Tie in - Gold chains out - Tie Pity the Fool

Tie Pity the Fool

Mr. T gave up his gold chains last year after Hurricane Katrina. He says he thought it would be a sin to don the gold when spending time with the less fortunate. He wears a suit and tie.

"The gold is in my heart," he says.

In 1982, Sylvester Stallone saw him on television in the "World's Toughest Bouncer" contest and offered him the role of boxer Clubber Lang in Rocky III. Mr. T then played Sgt. Bosco "B.A." Baracus on The A-Team, which ran from 1983 to 1987 on NBC. Mr. T was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma in 1995, but his bio says he is cancer-free today.

He speaks frequently about his mother, which makes me wonder if he lives with his mother.

"No," he says. He doesn't like that question and vows to see me afterward. (He doesn't, thank goodness.) His mother, who will be 90 this year, lives in Chicago.

"I'm still a mama's boy," Mr. T says. "I am the mama's boy because [of] the things that I do, the way I carry myself. See, my mother is not proud of me because I make money. She's proud of me because I have not forgotten her teachings."

He says he is proud to show his mother I Pity the Fool. But will he always succeed on the show?

"I always will do my best," he says. "I'm gonna bring it, baby. If the show fails, it's not because I'm not trying."

His best makes I Pity the Fool an entertaining change of pace in a celebrity-addled culture. The guru role fits him to a T. He is still titanic after all these years. More...