luxury locations issue 21

Lewis talks with an ease, and is surprisingly loquacious for someone who arrived back in LA after a marathon journey from Antigua just hours before her online interview with Luxury Locations’ Nadia Dyson. (If anyone reading can make this happen, she’d love to see the return of direct flights from the US west coast to the Caribbean.) “I’m very much in love with Antigua,” she enthuses. “I had the most amazing time.” Her May visit wasn’t her first, thanks to an old family friend with a second home at the luxurious Blue Waters resort. Tourism officials had been trying to get her to return for Antigua Sailing Week for the last decade but she’d always been too busy, she reveals. “This year, when they proposed it again, I said you know what, I’m coming this time. It was even more special than the first time. Antigua is absolutely breathtaking, with beautiful food, people, beaches – I spent at least two or three hours a day in the water,” she says. Lewis stayed at The Inn in English Harbour, took part in Sailing Week activities including getting close to the action aboard a ‘chase the race’ boat, dined at seafood restaurant Papa Zouk and enjoyed a trip to Barbuda to sample Nobu. Antigua and Barbuda is well accustomed to visits by A-list stars and these days few attract a second glance. Many islanders would have been hard pushed not to notice Lewis however, having grown up with her during her five-year stint as Jaleesa Vinson in NBC sitcom ‘A Different World’. A spin-off of the Cosby Show, it made its name by dealing with gritty topics its predecessor’s producers were unwilling to address. “It was ground-breaking,” Lewis says. “The things we were able to touch on were very relevant then but nobody was talking about them, least of all the entertainment industry. “From racism and the N-word being thrown around, to economic disparity, to HIV and AIDS. Sad but true, they’re still relevant now. Which might be why the show has remained on television for 30-plus years.” In addition to playing young divorcee Jaleesa, Lewis also wrote the show’s theme

song, which opens with the words ‘I know my parents love me, stand behind me come what may’. “It meant a lot to me to write those words. I basically wrote my story; I was talking about my mom and my brothers and teachers that spoke into my life,” she says. “Thirty-seven years later, it’s one of the most popular and well known theme songs. People know all of the words, from continent to continent, from little kids to seasoned – I call them seasoned – citizens. And it blesses my heart beyond what I can tell you.” The show was a life-changer for Lewis too, who had been singing and dancing on Broadway since she was a child. “It changed my trajectory as a performer. It set the groundwork for me to do just about anything else I’ve wanted to do in this industry,” she says. Lewis talks with an ease, and is surprisingly loquacious for someone who arrived back in LA after a marathon journey from Antigua just hours before her online interview with Luxury Locations’ Nadia Dyson. Life wasn’t always easy for Lewis. The late Tina Turner’s meteoric rise to fame after overcoming hardship and adversity resonated with her. “I met Ms Turner years ago; her journey paralleled my own life. I was raised in a home with domestic violence as was she. Our mom, as hers, ended up having to leave us in order to save her life. We didn’t see her for close to two years. “Praise God my Dad learned before he passed to be a better person, but while we were there it was pretty difficult. The strength we experienced in our mom allowed us to grow into the adults we have become and I am so grateful for her,” Lewis imparts. Her on-stage character of Zelma Bullock, Tina Turner’s mother, was far from the loveable Jaleesa that made her name. Zelma was a complicated figure who also survived spousal abuse but sided with Ike in Tina’s own abusive marriage.

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