JANUARY 14, 2019 01:54 PM, UPDATED JANUARY 17, 2019 11:12 AM
The founder and editor of “I Am East St. Louis,” Charmaine (Bell) Savage, died Sunday, Jan. 13, after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 51. BY CARA ANTHONY
Savage, a retired U.S. Naval Commander, and her husband Lorenzo D. Savage, Sr. moved back to East St. Louis in 2014. Not long after, she founded I Am East St. Louis, The Magazine, a free community publication that covered positive news out of East St. Louis, where she was born and raised.
“Charmaine exemplified excellence and much care in the City of East St. Louis, Illinois,” a statement from East St. Louis Mayor Emeka Jackson-Hicks. “We will greatly miss her presence and dedication.”
“We are not those images that come up when you Google East St. Louis. We are more than that,” she said of the magazine in 2015. “I want people to be proud of where they are from. We have kind of lost that. I want to change some hearts and minds about East St. Louis. We are almost there.”
After a career in the U.S. Navy, Charmaine Savage has moved back to her hometown, East St. Louis, and is about to publish the first edition of her magazine, I Am EStL (I Am East St. Louis), that is free and will be available in January. Maureen Houston [email protected]
Savage attended Lincoln Sr. High School in 1985. She earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from McKendree College in 1989 and a Master of Arts in Management from Webster University in 2000.
During her time in the military, she served on active duty as a human resources officer for 21 years. During that time she deployed to Baghdad, Iraq for 11 months in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
During her military service, she earned many military awards and decorations including the Bronze Star Medal, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Iraqi Campaign Medal, and numerous Navy Service Medals, awards and unit commendations.
After retiring from the Navy in 2010, Savage accepted a Navy civil service assignment at Naval Special Warfare Command, the headquarters for the U.S. Navy SEALs.
In her position as the Military Personnel Officer, she developed innovative products and metrics leading to significant cost-savings, greater transparency, and improved responsiveness in military human resources programs.
During her tenure, she also earned the Navy Superior Civilian Service Award, the second highest honorary award under the Department of Navy Civilian Awards Program.
Savage was the founder and executive director of I Am East St. Louis, The Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation committed to improving the brand and image of East St. Louis. She also served a Director of the Board of Directors of Memorial Hospital.
Last April, Savage served as a panelist for the Belleville News-Democrat’s screening of Then I Knew, a documentary about race and identity in the Metro East.
She is survived by her husband, Lorenzo, son, Lorenzo Savage, Jr., daughter Charay Savage, and mother Barbara Brown.
CREATING A LEGACY
Dr. Karla Scott, the co-chair of the I Am East St. Louis foundation, said Savage’s vision of East St. Louis has played a major part in “re-energizing” the community. She said through the magazine, she allowed the community to see itself in a new way.
“I think in many ways because it allowed us to see ourselves with fresh eyes it has re-energized a generation. I think there is optimism about what the future of East St. Louis can look like. And certainly, she gave us that motivation. She showed us that in that beautiful magazine.”
She said she and the foundation’s board are committed to continuing Savage’s vision of East St. Louis through the magazine and other work.
“It was an honor to work with her and to be part of an incredible vision that she had,” Scott said. “I ‘m looking forward to continuing her legacy.”
“I Am East St. Louis” will continue to be published, said Tim Fox, a regular contributor and editor of the publication who worked with Savage since 2015.
Charmaine Savage works in her East St. Louis office. She and husband Lorenzo are renovating the 20,000-square-foot building at 25th and Lincoln that includes apartments and will one day house a coffee shop. Maureen Houston [email protected]
Fox said he and Savage met in 2015 after an article about “I Am East St. Louis’” debut issue ran in the Belleville News-Democrat. He said it was clear Savage’s the publication was more than just a magazine.
“It was more than that. It was a movement,” Fox said. “She wanted to highlight people in the community who had grown up in East St. Louis and had succeeded in any number of ways.”
Savage financed the first run of the magazine herself, Fox said. He said it was clear she was serious about the publication.
“It was amazing to sit and talk to her and I immediately realized she was the real deal. At the time she was financing the magazine completely on her own.”
Fox served as the editor of the most recent publication of “I Am East St. Louis” with the help of Savage. He said he currently is working with Savage’s husband in preparation for the next issue.
He said the magazine will be a part of Savage’s legacy.
“She put everything she had into the magazine,” Fox said. “Everybody who I’ve talked to who has seen the magazine either from East. St. Louis or outside of East St. Louis are blown away by it. It’s done so much to help the community see itself in a new way and believe in themselves and realize the amazing potential here.”
A legacy, he said, that will continue.
“We’ll definitely keep it going,” Fox said. I told her that what she started was going to continue.”
The Black Godfather Official Trailer / Netflix (YouTube)
“He wasn’t there, but he was right there.”
These days, when you hear the term “influencer,” one may think of perfectly placed and filtered sponsored ads on Instagram racking up hundreds of thousands of likes within minutes. Well, when you think of the original meaning of the term, one man who embodied it was Clarence Avant also known as “The Black Godfather.”
In a new documentary aptly titled The Black Godfather, Netflix will provide us with a peek into just how significant Avant’s presence was in culture.
Per the doc’s press release via Netflix:
For decades, the world’s most high profile entertainers, athletes and politicians have turned to a single man for advice during the most pivotal moments in their lives and careers, including Grammy Award® winners, Hall of Famers, a Heavyweight Champion of the World and two U.S. Presidents. That man is Clarence Avant.
The Black Godfather charts the exceptional and unlikely rise of Avant, a music executive whose trailblazing behind-the-scenes accomplishments impacted the legacies of icons such as as Bill Withers, Quincy Jones, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron, and Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Driven by a sense of equality, loyalty, and justice, Avant left the Jim Crow south behind to emerge as a powerhouse negotiator at a time when deep-seated racism penetrated every corner of America. Avant defied notions of what a black executive could do, redefining the industry for entertainers and executives of color and leaving a legacy of altruism for others to emulate.
Directed by Academy Award® nominee Reginald Hudlin and featuring interviews with Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Bill Withers, Snoop Dogg, P. Diddy, Lionel Richie, Suzanne de Passe, David Geffen, Jerry Moss, Cicely Tyson, and Jamie Foxx, among others, The Black Godfather pulls the curtain back on the maestro himself, projecting a spotlight on the man who’s spent his entire career ensuring that it shined on others.
Mr. Avant’s daughter, Nicole Avant, serves as producer, along with Byron Phillips, Nelson George and Caitrin Rogers.
“KRS-ONE wisely once said ‘real bad boys move in silence,’ and no one better symbolizes that idea than Clarence Avant,” Hudlin told The Root. “For 50 years, he’s been shaping black culture from behind the scenes, affecting music, movies, politics, and sports.”
“Clarence has the amazing ability to evolve,” Hudlin continued. “He started in Climax, North Carolina, with a ninthgrade education, and ended up living in Beverly Hills and staying overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. He accepted no ceiling to his growth, adapted to new people and new situations that would overwhelm anyone else, but never lost hold on the values that made him who he was. That’s an amazing feat, which is inspiring to me and why so many successful people want to be around him.”
“Sometimes I ask myself, ‘How the fuck did I get involved in this?’” Avant asks himself in the trailer.
Black Hollywood, music, and history is sure glad you did, Mr. Avant.
The Black Godfather premieres on Netflix and in select theaters on June 7.
The first trailer for “The Black Godfather,” Reginald Hudlin’s documentary about black entertainment trailblazer Clarence Avant, has been released. The film features interviews with Snoop Dogg, P. Diddy, David Geffen, Clive Davis, Diane Warren, Lionel Richie and Irving Azoff, among other industry titans. Former president Barack Obama also makes an appearance.
Hudlin spent three years making what he terms “a secret movie” about Avant, the music executive who rose from a manager of jazz artists in the 1950s to discovering Bill Withers, producing black-oriented theater productions and films, launching one of the first fully black-owned radio stations and offering his advice as a mentor to countless artists and executives.
In “The Black Godfather,” premiering June 7 on Netflix and in select theaters, Hudlin chronicles Avant’s life, from fighting his way through Jim Crow America to eventually having an impact on luminaries as diverse as Quincy Jones (pictured above, at left, with Avant and Whitney Houston), Muhammad Ali and Bill Clinton. (Worth noting: Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos is Avant’s son-in-law; in 2009, Sarandos married Nicole Avant, who served as Obama’s U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas.)
Avant was a true behind-the-scenes mover and shaker: He helped save the Stax and Motown labels at different junctures in his career; counseled MGM and ABC in the 1970s on how to deal with black American culture; and redefined the industry for entertainers of color. Today, Avant is a go-to adviser for hit-makers such as Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, L.A. Reid and Babyface. Jamie Foxx also features prominently in “The Black Godfather” — the actor starred in 2012’s Oscar-nominated “Django Unchained,” on which Hudlin served as producer, and was also on hand for Avant’s 2016 star dedication on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Marshall director Reginald Hudlin has signed on to direct Beyond the Velvet Rope, a musical film that will be based on the original music of Andreas Carlsson. The prolific Swedish songwriter has penned hits for the likes of Celine Dion, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and American Idol stars including Carrie Underwood and Clay Aiken.
The original script for Velvet Rope was penned by Oscar-winning Rain Man writer Ron Bass and Walter Becker & G.L. Lambert. It centers on an up-and-coming pop star named Sky who falls in love with her prolific songwriter Luke as they make their way through the Los Angeles music scene in the late 1970s. They make a fairy-tale ascent to the top, but Luke begins to drift from his first love (music) and finds the fine line between success and failure, and the realization that life can turn on a single song.
Carlsson, an ASCAP Songwriter of the Year whose songs have sold more than 150 million units, has written 14 new songs for the pic, which he is also producing alongside Marcus Englefield and George Lee for Storyoscopic Films. Executive producers are Niklas Bergman, Hudlin, Robyn Klein, Andrew Lerios, and Jeremy Ross.
“The ability to work closely with a film rooted in music has been on my bucket list and is a genre that started my career,” said Hudlin, a prolific TV director who was Oscar-nominated for producing Django Unchained in 2017. “The opportunity to blend a well-written story with exceptional original songs is a special moment as a director and music lover. The raw reality of ascending and descending and then finding success as an artist of any kind in Hollywood is filled with the kind of emotion that organically allows for great storytelling.”
Added Carlsson: “The music for this film is
inspired by the core of my upbringing. As a Swede, I was enamored with American
pop culture and the music of the late 70s along with the films from the era. I
am looking forward to working with Reggie who has fully grasped the musical
vision of the film. Along with my musical collaborators Kalle Engstrom and
Jörgen Elofsson, we are ready to create an important film that will focus on a
significant part of America’s musical timeline.”
Hudlin, who also produced the Oscars in 2017, is repped by CAA. The pic deal was negotiated by Weintraub Tobin, Qap Legal, and Fox Rothschild.
