Bet You Didn’t Know: Secrets Behind The Making Of “Rosewood”

Real Love

In the movie, Don Cheadle played the character Sylvester Carrier. And Gertrude, another character in the film, was played by Bridgid Coulter, who just so happens to be Cheadle’s long-time partner. The two, though they are not married, are still together today and have two children.

And speaking of love, in speaking with the LA Times, Cheadle recounted his own family’s chilling experience with racism and what his grandfather did to shield his children from knowing the truth for as long as he could.

“It’s real funny to see how far we’ve come and how far we haven’t come. This is not that long ago. In Kansas, my mom used to be able to go to the amusement park one day out of every year. It was called Nigger Day. But my grandfather would never let them go. They didn’t know till they were much older that this is what it was called, they just knew he wouldn’t let them go, and they thought he was the meanest man around. But my mother said, ‘He would rather us hate him than know that America hated us that much.’ “