John Shearer: Remembering Leslie Jordan, Including Unforgettable 2021 Visit To Book & Cover

Blaes Green will never forget hearing some news last fall right before Thanksgiving that was a genuine holiday gift to her and her former Girls Preparatory School friends and business partners Sarah Jackson and Emily Lilley.

Noted TV and film actor and former Chattanoogan Leslie Jordan was inviting himself to do a book signing for his new book, “How Y’all Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived,” at their recently opened North Chattanooga bookstore, The Book & Cover.

“We found out on a Saturday he was going to come to the shop on Wednesday (Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving),” the daughter of Kurt and Julie Schmissrauter recalled over the phone this week upon hearing of the famous former Chattanoogan’s untimely death.

“We had been open two weeks, and he had gotten word and he wanted to come out and support us.”

While she had just returned from running in the famous New York City Marathon earlier that month, she and her former schoolmates and fellow proprietors went more into sprint mode trying to get ready. That included ordering some of his new books, which proved more challenging than getting him, which is usually opposite the case for a small and independent bookstore.

“We had to scramble to get books, and we were able to get 100 copies,” she recalled.

That resulted in a good/bad problem, as after announcements were sent to the local media and through their Instagram account, a long line formed from their business at 1310 Hanover St. near Riverview Park all the way out to Hixson Pike behind Il Primo restaurant.

As a result, they did run out of books, but it ended up working out wonderfully after Mr. Jordan did some real-life and genuine role playing as the very accommodating guest.

As Ms. Green explained after realizing they thought they were in a double predicament after his two-hour allotted time was also almost up, “We ran out of books with a huge line still outside, and we went and talked to Leslie. And he said, ‘Anybody who wants to come in here and meet me and talk to me gets to do that.’ ”

So, he stayed another 90 minutes greeting everyone there and signed bookmarks and other items, with many people also ordering copies of the book.

“He was so kind,” Ms. Green said, jokingly adding that his security for that day was his friendly sister, Jana “Cricket” Jordan. “He had the best memory. He would say to people, ‘Was your sister so and so?’ He was very warm.”

Even people from the Clay Pot across the street came over, with owner Joe Jumper, who had made the flower arrangements for the book signing, gifting them to Mr. Jordan to take home, she said.

That memorable day came back into focus more for Ms. Green due to the news that Mr. Jordan, 67, died after crashing his BMW Monday morning in Los Angeles, with reports hinting he could have had a medical emergency beforehand.

Like countless others in Chattanooga and beyond, she was saddened to hear of the death of this unusual and small man who made it big in the world of TV and film entertainment.

He is believed to be the only Chattanooga-raised actor to have won a prestigious “Primetime” Emmy award, which he did in 2006 for his role in “Will & Grace.”

But besides that, he was also known for his gift for humor, his down-to-Earth demeanor, his open embracement of being gay, and his past battles with alcohol and drug addiction, which he openly talked about in recent years, often in humorous terms.

He was a classic character actor who could play about any role – except maybe the tall, dark, and handsome Western cowboy star due simply to physical features.

Despite all this, until recent years he did not seem to be a household name in Chattanooga outside his former stomping grounds like fellow locally raised actor Samuel L. Jackson or even brief resident Jim Nabors. His increased name recognition was aided with his humorous and light-hearted Instagram video posts that helped millions of viewers get through the initial fears of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine time.

Since I was spending a good part of my time up in Knoxville when he was garnering attention with “Will & Grace” and other popular shows and movies, I must have missed his continuous rise to fame. I only became aware of him after hearing about his pandemic-related Instagram posts and seeing the additional local attention thrust on him with his recent book, where he does make references to Chattanooga.

I had bought his book and thought as a journalist it might have been neat to interview him at some time, as he seemed quite accommodating to other local media interviews in recent years, including a nice interview on WTCI Channel 45 on “The A List with Alison Lebovitz.”

And after hearing about his unfortunate death, I became curious how his career had been documented locally, so I went down to the Local History and Genealogy section of the Chattanooga Public Library downtown. There I found several old newspaper clippings dating to 1984 and even found pictures of him in a couple of old Brainerd High yearbooks from the early 1970s.

I had earlier also found some information on his father’s unfortunate death. Old front-page newspaper reports say Maj. Allen B. Jordan, 34, was a passenger in a private plane in which he and two other local Army Reservists were killed after it crashed near Hattiesburg, Ms., on March 31, 1967. The 1951 Central High and Tennessee Tech graduate was the chief industrial engineer for the Chattanooga division of Combustion Engineering, and he lived at 903 Woodmore Terrace with wife Peggy Ann, Leslie and twin daughters, Jana Lynn and Janet Ann.

The news reports said Maj. Jordan’s mother, sister and two other relatives had died in a Tunnel Hill, Ga., automobile accident several years earlier, and his father had also died of a heart attack.

Leslie Jordan also lost several family members before his unfortunate death. His sister, Janet Ann, died on April 10, 2022, while his mother died on May 17, 2022, at the age of 86. Peggy Ann Griffin Jordan had been a majorette at Central High and was also active in the now-closed Central Baptist Church of Woodmore and later Ridgedale Baptist Church.

She had worked at Marshal Mize Ford and did medical secretarial work. She had also lived in Florida for a period with her daughters.

Janet Ann, who was about two or three years younger than Leslie, had attended Brainerd High and UTC and did physical education work for the Jewish Community Center. In 1984, she and her sister moved to Florida to head up a recreation program at Orange Blossom Gardens (now The Villages). She later moved to California to be near Leslie and worked at Marriott there and in Chattanooga. She was also an avid long-distance runner.

Regarding Leslie Jordan’s documentation locally, copies of the Brainerd yearbook, the Heritage, from 1971 and 1973 show class pictures of him as a sophomore and senior, respectively. In the sophomore picture, he looks like the boy next door, while in his senior picture, he has long and wavy hair that was popular at the time. He was also involved in theater at Brainerd High and another senior year picture shows him getting make-up before a show.

He also credited over the years such experiences as attending Baylor Camp as a child and Central Baptist with helping shape him.

After studying communications at UTC and attending the Art Institute of Atlanta, he was later involved in theater at UTC, as was documented in a recent story put out by UTC. One source also says he went to UT-Knoxville.

By the time he was at UTC, he was dreaming of making it big in acting, or at least finding an open door into the business. A February 1984 story in the Chattanooga Times by Emily McDonald talks of him getting ready to have an improv-type series of shows at the Vine Street Market then on Vine Street to raise money for him to attend a situation comedy workshop in Los Angeles.

He had also presented some acts at the Vine Street Market the summer before, and some musicians and other theater enthusiasts also took part both times. When I interviewed Tim Kelly when he was running for mayor in 2021, he said he had been a young musician who participated in one of the shows.

The helpful push to Los Angeles must have greatly helped. The 29-year-old Mr. Jordan reported to Carolyn Mitchell of the Times in a followup article in November of that year that he had gotten some parts in TV commercials for such products as Volkswagen and Long John Silver’s. He said he had naturally adapted to acting in front of a camera and credited being a ham but even more thanked UTC theater department head Dr. Fred Behringer for the lessons learned.

He continued to get some breaks and in 1989, a big one came when he was cast in an episode of the then-popular sit-com, “Murphy Brown.” Some 13 million people watched it, including a director named Steven Spielberg, he told Ms. Mitchell.

All kinds of offers started coming in as a result, he said.

But he apparently did not forget Chattanooga amid the bright lights of Hollywood. Later in 1989, Chattanooga News-Free Press reporter Cindy Wooten, now Cindy Pare, covered a visit he made to Virginia Zachary’s second-grade class at Calvin Donaldson Elementary.

In one story he told students, he said that after he was young and realized he had a gift for making people laugh with him after initially thinking they were laughing at him, he encouraged the students to not let their light hide under a bushel basket. Instead, let it shine like it says in the Bible, he told them.

In 1990, he made a surprise visit to the now-closed Eastgate Theatre with some of those involved in the movie, “Ski Patrol,” for its showing. An informal gathering was also planned with old friends several days later at the Fifth Quarter.

Roles beginning in the 1990s included ones on the TV show, “Hearts Afire,” and in the theatrical play and movie, “Sordid Lives.”

He later began being interviewed regularly by Susan Pierce of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. And as he continued climbing the ladder of success amid personal struggles, he had his acting gifts and contributions cemented with an Emmy in 2006 for “Will & Grace.”

Always finding the humor even in serious and crowning life moments, he told Ms. Pierce a mix-up had occurred regarding an NBC-rented limo that was to take them to the Shrine Auditorium for the awards ceremony. So, he and his family and others had to take his manager’s BMW. Due to crowds, they had to walk part of the way there, he said with a laugh.

He had won in the category of Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his portrayal of Beverley Leslie in “Will & Grace.” Aslo nominated for the award that year were Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Ben Stiller, and Patrick Stewart.

On Oct. 14, 2006, he appeared at the Tivoli Theatre as a benefit for the Chattanooga CARES AIDS support and education organization.

He also received some local attention from Ms. Pierce for his 2008 book, “My Trip Down the Pink Carpet.”
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Later credits included playing a newspaper editor in the popular movie, “The Help,” and in various roles in “American Horror Story.” He was working on “Call Me Kat” at the time of his death.

No telling what else he could have achieved to add to his already-impressive resume as he continued moving into his senior years.

But perhaps the greatest role he played was simply himself as the unique person who was honest and comfortable in his own skin. In turn, he helped inspire or ingratiate himself to many other people. And that included plenty of Chattanoogans.

As Ms. Green said after remembering that time of being with him nearly a year ago and realizing how much he did love his former hometown, “He was just a tiny little package of sunshine.”

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Jcshearer2@comcast.net