*No African American actor has appeared on the perennial daytime soap The Young and the Restless more than the recently late Kristoff St. John. As complex executive Neil Winters, St. John won the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Daytime Emmy Award in 2008.
Prior to his shocking death, Reel Urban News caught up with St. John on the red carpet during a pre-Emmy party. They asked the veteran actor if he believed success in Hollywood should require a sense of personal responsibility.
Kristoff St. John in his own words:
I recall many many years ago being a child actor. Todd Bridges and I would often get together. He and I would talk about the good times that we were having but also the responsibility of being an actor. I remember a magazine called Right On. When we both made Right On Top 10 list I’m sure I was more amazed than he was because he had been sitting in the driver’s seat on Diff’rent Strokes.
But as I grew a little bit older, 12, 13, 14, I was being approached by people a lot more than I had been. These people wanted autographs and the parents wanted me to meet their children. I realized that I couldn’t do the things that I had seen other child actors do that were on the downside, sliding … I knew that I had to keep myself together and it’s the same thing today. It’s even more of a powerful responsibility because being seen in the public eye, especially as an African American man, there’s a lot of weight that goes with that.
I recall quite a few young men coming up to me in the beginning of my daytime career, they would say to me, “You’re that guy in the suit, aren’t you?” Yes, I am. I’ve been that guy in the suit for a long time. I have never really ever played the villain. So for me, the last two years for me playing the villain is a real challenge. Suddenly I started getting hate mail … people didn’t like me, that threw me for a loop. I have always been accepted as the good guy. My father acted in the 60’s and early 70’s. He passed the torch. He comes from an era of Melvin Van Peebles, Ron O’Neal, Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Sidney Poitier. So to carry what he has carried for so long, he passes the torch and I’m still doing it. I’m looking at my daughters, they want to do what I’m doing so at some point I’m going to have to pass the torch. So I can’t fall down on the job.
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