119OCTOBER 20 20 FORBES.COMTH
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point it wasn’t generating enough money to enable him to
pay his rent, and for three months, he lived out of his car on
and off while he tweaked the production, working out the
kinks until it started to garner some notice. He designed the
set, made the programs and hung the lights; he even sold
snacks during intermission.
“It took me I don’t know how many days to finally get him
convinced that the writer, director, does not do this,” says Ar-
thur Primas, Perry’s promoter for more than two decades.
Perry toured relentlessly, slowly building a strong follow-
ing among Black Americans, particularly the churchgoing
set—older women like his mother, who had their burdens
to bear and relished the chance to have someone give them
a voice and, even better, a laugh. His iconic character, Ma-
dea, a straight-talking grandmother with a bad wig, a large
stomach and even larger breasts, delivered her homespun
moralism with brutally honest humor, becoming a must-see
spectacle on the so-called “Chitlin Circuit,” a loosely defined
network of small theaters in Black communities nationwide.
“I was aware of the traveling plays, but I never really took
them seriously because... I considered myself a person
who appreciates theater and Broadway,” Winfrey says. “But
I went to see one in Los Angeles, and I was not just moved
by it, I was changed by it.”
She invited Perry on her talk show in 2001, when he was
in his early 30s. Onscreen they shared the requisite inspira-
tional language of tenacity and renewal, but backstage they
mined another seam altogether: money. Winfrey, who by
then owned her show and Harpo, the company that pro-
duced it, offered Perry a secret, one he was already begin-
ning to learn on his own: the importance of “writing your
own checks” and being fully in control.
She became a friend, sounding board and, perhaps most im-
portantly, a catalyst. Even before he made his first film or TV
show, Perry hauled in more than $100 million from theater
ticket sales, moved $20 million worth of merchandise and col-
lected another $30 million selling videos of the performances.
It was time for him to go to Hollywood.
RETR EAT
TO ATLANTA
he introduction was made at the Wilshire Eb-
ell Theatre, a 1,200-seat Italianate building
opened in the 1920s, the dawn of Los Ange-
les’ ascension as an entertainment capital. In
2001, Perry booked a three-night run of Di-
ary of a Mad Black Woman, an event designed to bring out
the kingmakers—producers, executives, lawyers and monied
benefactors—who could make him a star. The show sold out,
but the seats weren’t filled with power brokers, just locals and
some assistants sent to see what all the fuss was about.
“I couldn’t walk down the street without people scream-
ing, ‘Madea, Tyler, Madea!’ ” Perry says, recalling his days on
the road. “And then I got to Hollywood, and they had no clue.
No clue to what I’d done, who I was or the following I had.”
One of the assistants who had seen the show worked for
Chuck Lorre, the acclaimed showrunner high on the suc-
cess of hits Grace Under Fire, Cybill and Dharma & Greg.
After hearing about the play, he decided he’d try to pitch
a sitcom built around Perry. The networks wouldn’t bite,
though, so Lorre moved on to Two and a Half Men, the
Charlie Sheen show that became a breakout hit for CBS.
“There was about a 10-year period where everything went
on a deep lull and there was nothing being made for peo-
ple of color,” Perry says. So he retreated to Atlanta, where
he continued working on his stage plays and a film script.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about television. A recipe for
syndication he remembered from sneaking into those ses-
sions at the broadcasters’ convention stuck with him: 100
episodes, a loyal audience and a willing distributor.
“The ignorance I had about Hollywood was so wonderful,
looking back on it,” he says.
He rented a warehouse behind a strip club in south At-
lanta and turned it into a soundstage, investing in the tools
of the trade he knew little about—lights, booms, mics, set
decorations—and began shooting. He focused on scenes of
a multigenerational Black family living together in Atlanta,
the origins of his first sitcom.
A break came in 2006, when two struggling broadcast net-
works, UPN and WB, merged to create a new one called CW.
MOST ENTERTAINERS NEVER GET A SHOT
AT OWNERSHIP. FOR TYLER PERRY, IT
WAS A STARTING POINT, WITH HOLLYWOOD’S
RESISTANCE FUELING A BILLION-
DOLLAR EMPIRE. HERE’S A BREAKDOWN
OF HIS FORTUNE.
RUNNING THE
NUMBERS
T
Stake in BET+
$60 MIL
Cash and
investments
$300 MIL
Library
Homes and toys $320 MIL
$40 MIL Studio on 330 acres
$280 MIL