Beasley and famous friends honor Dr. King

Back row from left: Preston Love Jr., John Beasley, Ted Lange and Vincent Lee Alston; front row from left: Tyrone Beasley, Linda Cunningham, Jo Giles, Myrna Newland, M.D., and Frank Pietrantoni, after Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at the medical center. Cunningham, Giles, Dr. Newland and Pietrantoni are part of the planning committee responsible for coordinating the event, which featured a speech by actor John Beasley and comments from Lange and Love.

More than 350 people attended Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemoration in the Storz Pavilion expecting to hear one celebrity’s thoughts on the late civil rights activist.

They ended up hearing from three.

Omaha-native and actor John Beasley presented the keynote speech but his talk was book ended by comments from his friend, Omaha civic leader Preston Love Jr. — the son of jazz great Preston Love — and actor Ted Lange, who played Issac on the 1980s television show, The Love Boat.

Beasley’s talk, which was titled “The Man and His Life,” focused on Dr. King’s relationship with the God of his understanding.

“Dr. King was a reluctant leader,” Beasley said. “He didn’t prepare himself to be a leader of a movement. He prepared himself to be a man of God.”

See the speech Click here to see video of Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day address by actor John Beasley.

Beasley — whose screen credits include roles in movies such as Rudy, Crazy in Alabama and The Sum of All Fears — noted that his studies of Dr. King have led him to the conclusion that the civil-rights leader’s relationship with his creator permeated every other aspect of his life.

He told a story of how Dr. King leaned on his faith after being terrified by a death threat he received. Beasley read a passage from Dr. King where he describes praying and feeling his fear turn to courage as he sensed the presence of a loving God.

Dr. King’s relationship with God also was central to Love’s comments, who spoke briefly before Beasley’s talk.

“Above all, (Dr. King) was a man of faith,” said Love, who over the course of his life befriended several people who had been close to Dr. King.

Actors John Beasley, left, and Ted Lange share a laugh during Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. address in the Storz Pavilion.

Lange, whose attendance in the crowd came as a surprise to his friend, Beasley, told a humorous story of being gently scolded by Dr. King’s widow, Corretta Scott King, after presenting a fairly risque play in Atlanta’s King Center.

Mrs. King pulled Lange aside after the play and told the actor that she enjoyed the performance but asked that he exclude one of the play’s more explicit scenes while it ran in the King Center.

Irony would strike some time later as Lange was preparing to present the same play in Los Angeles. He received a call from Yolanda King, Dr. and Mrs. King’s daughter, about playing a part in the play. Lange agreed to let her have the part, but only if he didn’t have to pull the risque part.

“I said, ‘Yolanda, your mother is in Atlanta, and we’re presenting this in Los Angeles, I’m not taking out that part,'” Lange said, drawing laughs from Monday’s crowd.

The annual address, which is regularly one of the city’s best-attended events on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, was sponsored by UNMC and The Nebraska Medical Center.

Click on the images below to view video comments from Beasley.

Actor John Beasley on what an honor it was to be able to address a medical center audience about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

John Beasley discusses how his talk at UNMC on Martin Luther King Jr. Day represented a homecoming of sorts for the actor and his wife.