For kids coming of age during the decade, Mr. T was everywhere…Baracus on The A-Team, Clubber Lang in Rocky III, a fixture in professional wrestling and eventually even the star of his own Saturday morning cartoon.
But Netflix’s upcoming documentary Untold Mr. T: I Pity the Fool wants to introduce audiences to the man who existed before all of that: Laurence Tureaud. The new film, directed by Scott Weintrob, premieres September 8 as part of Netflix’s latest collection of Untold documentaries. In the newly released trailer, Mr. T reflects on growing up in Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes and the experiences that ultimately shaped the persona that would make him one of the most recognizable figures of the 1980s.
Born in 1952, Mr. T was the youngest son in a family of 12 children and grew up with his four sisters and seven brothers in a three-bedroom home on Chicago’s South Side. In the documentary trailer, he explains that watching his father endure the racism of being called “boy” helped inspire him to rename himself Mr. T. He wanted people addressing him to begin with something his father had too often been denied: “Mister.”
Before Hollywood came calling, Mr. T worked as a bouncer and competed in the “America’s Toughest Bouncer” competition on NBC’s Games People Play. His appearance caught the attention of Sylvester Stallone, which helped lead to his breakthrough role as Clubber Lang opposite Stallone in 1982’s Rocky III. It was there that audiences first heard the line that would follow him for decades: “I pity the fool.”