The Business Lesson Behind Cooley High
The Story That Started It All
Before Tyler Perry owned a studio or Issa Rae signed production deals, there was Eric Monte — a Black writer from Chicago’s Cabrini-Green projects who changed television and film with Good Times, The Jeffersons, and Cooley High.
Monte didn’t just create shows; he created blueprints. He built the emotional language of Black storytelling in America — humor with dignity, pain with rhythm, truth without apology.
But his story is also a warning: creativity without business literacy is like music without publishing rights — beautiful, but unprotected.
The Genius from Cabrini-Green
Monte was born in 1943 as Kenneth Williams. Growing up in poverty, he watched sitcoms where Black characters were servants or punchlines. He promised himself that if he ever wrote for television, his people would laugh and live with pride.
He started small — a script sale for All in the Family that spun into The Jeffersons. Then came Good Times, co-created with actor Mike Evans, introducing America to Florida and James Evans, two parents raising kids with humor and discipline amid economic struggle.
A year later, Monte wrote Cooley High (1975), the coming-of-age film about two Chicago teens whose friendship and dreams collide with reality. The movie cost less than $1 million but grossed more than $13 million. Its mix of comedy, tragedy, and Motown soundtrack inspired later films like Boyz n the Hood and House Party.
Monte showed the world that Black stories could be universal — full of joy, risk, and soul.
The Lawsuit That Changed Everything
But behind the laughter was a business storm. Monte realized his ideas were being used across multiple shows — with profits flowing to studios, not to him.
In 1977, he sued Norman Lear, CBS, and ABC, alleging that his creations had been used without fair credit or compensation. The case dragged for years. Eventually, Monte settled for about $1 million and minor residuals — a moral win, but a career-ending move.
Hollywood’s doors shut. Future projects went unfunded. Monte spent much of his settlement trying to finance plays and small TV pilots that never made it to air.
By the late 1990s, the man who wrote Cooley High was living in public housing, still writing but largely forgotten.
“I should be a millionaire many times over,” Monte said in one interview. “Instead, I’m proof that talent without business sense is a setup.”
The Business Lesson Hidden in the Art
Monte’s downfall wasn’t lack of talent. It was lack of infrastructure — no attorney guarding his contracts, no manager watching the royalties, no accountant multiplying the settlement.
That’s the blueprint teens and parents need to study:
Own Your Work. Register your scripts, lyrics, or stories. Retain “created by” credit.
Get Representation. Lawyers and agents are bodyguards for your creativity.
Learn the Language of Money. Know what “residuals,” “points,” and “backend” mean before signing anything.
Invest Wisely. A big check isn’t wealth until it grows while you sleep.
Protect Your Reputation. Passion matters — but so does patience.
Monte’s million vanished; his legacy didn’t. Every Black filmmaker who negotiates ownership today — Ava DuVernay, Donald Glover, Shonda Rhimes — is writing the chapter he couldn’t finish.
Modern Voices Carry His Flame
Ava DuVernay built her company ARRAY to control distribution for Black stories. “Ownership,” she says, “is creative freedom.”
Issa Rae learned from early web-series contracts to “own your show before someone else does.”
Donald Glover studied contracts line by line before Atlanta ever aired.
Tyler Perry, now worth over a billion, owns every character, camera, and studio wall — a direct rebuke to the system that swallowed Monte.
Each of them is, consciously or not, correcting Monte’s lost equity.
For Parents and Teens: Build the Two-Part Legacy
Parents, when your child shows artistic talent — writing, music, design — nurture both their creativity and their literacy in business.
Help them understand copyright, saving, investing, and contracts the way you’d teach them to drive.
Teens, your art is sacred. But sacred things must be protected. You are not “selling out” when you read a contract; you are “buying in” to your future.
The next Eric Monte could be sitting in a high-school creative-writing class right now. Don’t just dream of making Cooley High — dream of owning it.
Monte’s Final Lesson
When he was older, Monte said something both humble and profound:
“Cooley High means my name will live forever.”
It will. But let it also live as a guidepost — for every young artist who wants to turn creativity into legacy, and legacy into ownership.
Critical Question
If the world can love your art but erase your name from its profits, what does freedom really mean for a creator?
Citations
Los Angeles Times – “Cooley High Writer Eric Monte’s Hollywood Dreams Took a Hard Turn” (2006)
Chicago Magazine – “The Oral History of Cooley High” (2015)
Houston Chronicle – “Life Gives ‘Cooley High’ Writer Stories” (2006)
Wikipedia – “Eric Monte” (biography and filmography)
Travalanche – “The Long Reach of Eric Monte: A Writer Who Defined a Decade” (2024)
Rolling Stone – Interview with Issa Rae on creative ownership (2018)
Forbes – Interview with Tyler Perry on owning his work (2019)
The New Yorker – Profile of Donald Glover on contracts and control (2018)
ARRAY Alliance – Ava DuVernay on why ownership matters (2020)