Garrett Morris’ signature smile has thrilled audiences for over 40 years. As one of the old school cast members of Saturday Night Live, he was a classic comic relief for the Show “Martin” with Martin Lawrence for 3 seasons, on the “Jamie Foxx Show” for five years, and on the hit sitcom, “2 Broke Girls” for 4 seasons. Now, nearly 50 years after his first appearance as the iconic sketch comedy show’s first-ever Black cast member, he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
“I got this news at 86 years old!” Morris told PEOPLE about receiving the honor, which also happened on his 87th birthday. “But still, whenever it comes is all right. I’m grateful.”
Although he’s all smiles, you’d never know the journey Morris had to take to get to this point.
Garrett is the result of his mother being raped when she was just 16 years old. He grew up in the city of New Orleans and was raised by his grandparents. It was his grandfather who saw his talent for singing early.
“I sang the blues and gospel.” Then at the age of 19, he moved to New York and landed a few acting gigs and even sang with the Harry Belafante singers. But in 1975, he struck gold with a 5-year stint on Saturday Night Live. It was during that time, that Morris also began his cocaine habit. It would take him 30 years to finally kick the habit.
After they wrapped up each SNL episode, usually they’d all go to a bar but I’d just go home,” confessed Morris. “I’m not sure the cocaine helped with being introverted.”
His addiction didn’t end after he left the show in 1980. It wasn’t until 10 years ago that he finally got fully sober and stopped using the drug.
“I went to alcoholics anonymous,” he explains. “And they give you a sponsor. And that guy calls you all day long, but it works. Within six months to a year, I felt like I could stay sober forever.”
But that wasn’t the end of Morris’ woes. It was during one of the best years of taping the “Martin” show that Garrett was shot in broad daylight. The whole ordeal lasted 2 years, with a year of him having to be in a wheelchair. But it did teach him a lesson about life that he still lives by today.
“A couple of guys tried to rob me,” tells Morris. “But if they would’ve known HOW to rob me, saying something like ‘I’m going to shoot you if you don’t give me your money,’ I would’ve done that. But they came from behind so I had to do what I had to do.”
“I’m first-degree black black, so when they came from behind me, they didn’t expect me to do what I did. When the guy grabbed me, I side-kicked him and put him down. Across the street there were a number of guys who saw what was going on so when I did what I did, he got embarrassed. So then he pulls out the gun and shoots me.”
“I got shot in my intestine and it messed me up. I had to have a colostomy bag for about 8 months and had to endure literally 10 major operations over the next few months because when I got to the hospital, I was in a coma”
A colostomy bag is a prosthetic medical device that provides a means for the collection of waste from a surgically diverted biological system (colon, ileum, bladder) and the creation of a stoma.
“During that time, I think it was my fourth major operation, that the person who was producing the Martin show, that I got the news that I was being let go. I received the script and it said that ‘Stan sells the radio station’ and I asked, ‘does that mean that I’m gone?’ and of course the answer was yes.”
“When I was in the hospital I kept asking myself, ‘am I gonna die?’. But then it struck me: whether you feel good about dying or bad about dying, you’re going to die anyway. So,…
… make up in your mind that you’re going to feel good until the very end.”
“The same thing goes for when something bad happens in your life. You need to find what best motivates you to overcome and because. And for me, being depressed at that time in my life, I knew depression wasn’t going to do it.”
“I knew I had been wronged, I knew I had been mistreated. And I could’ve done things differently, but why even bring that energy back into your space?”
When asked if he will ever retire, Morris simply says:
“Nope. When you have places to be and things to do the next day, your body automatically gets ready to get up and do those things. It keeps you active. So I’m going to keep doing this until 98 or 99 years old when I’ll say, ‘Naw, I don’t feel like doing that tomorrow.’ Ha!”
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