‘We knew Louie was cool’: How Louie Anderson was cast in ‘Coming to America’

nypost.com:

Louie Anderson, who lost his battle with cancer at 68, played Maurice, the aspiring assistant manager of McDowell’s who enthusiastically worked his way up the ladder by learning the finer points of fast food.“Hey, I started out mopping the floor just like you guys,” Maurice told Prince Akeem and Semmi (played by Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall). “But now . . .

now I’m washing lettuce. Soon I’ll be on fries; then the grill. In a year or two, I’ll make assistant manager, and that’s when the big bucks start rolling in.”In reality, Anderson’s life-changing role in the 1988 classic came courtesy of his Midwestern values and a lack of melanin in his skin.“I love Louie, but I think we were forced to put Louie in it,” Hall, 65, told Jimmy Kimmel in 2021 while promoting the sequel. “We were forced to put in a white person.”Murphy backed up his celluloid sidekick’s account.“[The studio was] like, ‘There has to be a white person in the movie.’ I was like, ‘What?’ So who was the funniest white guy around?

We knew Louie was cool, so that’s how Louie got in the movie.”Hall said they were initially given a choice of three Caucasian comedians.“I had a list.

They gave me a list with three white guys. They said, ‘Who would you rather work with?’ I said, ‘Louie.’ ”But Anderson, who reprised his role in the 2021 sequel, “Coming 2 America,” had distinguished himself to Murphy with an act of kindness.In a 2017 interview with Sway in the Morning, the Emmy winner recalled dining at Hollywood hotspot The Ivy in the 1980s and seeing Murphy dining with his entourage.