Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Lean On Me”

His Exit 

After the release of the movie and the cover of Time magazine, Joe Clark was hot stuff and he was capitalizing on all of that newfound fame by traveling the country. Right around the time the film dropped, he was suspended, or he suspended himself (it depends on who you ask), after a school convocation went left when a group of performers were practically naked on stage. According to People,

“The striptease happened last month when he was away, on the West Coast, doing the Arsenic Hall show. Before he left, Clark had scheduled an assembly for 11th and 12th graders: a variety show to be produced by Eric Floyd, a young graduate of TV’s Fame And an aspiring “Las Vegas-Atlantic City showstopper.” Floyd’s show had played Eastside once before without incident. But then it had not included an act called “The Goddess of Rap,” in which Floyd’s fiancée, Wanda-Dee, performs with four muscular male dancers. In that number, as the dancers stood with their backs to the audience, Wanda ripped their pants off, revealing (clotheswise) only silver G-strings. The crowd of 16-and 17-year-olds screamed delightedly; the assistant principal on duty rang down the curtain.”

Naturally, as the face of the school, the administration let this fall on Clark’s shoulders. The man who suspended him, Dr. Frank Napier, was his good friend in the film, played by Robert Guillaume.

And while the parents didn’t think it was all that great, the students rallied behind Mr. Clark, during his suspension protesting on his behalf, holding signs and singing “Lean On Me.”

But Sakara Fritts, an 11th grader at the time, said Mr. Clark’s attention to other endeavors was distracting him from the school. She said, “I like him as a principal but his public speaking all the time is not good. We [should] come first.”

The students may have still believed in him but the school board and superintendent did not. They voted to terminate Clark.