“If you have a million dollars, take it and bury it in the woods because the government will take it from you”

In Hollywood, mentorship doesn’t always come wrapped in wisdom. Sometimes it comes in the form of Sidney Poitier telling you you’re not Denzel or Morgan, and James Brown urging you to dig a hole in the forest.

Eddie Murphy, now a legend in his own right, has been reflecting on the interesting advice he received early in his career. In the new documentary Number One on the Call Sheet: Black Leading Men in Hollywood, Murphy recounts two particularly odd but memorable moments: one with Poitier and another with Brown. Each left him a little stunned, and decades later, still amused.

Poiter ends Murphy’s Malcolm X ideas

Murphy’s account begins in the late ‘80s, when he was approached to play Alex Haley in a proposed film adaptation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. While pondering the idea, he bumped into Poitier who was quick to put him off the idea.

“You are not Denzel, and you are not Morgan. You are a breath of fresh air, and don’t fuck with that!” Murphy recalled was the message, then unsure how to take it. “I didn’t know if it was an insult or a compliment,” he said, but understands now where he was coming from. “They didn’t have a reference for me. Nobody could give me advice, really. Everything broke really big and really fast.”

James Brown feels good about hiding money

After revealing that the legendary musician suggested cutting down on the swearing – “You wanna be in this business for a long time? Stop that cursing” – Murphy also shared Brown’s advice on what to do with his growing fortune.

“He said, ‘You think you got a million dollars?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do.’ He said, ‘You ain’t got no million dollars. If you do got a million dollars, you take it and you bury it in the woods.‘"

Murphy, being pragmatic, asked why. “‘Cause the government will take it from you,‘” Brown said. “‘So bury it.‘”

Murphy protested, “But can’t the government take your land?” Brown replied: “‘But they won’t know where the money is.‘”

As Murphy concludes on this episode, “You have to remember, we didn’t have a lot of elders.”

You can check out the 2-part documentary film event ‘Number One on the Call Sheet’ on Apple TV+ now.

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