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Today’s #OldSchool chat will be about “Cooley High,” one of the great #Chicago classic films that often gets drowned out by other flicks like “The Blues Brothers” or even “Adventures In Babysitting.”
Cooley was a break from the "blax" films that were popular at the time. An autobiographical piece by Chicago writer Eric Monte, he modeled the main character "Preach" after himself. CH was a real high school that served the kids of Cabrini-Green before it was demolished in 1980.
While much of the cast was made of up-and-coming actors like Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Garrett Morris, the producers hired a lot of residents as cast members, including Jackie Taylor, who later founded the Blk Ensemble Theater. Some of them were natural actors.
