The Apollo Story | Motivated +

- I used to spend the night in hotel parking lots. I was going to do? I had nowhere to stay, so I lived in the car. I had 35 dollars and I said, "Come on, God." I have been trying to make this dream come true. "You left me here like this." And she was crying so hard that He just said, I didn't like hearing a voice or anything, but He spoke to me anyway. He said, "If you get up, I'll take you places you'll never be." "Now, I was about to quit, so I said, 'Skip it, I'll quit anyway.' So I got in my car, went to a pay phone.

And I was going to call my dad. Do you remember those times when the ones where you could enter a code and call the answering machine and get your messages? So I called (the phone rang), entered the code and the machine said, "Doot." Hi, Steve, it's Chuck Sutton" with Showtime at the Apollo. "We watched a tape of you, you're so funny. 'If you could come here on Sunday night,' we'd love to put you on TV. 'Call me and let me know if you can make it.' So I hung up the phone, I'm gutted, 'cause my whole dream to be on TV, and I couldn't go to New York, they gave me 35 dollars.

How am I going to get to New York? I can't do it. So I'm standing in the phone booth and tears are streaming down my face. : "God, that must be a sign for me to go home." Because it's like that, I don't even have the money "to go to the Apollo." My whole thing about wanting to be on TV, I couldn't even make the dream come true. .This is the toughest time. So I said, “Let me call this guy again” and see if he said this Sunday “because maybe he said next Sunday” and I could get some money or something like that.

I'm going to do, "but let me call you back." So I called him back, "Steve, it's Chuck Sutton," "Showtime at the Apollo, we watched a tape of you," "You're very, very funny." "Look, we have an opening Sunday night" on Showtime at the Apollo. "If you can make it, we'd love to put you on TV." I said, "It's this Sunday." Before I pressed the button, I heard, "Doot, you have another message." Now, it wasn't there before, so I entered my code and I heard the second message. He said, "Steve Harvey, this is Tom Sobel from Comedy Caravan." This was on a Thursday.

He said, "I have a gig in Jacksonville, Florida" on Friday night that pays $150. "If you can make it on Friday night, you'll win $150." So I called him and said, "Hey Tom, did you give the job away?" He said, "No, it's still available." He said, "Can you get there?" I said, "I'm in Pensacola, Florida." ". I'm three and a half hours away. So I drove to Jacksonville, Florida, and that night I killed, I won the 150. The owner of the club said, "Man, you're funnier than the guy we hired." If you meet tomorrow night, "I'll give you another $150." So now I have $300. (Audience applauds) Then I pick up the phone and call Chuck Sutton.

I said, "Hey, is the concert still available on Showtime at the Apollo?" He said, "Yes, we have one vacancy left." I said, "I'll be there." So I called Eastern Airlines, which used to be open back then, they had a special trip for $99 from Jacksonville, Florida to New York. So I parked my car at the airport, got on the plane and flew. I had two bags. I got to the Apollo and said, "Hey, I'm here." I arrived at 11:00 in the morning and he said, "You can't stay here." You're not coming until the last show tonight." I said, "I have nowhere to go." I said, "If you let me stay in this building, I won't move, nothing." "I have nowhere to go. "I'm in Harlem, I can't come back here," "I have these two bags." (Audience laughs) I've got victim written all over me, man. (Audience laughs) Then he said, "Okay, if you go up, don't come down." Then he put me in the dressing room on the sixth floor.

That's where all the comedians were, so I stayed there. I got hungry around 3:00, I couldn't take it anymore, so I went downstairs, a guy named Alter Liston and I said, "Hey, man," he said, "I thought I told you 'no.'" Put those damn things down. steps." I said, "Hey, I'm just hungry." Let me go to that KFC I saw on the corner. "Just let me eat some chicken, I'll be right back." He said, "Man, if you don't come back in 20 minutes, you're not getting in this building." So I went, bought some chicken and came back. Then the comedians began to enter the building.

Going up to the sixth floor, I met a guy named D.L. Hughley. I showed up, he showed up, and another guy named Dwayne Johnson walked in. I introduced myself, we don't know each other, none of us are famous, it's 1991, man. They gave everyone the programming. I was in the last program of the night. I don't leave until 11 at night. . I already ate these four pieces of chicken, I'm starving, that chicken is gone. I'm nervous, I'm about to vomit. D.L. Hughley was booed. Jamie Foxx went there and they booed him. They booed Jamie, then Jamie started singing, and then they started clapping.

And Jamie had the butt, then he started making jokes again and they gave him the butt. (Audience boos) So I was walking down the stairs and I saw Jamie sitting on the stairs, and I said, "Hey, hang in there." He said, "Man, that's never happened to me before. 'This crazy guy,' this Jamie Foxx, one of the most talented people in all of comedy. You don't even know how nervous I am. I can." My breathing even quickens because these guys were booed. So I left, I had written this joke: Mike Tyson had gotten into a fight in Harlem with a heavyweight named Mitch Green and punched him in the eye.

In the shop. Now, he was on the news, his eye was swollen. So the joke I wrote was that they were interviewing Mitch Green, and he was telling everyone what happened, but his eye took over the interview. I joked that his eye started talking and he just said, "I'll tell you what happened." The heavyweight champion's fist comes towards my face. I just said, "Lord, Lord, Lord." And I wrote this whole joke about it. The guy's eyeball was talking. And when the punch came (screaming) and all this here (screaming) The Apollo, man, they went crazy, they gave me a standing ovation, man, I left the stage (audience applauding).

I walked off stage and started crying. I couldn't believe it and they paid me, I earned $750 for being on television for one night. I had never made $750 telling jokes in one night. That was my first appearance on television. A couple of weeks later, Sinbad was the host of the show. He got this job on "Different World," so he quit, and Mark Curry became the host, and then Mark Curry got "Hanging With Mr. Cooper," and he quit, and they came to me and said, "Could you please do it?" ? Did you come back to New York "and organize an amateur night so we could try you out?" Oh no problem.

So I went to New York, organized a fan night and it was killing it, but every time we went. Until the commercial break I was supposed to let the warm-up act take over like Reuben does, but I knew I shouldn't let the warm-up act do that because it would change the attitude of the crowd, because the Apollo was a wild place. . So I stayed there, did the warm-up and the presentation, and created a bond with that audience. And that's how I got to television with my first television show. I pitched "Showtime at the Apollo" and ended up being.

The longest-running host in the hi

story

of "Showtime," I did that show for eight years. Nobody did it for eight years (audience applauds). And that was my comeback moment. Look, in your life, everyone has a turn. moment ago. You have a time when you can either keep going or give up, but what you need to keep in mind before you give up is that if you give up, the guarantee is that it will never happen. That is the guarantee of quitting smoking. That will never happen, no way under the sun. The only way there is a chance for this to happen is if you never give up, no matter what.

Because God always comes, it is never too late. At your worst moment, look man, when they told me I had to be in New York, I didn't see how I could get there. But that God, however, makes the phone ring. I ended up in Florida, I won $300. Then I go to New York and make $750. I almost got a thousand dollars out of nowhere. That's what happened to me, that was my moment of never giving up. That's when I first learned that faith is everything, that you have to stay faithful. (audience applauding)