For eight seasons, Cedric the Entertainer showed up to the set of his CBS sitcom The Neighborhood and made it look effortless. But when the cameras stopped rolling on the series finale on Feb. 18, the weight of the moment finally caught up with him not on set, but afterward, at the cast’s farewell gathering.
Standing in that room with co-stars Tichina Arnold and Max Greenfield, it dawned on him that this particular group of people would never be together again in quite the same way. It was, by his own account, the moment it all became real.
The series finale is set to air May 11. But Cedric, 61, did not linger long in the emotion of the ending. Almost immediately after wrapping, he flew from Los Angeles to New York to begin the next chapter one that looks very different from anything he has done in nearly four decades in the business.
A dramatic turn on Broadway
Cedric is heading back to Broadway for a revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, opening April 25 and co-starring Taraji P. Henson. It is a significant departure from the warm, comedic comfort zone he has occupied on television, and that distance from the familiar is precisely the point. He has described the opportunity as a chance to stretch as a performer and step outside the role of TV dad he has inhabited for the better part of a decade.
The transition back to live performance has also reconnected him with the instincts he first developed as a stand-up comedian the ability to read a room in real time, to feel the energy of an audience and respond to it. After nearly 40 years in the industry, he remains clear-eyed about the fact that past success does not carry a performer forward on its own. His years alongside Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley and the late Bernie Mac in the landmark Original Kings of Comedy tour later adapted into a film by Spike Lee are part of his legacy, but he is focused on what is relevant and funny now, not then.
Rooted in where he came from
Cedric, born Cedric Kyles, grew up in Caruthersville, Mo., raised by his mother Rosetta, a schoolteacher, before the family relocated to a suburb of St. Louis when he was 10. He describes his upbringing as grounding in the most literal sense it gave him a set of everyday habits and courtesies that he still practices, regardless of the level of success around him.
His entry into comedy came almost by accident. After college, while working as a claims adjuster for State Farm Insurance, he was persuaded by a fellow comedian to enter a local competition in 1987. He won $500 and never looked back.
His television career began in earnest with a role on The Steve Harvey Show in 1996. It was around that same time that he met his wife, Lorna Wells, while filming the movie Ride in 1998 she was working as a costumer on set. He credits her as the stabilizing force in his life, the person who keeps him grounded amid the noise of a career that rarely stands still.
Choosing family over film sets
By 2008, despite a string of successful film appearances including Barbershop in 2002, Cedric made a deliberate pivot back to television. The reason was straightforward: movie productions frequently required months abroad in locations like Prague, Ireland or Canada, and once his children, Croix and Lucky, reached school age, those absences became too costly on a personal level. Television gave him the ability to work and still be home in time to pick his kids up from school.
Croix is now 25 and Lucky is 22. Cedric also has a daughter, Tiara, 36, from a previous relationship, and a 9-year-old granddaughter, Kylo, whom he clearly adores. He describes his relationship with all three of his children as one built on genuine affection, humor and mutual respect they come to him for advice, and he says they make him laugh just as much as he makes them laugh.
A schedule that shows no signs of slowing
Beyond the Broadway opening, Cedric has an animated Netflix film, Swapped, arriving May 1, and a barbecue cookbook co-authored with Anthony Anderson set for release May 5. It is a genuinely packed stretch for someone who could reasonably be thinking about winding down.
He is not. His stated ambition is to build a body of work that still resonates decades from now the kind of career that fans look back on with real personal attachment, the way they already do with The Neighborhood and his stand-up. Awards-caliber dramatic roles are on his wish list, and Broadway is perhaps the clearest signal yet that he is actively pursuing that range.
Retirement, when the subject comes up, draws a smile and a simple answer: he plans to keep going until he physically cannot. As far as Cedric the Entertainer is concerned, there is still far too much road ahead.
Source : People
