A Quote by Kandyse McClure

I lived in South Africa until I was 11 when we first immigrated. My mom had sent me back there when I was 14 for summer vacation. I wasn't doing very well in school, my grades were slipping. I called my mom one day and told her that I wasn't coming back. I ended up staying there until I was 17 before coming back to North America.
I don't know where you're reading all this stuff, but it's pretty accurate, yes. It was in 1942. I was on a ship called the Accelo(ph) coming back from the Red Sea and we were sunk off the coast of Africa by a German submarine. And I was in a lifeboat for 14 days and landed and lived with the Pondos in South Africa while - who took care of us and took care of me. I had some wound in my left leg.
I first got into acting when I was 14, coming back from a junior high school basketball game. My mom picked me up and she had been mentioning, prior to that, this community production of 'Godspell', a couple towns over. I was reluctant, at first, and she bribed me with some great dinner that was in that town, neighboring the theater.
As I got older, the role that I ended up (playing) on One Life to Live was a mother because, by then, I had a stable marriage - so I thought - and a beautiful son and mother roles became what I was doing well. I was still the Latina mom who very much related to people who love family. All those traditional values (were) coming back into my life.
One day, when we were coming back from school, we saw this big cloud of smoke coming up, and all these fire-trucks in the yard. The garage was burning down. I was 14, and we'd lost everything.
I can remember in second grade coming back from school and telling my mom, 'You know what, before I play in the NBA, I want to go to Stanford.' Because of her, I had everything figured out.
While we were shooting the movie, we shot in the actual hotel in Hong Kong where it all went down, the Mira Hotel. Laura Poitras was coming to Hong Kong to do a screening of Citizenfour, and she ended up staying at the Mira Hotel. It was her first time back in Hong Kong, and I ran into her in the elevator. Literally I had just finished shooting one day, and I came back to the hotel and she was in the elevator.
There's a book called 'The Shack' - it had a lot to do with me coming full circle, meeting my birth mother. Awhile back, my birth mom and my adopted mom came to my show together, and it was pretty surreal.
When I look at my own career, growing up, I was doing really well at age 11, but it was kind of isolating because back then, people weren't hanging out with me. My mom was always there. She had my back and was like, 'You keep focused. You gotta keep focused.' And I think those kinds of lessons were hard.
My mornings start with mom coming into my bedroom and waking me up, or trying to wake me up, and then I go back to sleep. Then my mom wakes me up again and yells at me. Then she'll get me to wake up, and I'll get dressed and go to school. We go to school, and my teacher tells me that I didn't do the homework well enough. And that's that.
When I was really young, my mom enrolled me in dance classes. "Mom, I'm too young to dance," I told her. She kind of forced me, but I ended up loving it, and after the ?rst lesson I came back and said, "Come on, Mom, I'll show you the box step." That introduced me not just to dancing but also to working with someone without having a goal.
I can remember coming downstairs before school every day and my mom would be reading her Bible and doing her devotion and praying. Both my parents were prayer warriors.
My mother was a stay-at-home mom until I turned 14, and up to that point, we were made to study hard after school each day, and appreciate what my dad called 'a free education.'
For me, coming up, the first I had ever heard of basketball? It was from my mom. She was a really good player back in her day, and even played college ball at Kentucky State. And then she went on to become a coach and an AD after that - so she always stayed real close to the game, and kept it a part of her life.
One of the last times that we played in the area before I wrote "Allentown," I remember a guy coming up to us and saying, "You're never coming back here." I said, "Why do you say that?" He said, "Well, you're probably gonna become a big star. Nobody who ever becomes big comes back here." And I felt so sad for this kid, he seemed so bitter about it. I said, "Well, I'm coming back, no matter what."
I went to a school called Tring Park School for the Performing Arts. I went because initially I was very naughty, and my mom thought if I was busy, I'd be better. And I didn't really do acting until later on in the school, with an amazing teacher. I left, went traveling, came back.
Yeah, my dad was in the foreign service. We lived in India, Indonesia and Africa, and we traveled a lot from those places. I was 10 when we moved back, and I felt like the odd guy out. It wasn't until later that I appreciated it. But coming back I didn't know any TV shows or music, which was even worse.
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