Tyler Perry outsmarted movie studios with a series of low-budget films that were big at the box office. Now he's taking on television.
By Ken Parish Perkins

There's a love fest happening with Madea, the trash-talking, fists-flying grandma the size of a city bus. Millions have flocked to the stage plays and big-screen life lessons masquerading as urban family adventures. So many gladly plopped down $23.95 for the 272-page journal of Madea wit, wisdom, and wisecracks that Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life easily raced to the New York Times best-seller list for hardcover nonfiction.

Of course, she is really a he. Tyler Perry, in a wig, dress, and stockings - and with a walk that resembles a six-foot-five linebacker navigating high heels - is writer, performer, and Madea architect. He's a self-professed "womanologist," whose insight and inspiration come from the hours he spent in women's clothing stores and beauty shops, dragged there as a little boy by a mother hoping to keep him out of harm's way.

What has made Perry's exploits extraordinary isn't necessarily how he's managed to turn what's essentially a gimmick (big man in a dress - how original is that?) into a lucrative franchise - though that's impressive, too - but how he's done it by deliberately sidestepping the usual paths. His stage plays, usually about faith and redemption and tinged with gospel and soul music, weren't ever meant for Broadway but for the so-called chitlin' circuit, an off-the-beaten-path network of theaters that cater to black, faith-based audiences yearning to whoop and holler. He used the enormous success of the stage plays to leverage a sweet deal with Lionsgate to get Madea on film and in theaters.