (I don't think that Fred Berry was white or wore a loincloth), but that's beside the point. In a former job one of my co-workers supposedly looked like the guy with the glasses on "What's Happening," but as I write this I have no idea which character was which. Maybe that was Fred Berry; I don't know.
But CNN could tell me in this 2002 article:
Though he may not be able to jump-step as high as he used to, Fred Berry, the actor who played good-natured dancing machine Rerun on the late 1970s sitcom "What's Happening!" and its 1980s spin-off, "What's Happening Now!," can do his share of fancy footwork. "I'm glad I can still kick a few steps," he says.
Berry, 51, keeps Rerun alive making appearances as a pitchman for various companies through his business, Celeb-Events International, dressed in the character's signature red beret and baggy pants. "I'm working on my career on a corporate level now," he explains. "They have celebrity weekends where they bring me out to sell (products to clients)." His dancing is much easier these days, because he has lost more than 100 pounds since "Happening."
The Virginia Beach, Virginia-based Berry also keeps busy as a minister. "I'm not the ordinary orthodox pat-you-on-the-head type," he says. "I'm the type of minister that will get in your face. I'm real because it's a real world out there."...
"The stress of success got to me. The fat jokes got to me. And I got heavily into drugs and alcohol. I was empty inside," he told the magazine that year. In 1985, Berry found help for his addictions through a support group and has remained clean since....
Sadly, CNN ran this article a year later:
Actor Fred Berry, best known as "Rerun" on the 1970s TV show "What's Happening!!", has died, his business manager said Wednesday. He was 52.
Arlene Thornton said the actor died Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles....Berry's friends said he had been ill because of a recent stroke....
Berry played himself in this summer's movie "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star"...
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