American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson — premiering Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET
Over 20 years ago, O.J. Simpson gave me my first real introduction to Los Angeles.
And if you’re planning to watch FX’s excellent new 10-part series American Crime Story: The People Vs. O.J. Simpson — premiering Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET — the football star’s notorious journey through the legal system will do much the same for you. Even two decades on, O.J.’s L.A. is an L.A. that doesn’t feel too distant.
In June of 1994, I was a Michigan-bred turnip fresh off the truck who had moved to L.A. almost sight unseen –- no job lined up, no close friends or family there.
Almost moments after my arrival in the city, it was reported that Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her acquaintance Ronald Goldman, a waiter at a nearby neighborhood restaurant, had been brutally, shockingly murdered in the tony enclave known as Brentwood — just a few miles north of my new apartment in then-less-tony Mar Vista.
On June 17, as I sat down to eat lunch, I turned on the local news to learn that Simpson — the handsome, ever-smiling NFL great/sportscaster/actor whose latest hyphenate was “prime suspect” –- was expected to turn himself in to police at any moment. “Hmm. I’ll watch this,” I mused, settling in.
If you’re old enough to remember 1994, no matter what part of the country you lived in, you know what unfolded over the next several hours. Everything culminated in the bizarre and utterly riveting slow-speed chase up the 405 Freeway in which Simpson’s friend and former teammate, Al “A.C.” Cowlings, drove Simpson’s white Ford Bronco as the athlete turned fugitive apparently threatened to kill himself.
As I watched, I realized that the neighborhoods in the live shots were starting to look familiar — and the noise of helicopters was getting closer.
I looked a block east out my second story window, where the 405 loomed. Dozens of motorists has pulled over, climbing out of their vehicles to cheer on the former running back as he embarked on his most unorthodox dash.
This is the L.A. that’s depicted in all its various glories, both delicious and disconcerting, in American Crime Story. The exquisitely cast series vividly delivers the details of the case in crackling form, turning on a dime from pathos to humor to horror to legal drama and back again.
Ryan Murphy, now a master of mixing the mordantly funny with the starkly serious, executive produces and occasionaly directs from legal journalist, author and Simpson courtroom journalist Jeffrey Toobin’s detailed book, as developed by biopic czars Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.
American Crime Story uniquely captures the very zeitgeist of this true crime story’s moment, time and place: the ego-driven absurdity, the still-all-too-relevant racial divides, the glossy surroundings, the personal costs to the various players, the looming, tragic loss of two innocent lives and the often faltering attempt to deliver justice. It has everything that made the case a fascinating American phenomenon, then and now.
This is the L.A. that O.J. Simpson introduced me to. I recommend you let The People Vs. O.J. Simpson do the same for you.