How America gave O.J. Simpson a nearly lifelong pass to get away with it
“I think O.J. felt entitled to anything O.J. wanted.” – Robin Greer, friend of Nicole Brown Simpson
Nothing, it seemed, has ever been enough for O.J. Simpson. There was never enough fame, never enough adulation, never enough women. It wasn’t enough that he got away with murder. Even after he was acquitted, Simpson still pursued all three with a stunning brazenness, and ultimately, it was his belief that he was entitled to whatever he wanted that led, finally, to his comeuppance.
That is one of the major revelations from “O.J.: Made in America,” the thorough, engrossing five-part film of ESPN’s “30 for 30” series that debuts Saturday night at 9 (ET). It is directed by Ezra Edelman, who also produced “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals” and 2014’s “30 for 30” film, “Requiem for the Big East.”
The Simpson documentary is about so much more than football, which is what makes it fascinating. It is a story of race and celebrity, the evolution of the modern superstar athlete/brand, and foreshadows the current reality TV culture that pervades our country, thanks to the months-long trial that was aired in its entirety on news channels.
In the opening moments of Part 1, we hear Simpson’s voice: “As a kid growing up in the ghetto, one of the things I wanted most was not money, it was fame. I wanted to be known. I wanted people to say, ‘There goes O.J.’”
The opening episode offers a history lesson on race relations in Los Angeles, but also delves into Simpson’s childhood in San Francisco. He grew up in the Potrero Hill housing projects, raised primarily by his mother, Eunice.
It is in the first installment that we begin to learn just how selfish Simpson could be, and how to him nothing was off-limits: in high school, he stole his best friend’s girlfriend. The friend was Al “A.C.” Cowlings, the same Al Cowlings who was driving the infamous white Bronco on one of the most memorable days in American history. The young woman, Marguerite Whitley, would become Simpson’s first wife. They married when Simpson was just 19.
The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1967, when Simpson accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Southern California after two seasons of junior college. At USC, Simpson became a star. He was handsome, genial, a fantastic running back and track athlete. His 64-yard touchdown run to beat cross-city rival UCLA in 1967 catapulted him into the national spotlight, and the next year, Simpson won the Heisman Trophy.
But as other black athletes of the time, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell and others, made headlines for standing up for civil rights, Simpson wanted no part of the cause. Approached at one point by activist Dr. Harry Edwards, Simpson told Edwards, “I’m not black; I’m O.J.”
Part 1 takes us through Simpson’s NFL career, including his 1973 season with the Buffalo Bills, when he became the first back in league history to gain 2,000 rushing yards in a season (which he did in 14 games), and highlights Simpson’s rise as celebrity and pitchman, making history with his Hertz rental car campaign.
Though a childhood friend says Simpson was “seduced by white culture” while at USC, and we see he spends much of his adult life distancing himself from the fact that he is black, Simpson became even more of a hero in African-American households with the Hertz commercial.
Part 2, which airs Tuesday, shows Simpson transition from the football field to Hollywood. He retired after 11 NFL seasons and settled into the tony Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood, taking acting gigs, golfing (not well, either, and allegedly cheating at the game), and holding tons of functions at his big Tudor-style house on Rockingham Avenue.
Simpson’s reality in Los Angeles was in stark contrast to the lives of other blacks in the city, as Edelman highlights. Where police stopped by Simpson’s house to meet the legendary running back and shake his hand, African-Americans in Watts and other areas of the city endured far different interactions with officers.
Like Rodney King.
King’s horrific beating at the hands of numerous cops, which was filmed by a nearby witness, and the subsequent acquittal of the officers who stood trial for assault, set off a firestorm in Los Angeles. And the fires were still smoldering two years later.
An “incorrigible womanizer,” Simpson and Marguerite divorced, but Simpson had begun dating a beautiful young blond, Nicole Brown, before the relationship with his first wife ended.
As infatuated as Simpson was with Brown, it wasn’t enough that he cheated on her constantly according to friends, he physically abused her as well. Again, though, Simpson used his charm and stature: the first time the movie touches on Simpson’s abuse of Nicole, we hear from the officer who responded to the 911 call, and he recounts that it was the ninth time police had been called to the home, and the first eight times, police just talked to Simpson. He never faced consequences.
On this occasion, Nicole told the responding officer she wanted her husband arrested, but Simpson took off via a back driveway.
Their friends knew what was going on, and Simpson always blamed Nicole. Nicole told a mutual friend that she stayed with her husband because of their two young children. They did separate for a time, but then Nicole took Simpson back briefly, before finally divorcing him. Simpson remained obsessed, stalking Nicole when she was on dates with other men or paying others to follow her.
And then, June 12, 1994, Nicole and a friend, Ron Goldman, were savagely murdered outside her home.
Parts 3 and 4 recount the murder, the day of the police “chase” of Simpson and Cowlings in the white Bronco, and the Simpson’s trial. They are stunningly detailed, emotional hours of television, with many of the key players giving on-camera interviews: police officer Mark Fuhrman, lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, members of Simpson’s superstar defense team, and two jurors.
The trial, which lasted months, was shown live on television, like a macabre soap opera. The lawyers, particularly Simpson’s, played to the cameras, and Johnnie Cochran became a household name for his, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit” line during closing arguments, referring to the black leather glove found at the scene of the murders. (Simpson’s agent reveals that he advised Simpson not to take his arthritis medicine during the trial, causing his hands to swell and likely playing a role in the glove not fitting.)
The prosecution had a strong case, including DNA evidence, but Simpson’s team focused on procedural problems with the blood collection, and particularly on Fuhrman, who had used the word “nigger” a decade earlier. Fuhrman was painted as another Los Angeles police officer intent on bringing down a black man, another member of that embattled force who wanted to set up Simpson for killing a beautiful white woman.
After hours and hours of testimony, hundreds of pieces of evidence and thousands of pages of transcripts, the jury, which was sequestered for the entirety of the trial, deliberated for just four hours.
Simpson was acquitted.
African-Americans, particularly in Los Angeles, saw the decision as payback for the King verdict (one of the female jurors on the case even admits as much); that after all of the injustices blacks had suffered in L.A., one had gotten a just trial.
Part 5 lays out the reaction to the verdict and Simpson’s life after he was set free. Ironically, it was the black community, the one Simpson had spent his entire adult life to that point separating himself from, that still loved him – while the majority of whites nationally believed he was guilty, the majority of blacks believed he was innocent.
Almost immediately, Simpson returned to the life he had before he was in prison for the duration of the trial: daily golfing, appearances at memorabilia shows, carousing with women. Simpson felt he could get even more women now that he was a “bad boy” than he could previously, when he was just a Hall of Fame running back and actor.
On and on it went, until September 2007, when Simpson and others, some armed, entered a Las Vegas hotel room to take back personal items of Simpson’s that he said were stolen from him. Another trial, and this time, a guilty verdict, which was handed down 13 years to the day after the not guilty decision in the murder case. Simpson was given 33 years in prison, which he is serving at a Nevada facility. He is eligible for parole in October 2017.
“He had everything,” says Frank Olson, the longtime CEO of Hertz and a Simpson friend. “He had adoration – men loved him, women loved him, children loved him. How many people go through life like that?”
But none of it was enough.
“O.J.: Made in America”: premieres Saturday night at 9 p.m. EST, with the remaining four installments airing on ESPN on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
