If you watched “The Six Triple Eight” on Netflix over the vacations (and greater than 23.3 million viewers did, in line with the streamer), you would possibly’ve questioned why the World War II film — concerning the battalion of 855 Black ladies and girls of shade who untangled a three-year backlog of mail (17 million items of it) and dramatically improved morale — is devoted to “the life, service and memory” of leisure mogul Clarence Avant and his spouse, philanthropist Jacqueline Avant.
Their daughter, diplomat-turned-film producer Nicole Avant was the one who introduced the unimaginable untold true story to Tyler Perry’s consideration.
When Nicole was somewhat woman, Jacqueline advised her about Major Charity Adams (portrayed by Kerry Washington), the primary African American girl to turn out to be an officer within the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. But Nicole doesn’t keep in mind her mom mentioning that Adams commanded the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion (or the Six Triple Eight, as they had been identified) or their heroics throughout World War II. So, when Nicole acquired a sizzle reel from a group of filmmakers seeking to convey the story to the large display screen, she confirmed her mother the video.
“She said, ‘I’ve told you about the Six Triple Eight.’ I said, ‘No, you told me about Charity Adams, but I didn’t know about 800 women,’” Nicole says, laughing as she recounts their playful disagreement.
Jacqueline was thrilled Nicole deliberate to shine a highlight on these heroes. “Her love for history is what gave me my love for history,” Nicole says of her mom. “Her message to me growing up was: ‘Your job is to take the baton. Everybody before you — 60 years, 100 years, 500 years, 1,000 years — your ‘Thank you’ [to them] is your life. You take the baton and make your own goodness with it.’”
“The Six Triple Eight” was the ultimate mission they mentioned earlier than Jacqueline was killed in a house invasion in December 2021.
After that tragic night time, Clarence moved in with Nicole and her husband, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, dwelling with the couple till his demise in August 2023. During that point, Nicole chronicled her expertise working via the grief within the memoir “Think You’ll Be Happy” and she or he concurrently labored on “The Six Triple Eight,” with encouragement from her father each step of the way in which. She’d share dailies from the set and, earlier than he died, she confirmed him a minimize of the completed movie.
Ted Sarandos, Nicole Avant, Clarence Avant, and Alex Avant attend the official unveiling of the Jacqueline Avant Children and Family Center in Los Angeles on April 28, 2023.
Getty Images for The Jacqueline
“It was a little bit after midnight and he’s listening to the [end credits] song,” Nicole recollects, saying she joked with Clarence about how the film’s authentic observe “The Journey” was written by Diane Warren — aka his “friend who likes to curse.”
“They had that in common,” cracks Sarandos, becoming a member of his spouse for the transient interview at Tyler Perry’s Paley Honors ceremony final month.
“I had a feeling it was almost time for the transition, so we switched places,” Nicole says gesturing towards her husband, who sat with Clarence as he died. Sarandos wrote about that emotional expertise in a poignant new foreword for the paperback version of “Think You’ll Be Happy.” The e book hit cabinets on Dec. 3, simply hours earlier than Nicole walked the purple carpet for the world premiere of “The Six Triple Eight.”
You may name it coincidence, however Nicole wouldn’t. “I believe in divine timing. I believe in divine order and I live by it,” she says, noting that the making of the film was marked by a sequence of such concurrences.
For instance, as Avant and Perry approached Washington to star as Major Adams, she’d simply discovered of the Six Triple Eight and dressed up like Lena Derriecott King (one of many final dwelling troopers within the battalion) for a social media sequence celebrating Black ladies’s contributions throughout the ages. When Washington pressed publish on that Instagram put up, she didn’t notice an e-mail for Perry concerning the “Six Triple Eight” movie was ready in her inbox.
“Everything just came together,” Nicole says of the serendipitous course of. “It was such a full circle moment to start this journey with my mom’s excitement and end the journey with my father, knowing that he always kept me going — he’d tell me, ‘No matter what, you have to persevere. You have to finish things, even if they are hard,’ — that’s why this movie is extra special.”
For Sarandos, “The Six Triple Eight” is exclusive because it bridges the hole between studio head and partner. From the Netflix perspective, the movie was a marker of the studio’s funding in Perry.
“This is a different level of work for Tyler — a different level of scope and ambition. He has a remarkable body of work, but these projects really do stand out,” Sarandos says of “The Six Triple Eight” and its predecessor “A Jazzman’s Blues,” which Perry launched in 2022. “It’s giving him the ability to work on a bigger canvas — which has been something I’ve been quite proud of.”
And on a private notice, he provides, “This film is an embodiment of that energy that got poured into it. What Clarence and Jackie were always trying to do was to tell people’s stories and make sure these people don’t get lost to history. They instilled that in Nicole.”
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, Bela Bajaria and Dan Lin flank Nicole Avant, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Kerry Washington on the premiere of “The Six Triple Eight” on the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on Dec. 3, 2024.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images