Mr. T has been sporting the mohawk, wearing gold chains, and pitying fools longer than anyone. For more than three decades, the man born Laurence Tureaud has commanded attention from jibber-jabberin’ suckas, first with The A-Team and later branching off into everything from feature films, to a stint with the WWF, and another career as a product pitchman. (Who among us can ignore the glory that is the Mr. T Flavorwave?)
Mr. T is turning 63 this week, and in celebration of his contributions to pop culture over the years, I thought it would be fun to round up some facts that fans might not know about the American icon. So, knock off the jibber-jabber and check out these T facts:
Mr. T would have given Paul Bunyan a run for his money.
Had Paul Bunyan been a real person, I’d put my money on Mr. T that he would have smoked him in a tree-chopping contest. While enlisted in the Army, his superiors told him to cut down trees until they told him to stop, and that’s what Mr. T did… cutting down some 70 trees in the course of about 12 hours. Mr. T’s lumberjack legend didn’t end there, though. When he moved to the Chicago neighborhood of Lake Forest, his sprawling property had more than 100 trees that he claimed bothered his allergies. That’s when Mr. T took to lumberjacking and cut all of them down. He managed to really piss off neighborhood residents in the process, who still refer to the incident as the Great Chainsaw Massacre.
He made a rap album for kids.
Mr. T is all about helping kids stay on the straight path, as evidenced by his charity work with inner-city youth and his music video about respecting moms. In 1984, Mr. T channeled his creativity and passion for helping kids into the hip-hop album Mr. T’s Commandments. Seven horribly produced tracks with positive message titles like “Don’t Talk to Strangers” and “Mr. T, Mr. T (He Was Made for Love).” The strangest thing about the album is that several of the tracks were written by Ice-T. Yeah, “Cop Killer” rapper Ice-T.
He wears all those gold chains for a reason.
Yes, they look super cool and have been one of his trademarks since the 1970s, but there’s a reason why Mr. T rocks so much bling. In his biography, he explained that he wears the chains in reference to his ancestors who were forced to wear chains as slaves.
“The gold chains are a symbol that reminds me of my great African ancestors, who were brought over here as slaves with iron chains on their ankles, their wrists, their necks and sometimes around their waists. I turned my chains into gold…the fact I wear gold instead of iron chains is because I am still a slave, only my price tag is higher now.”
At the height of his fame, it was rumored that all the gold around his neck had a price tag of $300,000.
His trademark mohawk is tribute, as well.
They should probably change the hairstyle’s name to the T-hawk because the guy hasn’t wavered from his trademark hairstyle in three decades. Mr. T came up with the idea of sporting the mowhak after seeing a photo of a Mandinka warrior in a 1977 issue of National Geographic. “I said, ‘Wow, let me bring respect to them,’ so, basically, what I wear is called a Mandinka cut. But I don’t get mad if they call it a mohawk or whatever. It’s OK.”
He worked as a bodyguard for Michael Jackson and Steve McQueen.
Before Mr. T landed a TV show and hit the apex of celebrity fame with his own cereal, he worked as a bouncer, where he built a reputation for being one of the toughest in the business. Celebrities began to take notice, and Mr. T was hired on several occasions as a bodyguard for superstars like Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Steve McQueen.
Mr. T doesn’t take second in The A-Team.
B.A. Baracus and Hannibal weren’t team players. They might have given the vibe that they were committed to the A-Team’s missions on the show, but it was a different story off camera. Mr. T and George Peppard didn’t get along on set, mostly due to the fact that Mr. T eclipsed Peppard as the show’s star. When he learned Mr. T was being paid more than him, he stopped talking to his costar and would have cast and crew deliver him messages, only referring to him as “the man with the gold.” When shooting for the 2010 A-Team movie began, producers invited Mr. T on for the movie, not to play B.A. Baracus — that went to MMA star Rampage Jackson — but for a cameo. Mr. T explained that while he had no problem with another actor playing his character, he wasn’t going to make a cameo beside the guy while doing so.
Mr. T’s mom wasn’t a fan of Rocky III.
For the premeir of Rocky III, Mr. T took his mother as his date to watch him make his debut on the big screen. Everything was going smoothly until a scene where Clubber Lang starts trash talking Adrian. That’s when Mama T had enough and told her son, “I didn’t raise you to talk to a lady like that,” before walking out of the theater.
He was invited to play Santa Claus at the White House.
After learning about Mr. T’s charity work, Nancy Reagan invited him to the White House in 1983 to play Santa as part of her “Just Say No” campaign. Mr. T gave the first lady one of his action figures, but what he didn’t expect, though, was for her to sit on his lap and give him a peck on the forehead.
Mr. T was offered a job as a hitman.
Not in a movie, but in, like, real kill-this-guy-and-get-paid life. While Mr. T was building a reputation as the best ass-kicker west of the Mississippi as a bouncer, bodyguard, and cast member of The A-Team, it wasn’t unusual for him to get strange offers. In his autobiography, Mr. T mentioned that by far the strangest request came in the way of an anonymous letter asking him to whack somebody.
“He offered me $75,000 to kill his friend. The last envelope and letter contained a round-trip airline ticket, first class, United. Plus there was $5,000 wrapped in a little package, fifty and hundred dollar bills. I tell you the honest truth, when I saw that money I didn’t believe it was real.”
If that wasn’t creepy enough, Mr. T said that he tried to warn the victim, but later found out the man had been killed in a car crash.
