ALMOST FOUR years ago, Alex Haley sat down to lunch with David Wolper, who produced the miniseries "Roots" and "Roots: The Next Generations."
"He said, `I'm thinking about doing a book about my father's side of the family. Let me tell you a story,' " Wolper said. "And two hours later Alex is still talking and telling us the story."
Haley, who died last year, didn't live to see it, but that story became "Queen," an outstanding six-hour miniseries that airs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday on CBS (8 p.m. each night on Ch. 5).
It's the tale of Haley's paternal grandmother, Queen Haley - her dramatic and extraordinarily painful life. Born the daughter of white plantation owner James Jackson Jr. (Tim Daly) and a slave (Jasmine Guy), Queen finds herself accepted in neither the black nor the white worlds.
Haley "saw Queen as representative of a vast body of dispossessed people," said David Stevens, who wrote the teleplay. "There were thousands upon thousands of children of the plantation, as they were called. They were children of mixed parentage, and nobody had really ever spoken on their behalf. He was deeply concerned that a lot of the light-skinned people were rejected by the darker-skinned people and that they had no really defined place.
"He used to tell me often a story of a young African-American student who had a considerable amount of white blood in him who said, `I hate every drop of white blood in me because it doesn't allow me to define who I am. I am neither one thing nor the other.' And this is what Alex was most concerned with, was this definition of who you are."
In Part 1 of "Queen," Jackson finds it impossible to acknowledge the love he feels for his slave mistress or their daughter. But he does bring Queen into the mansion as a maid for his white daughter.
The Civil War destroys their lives and nearly destroys the Jackson family. And even in the aftermath of the war and emancipation, Queen is not accepted, so she strikes out on her own.
Unfortunately, she has nowhere to go. She attempts to pass herself as white, with disastrous results. She falls in love with another ex-slave but is rejected by him as well - although she does bear a son.
The world deals her many a terrible blow, any one of which would seem enough to cause her to give up. And, for a time, she rejects the entire world (except for her baby) before it can reject her.
In Part 3, a bitter and lonely Queen finds love with sharecropper Alec Haley (Danny Glover) but even then has to continue to battle for herself and her family.
"Queen" is, in a word, magnificent. It's a worthy successor to "Roots" and even better than "Roots: The Next Generations."
And Halle Berry is outstanding in the title role, which she handles superbly.
Making the miniseries was not, however, easy for the actress.
"Well, for me, being interracial myself, it hit me harder probably at different times because I realized that, had I been born a hundred years ago, this could be my story. Queen's life could have been my life. And that was horrifying," Berry said.
"Also, dealing face-to-face with the injustice that was done to black people back at that time was a hard thing to digest, because every day we had to relive it. We had to be on the plantations, in the slave quarters. We saw the slave graveyards. And it was a painful experience, because it was true. And I know my ancestors were enslaved and lived a very similar life to the lives that we portrayed."
Guy, who plays Queen's mother, Easter, had an even more difficult time working on "Queen."
"The making of `Queen' for me was very painful," Guy said. "I had never been on a plantation before. That wasn't something my parents did on summer vacations.
"And I think that we've been so denied the truth that when I saw it for real, it just - it hurt. . . . I cried. And I thought, `What am I doing here? What good is going to come from portraying this, this slave that has an affair with a white man?'
"And I'm slowly beginning to see that there was some good in showing that our culture is woven together. That we can't keep separating American his-tory."
"Queen" is not, however, just six hours of pontificating on the state of race relations, then or now. Stevens said he clearly remembers Haley asking him what he thought of the story.
"And I said, `I think it's a rattling good yarn, Alex,' " Stevens said. "And he looked at me and he said `Yes. And we must never forget that. It is a rattling good yarn.' "
It's also beautifully produced - the $18 million budget was put to good use. In addition to Berry, there are fine performances from Glover, Ann-Margret (as Queen's white grandmother), Daly, Paul Winfield (as Queen's grandfather), Dennis Haysbert (as Queen's lover) and Sada Thompson and Elizabeth Wilson (as two old-maid missionaries).
Guy is overmatched by her role but manages an adequate portrayal of Queen's mother.
The six hours pass quickly, and carry an emotional punch in this "rattling good yarn."
*****
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Quiz tests knowledge of `Roots,' sequels
Here's a quiz to gauge your knowledge of "Roots" and its sequels, "Roots: The Next Generations" and the new miniseries "Queen":
1. Halle Berry is not the first actress to play Queen on TV. Who was, and in what miniseries did she play Queen?
2. Danny Glover plays the role of Queen's husband, Alec Haley, in "Queen." Who played him in a small role in "Roots: The Next Generations?"
3. Halle Berry's real-life husband isn't an actor, but he's on television a lot. Who is he?
4. Ann-Margret (plantation matriarch Sally Jackson) won acclaim in the television dramas "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," "Who Will Love My Children?" and "Our Sons." What do these productions have in common?
5. When Maya Angelou recited her epic poem at President Clinton's inauguration, the face may have seemed familiar to "Roots" fans. Why?
6. Emmy winners Madge Sinclair and Paul Winfield star in "Queen" as slaves, Dora and Cap'n Jack. Whom did they play in past Alex Haley miniseries?
7. Tim Daly stars in "Queen" as James Jackson Jr., heir to the plantation and Queen's father. His father was in "Roots: The Next Generations." Who was he, and whom did he play?
8. What role did Ossie Davis play in "Roots: The Next Generations."
9. Ossie Davis is heard narrating the eulogy at the end of "Malcolm X." Who delivered that eulogy in real life?
ANSWERS:
1. Ruby Dee was Queen Haley in "Roots: The Next Generations." (Dee does not appear in "Queen," but her husband does - Ossie Davis plays Parson Dick, a house slave.)
2. Hal Williams.
3. Dave Justice, star outfielder of the Atlanta Braves.
4. They were all directed by John Erman, who directed "Queen."
5. She had an acting role in "Roots," playing Nyo Boto, the midwife at Kunta Kinte's birth (in Gambia, West Africa, in the 18th century).
6. Sinclair was Bell, wife of Toby (Kunte Kinte's slave name), played by John Amos in "Roots." Winfield was Dr. Huguley, dean of the college where Alex' father, Simon Haley, was a teacher in "Roots: The Next Generations."
7. The late James Daly played R.S.M. Boyce, a retired publishing executive who was impressed by Simon, a Pullman porter, and sent $500 to A&T College in Greensboro, N.C., to pay for his books, tuition and board for a year.
8. Dad Jones, a Pullman porter who befriended Simon (Dorian Harewood).
9. Ossie Davis.