Credit: Dangerous Minds / CBS Television Network

Sherman Hemsley, the actor who played George Jefferson on The Jeffersons and All in the Family, is known to be a huge fan of prog rock, especially Gentle Giant, Nektar and Gong.

Hemsley even collaborated with Yes member Jon Anderson on a funk-rock opera about the “spiritual qualities of the number 7”, but it was unfortunately never produced. Hemsley also did an interpretive dance to the Gentle Giant song ‘Proclamation’ on Dinah Shore’s 1970s talk show, which was apparently somewhat confusing for her.

But the crown jewel of the whole Sherman Hemsley psych-rock saga? That would be the legendary encounter between Hemsley and Gong founder Daevid Allen—a story that involves drugs, paranoia, naked Southern girls, bad PR agents, and an entire room dedicated to the band’s “Flying Teapot” motif. No, really. You couldn’t make this up if you tried. And if you did, it still wouldn’t be as good as the real thing.

But the best story, I mean the best story of all time, is the one told by Gong’s Daevid Allen about his encounter with the beloved ’70s sitcom star. Here is Allen’s verbatim tale as related to Mitch Myers, which was originally published in Magnet magazine: “It was 1978 or 1979, and Sherman Hemsley kept ringing me up. I didn’t know him from a bar of soap because we didn’t have television in Spain (where I was living). He called me from Hollywood saying, ‘I’m one of your biggest fans and I’m going to fly you here and put flying teapots all up and down the Sunset Strip.’ I thought, ‘This guy is a lunatic.’ He kept it up so I said, ‘Listen, can you get us tickets to L.A. via Jamaica? I want to go there to make a reggae track and have a honeymoon with my new girlfriend.’ He said, ‘Sure! I’ll get you two tickets”.

It sounded like the weirdest fan meet-and-greet of all time. Apparently, Sherman wanted to plaster Flying Teapot imagery all over the Sunset Strip.

Allen agreed, thinking, even if this guy was a lunatic, at least he was a lunatic with plane tickets.

“I thought, ‘Well, even if he’s a nut case at least he’s coming up with the goodies’. The tickets arrived and we had this great honeymoon in Jamaica,” Allen added. “Then we caught the plane across to L.A. We had heard Sherman was a big star, but we didn’t know the details. Coming down the corridor from the plane, I see this black guy with a whole bunch of people running after him trying to get autographs. Anyway, we get into this stretch limousine with Sherman and immediately there’s a big joint being passed around. I say, ‘Sorry man, I don’t smoke.’ Sherman says, ‘You don’t smoke and you’re from Gong?’

“Inside the front door of Sherman’s house was a sign saying, ‘Don’t answer the door because it might be the man.’ There were two Puerto Ricans that had a LSD laboratory in his basement, so they were really paranoid. They also had little crack/freebase depots on every floor. Then Sherman says, ‘Come on upstairs and I’ll show you the Flying Teapot room.’ Sherman was very sweet but was surrounded by these really crazy people”.

And here’s where the story gets gloriously insane. If you’ve ever wondered what the inside of Sherman Hemsley’s mind might look like, well, turns out it was a lot like the inside of his actual house: psychedelic, paranoid, and crawling with strange energy. Like a halfway point between The Holy Mountain and The Jeffersons set, but with more acid labs and fewer lighting cues.

“We went up to the top floor and there was this big room with darkened windows and ‘Flying Teapot’ is playing on a tape loop over and over again,” Allen added. “There were also three really dumb-looking, very voluptuous Southern gals stoned and wobbling around naked. They were obviously there for the guys to play around with.

“[My girlfriend] Maggie and I were really tired and went to our room to go to bed. The room had one mattress with an electric blanket and that was it. No bed covering, no pillow, nothing. The next day we came down and Sherman showed us a couple of [The Jeffersons] episodes”.

Allen, a man who’d toured with tripped-out French radicals, lived in communes, and once tried to create a floating anarchist city-state, was still overwhelmed by Hemsley’s vibe. Think about that. This wasn’t just a fan meet-up gone awkward. This was a detour into some kind of psychedelic domestic horror show, complete with topless human furniture and PR vultures who wanted to commercialise Gong’s mythology for Los Angeles billboards.

And the Flying Teapot room? Apparently, it was real. Playing Gong on a loop. Darkened windows. Naked stoned women swaying in the void. No pillows. No blankets. Just bad vibes and stoned ambition.

Allen continued: “One of our fans came and rescued us, but not before Sherman took us to see these Hollywood PR people. They said, ‘Well, Mr. Hemsley wants us to get the information we need in order to do these Flying Teapot billboards on Sunset Strip.’ I looked at them and thought they were the cheesiest, most nasty people that I had ever seen in my life and I gave them the runaround. I just wanted out of there”.

If Daevid Allen says your scene was too weird—even for him—that’s not a red flag, that’s a full-blown hallucinated dragon waving a red banner with your name on it. But still, Allen walked away with affection for Hemsley, calling him personable and charming—just completely surrounded by maniacs. That sounds about right.

As a coda: our old friend, opera singer and all-around glam ghoul Jesse Merlin, once met Daevid Allen in San Francisco. Allen took one look at him and said, “Just look at him. He’s a perfect example of himself.” Now that, my friends, might be the highest praise Daevid Allen ever handed out. And I think it also applies perfectly to Sherman Hemsley.

R.I.P. to a stone freak and a true believer.