 His Tragic Car Accident
Back in the spring of 1999, when ABC announced that The Hughleys would not be returning the following fall, John Henton found himself out of steady work for the first time in over half a decade. “When ABC dropped us I didn’t know what I was going to do,” admits Henton. “They didn’t make the announcement till May or whenever it was. At that time it’s too late to try to get in a pilot (for the upcoming fall TV season).” Although he didn’t need to panic about it… having kept up his stand-up comedy work during summer hiatuses from his TV shows he could always fall back on his stand-up career. Still, as far as acting… he says, “I wanted to just continue my streak.” Being on a sitcom meant a chance to be normal for Henton… “to
have a regular schedule, as opposed to being a comic and being on the
road 40 weeks a year,” Henton says of his life before his first TV
series hit the airwaves. “The crazy hours, jumping on planes regularly,
living out of suitcases, being called on at the very last minute to fill
in for someone who was already booked but had to cancel…” It
all can get a bit crazy… life on the road. But, life on a sitcom
is a different story. “It’s a Monday through Friday gig,”
says Henton. “So I get the weekends off like everybody else. And
it keeps me off of airplanes (and in one place).” Not many comics successfully make the jump from the world of stand-up to the land of sitcoms, and the number gets even smaller when you try to take a headcount of those fortunate few who have landed more than one successful network series during the span of their career. But comic John Henton’s talents for observational and topical humor, as well as the charm he’s able to project on TV, had helped him defy those odds. First playing Overton Wakefield Jones on FOX’s Living Single… and afterwards D.L. Hughleys’ best friend, Milsap on The Hugleys. So after getting the news of the show's cancellation by ABC Henton was afraid his winning streak, as a television actor, might be coming to an end. To Henton's surprise he found himself back on TV again the following fall … UPN had decided to pick up the ABC cancelled series and add it to their Monday night comedy line up. It was a time for celebration … but the rejoicing would be quickly interupted by tradgedy. Only one week after the show was picked up by the UPN network, while driving home from a UPN party celebrating the network's new fall season, John Henton was seriously injured in a car crash. Henton shattered both legs, ripped up his stomach, broke nine teeth and destroyed an eye socket in the crash. He says all he remembers is going to a party …after that all he can recall is waking up in the hospital to the crying faces of his family. His relatives had traveled by plane from his hometown of Cleveland to California for five hours all the while wondering if he'd be dead or alive when they finally got there. “For some reason I got in the car … I don't know why,”
recalled Henton. “I hit a wall at a crazy rate of speed.” He
had been drinking at the party and was estimated to have been driving
100 mph when he smashed through a chain-link fence and hit a concrete
wall on Cahuenga Blvd. “God was on my side and allowed me to still
be here,”remarked John Henton this past summer during a visit to
New York City to perform his stand-up act at Caroline's Comedy Club.
These days he says he incorporates his accident into his stand-up routine. Henton's tried to stay upbeat and positive since the accident occured…returning to the set of The Hugleys only a month or so after the accident … making the rounds of the TV talk shows …and… performing standup, as usual, during the TV show's summer hiatus. He says anytime he starts to feel down about what's happened to him… “I'll see somebody else in a wheelchair and I'm like, ‘OK… snap out of it.’” Returning to his talent for making others laugh, as soon as possible after his devastating accident, has contributed to keeping Henton from feeling too down or being overwelmed by all that has happened to him. It's helped with the emotional side of healing while his body was busy healing. And it's made it a bit easier to remain positive during his long jurney back to life as he once new it. Henton's talent for finding the humor in life and for making others laugh has been a driving force in his life since his school days … taking him down a different road than he had originally planned on back when he was first choosing a career. “In my teenage years I was thinking computers,” says Henton of his original goals — careerwise. “That’s all that everybody was saying… that was the wave of the future. And everybody was right! Who knows, I might have been another Gates if I’d stuck with it because that was where I was going… I would have been right there in the mix.” So how did a computer science and business management major end up doing stand-up comedy and eventually acting in sitcoms? “I was going to Ohio State and I kind of ran out of money so I ended up going home (Cleveland, Ohio) and getting a job,” Henton says as he begins to paint a picture of what events in his life brought him to the path he is on today. “I was working and going to a community college in Cleveland at night. At my job we would always crack each other up and have a good time.” The gang at work always enjoyed hearing John’s humorous take on the events of the day so one Friday when they came across an article in the local paper about stand up comedy and an amateur night at one of the local clubs his fellow workers encouraged him to go down and try it out. “I just went in the back and started writing some stuff down and Sunday I went down and did it.” He didn't invite the gang from work to see him that first night. “I invited them after that, when I knew I had it rolling,” says Henton. But that first night… “I didn't tell anybody. I just wanted to go back to work and say, ‘I did it,’ you know. But, I didn't want any witnesses. It might not have went… so I didn't want witnesses. I didn't want any evidence right up front… no one talking about me the next day at work… hell no.” But his fears of possible failure were unfounded because John Henton was funny the first time up. “I did my set, I got a good response and I got off,” remembers
Henton of his first try at stand up. “I was just going to go into
work and say I did it. It wasn't that I was really going to get into it
(as a career).” Popular local comic Jimmy Malone was so impressed
with Henton’s performance that evening that he gave him some pointers
and told him… ‘That’s some funny stuff, man, you ought
to come back next week.’ “Knowing he was the number one comic
in Cleveland,” says Henton of Malone’s encouragement. “I
was like… Alright, well it might be worth trying again.” John
returned for the next amateur night and this time he won. “After
that it was 50 extra bucks and I was like …‘Alright, cool.’
So I just started doing it.” Part time stand-up lead to full time,
which lead to an appearance on the Johnny Carson Show. Johnny invited
Henton over to the couch, rather uncommon for a comic’s first time
on the show, and asked him if he had an agent. Henton replied ‘No’
to which Johnny answered ‘Well, you will after tonight.’ Carson
was right and Henton got a barrage of calls. One year later he was cast
in the ‘Living Single’ role and he’s been… making
millions of people laugh ever since.
Photos Christ Voelker, UPN Television
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