Chicago cotton club

Both Gossett and Rollins have been vocal on the shortage of decent parts for blacks. The romantic black leading man is just too threatening. Gregory, who appeared in ''Wolfen'' , ''The Muppets Take Manhattan'' and two indifferent comedies, ''History of the World--Part I'' and ''Deal of the Century'' , was slightly more circumspect.

Gregory lobbied hard for the chance to play Sandman Williams because of the scope he saw in the role. The screenplay--by Coppola and Pulitzer-winning novelist William Kennedy--was in a constant state of change and upheaval and subject to impromptu rewrites and on-set improvisation.

I wanted the role to have some range, to be happy, angry, passionate. I was happy those areas were touched on. Everybody looks great and nobody is doing anything stereotypical. You guys did in real life. First as the Hines Kids, then as Hines, Hines and Dad and finally as the Hines Brothers, Gregory and Maurice had been professionally inseparable as a popular stage, television and nightclub act.

I wanted to try something new my own way. It was very painful and difficult for a while. But we became closer, and we worked out a lot of the resentment. To preserve our relationship as brothers, we had to break up. Yisrael was 17 and the owner's daughter. So she made herself a bartender, at least in her mind. The truth was less dazzling. She stood in the back washing dishes.

Monday evening, after 20 years of serving entertainment that has included jazz, disco and open mic nights, the Cotton Club will hold its last acts and serve its last drinks. New developments and rehabbed condominiums are squeezing the club off S. Michigan Ave. The lines to get in the club once arched down the street, filled with men in their best jackets and women fresh from the beauty shop, Yisrael said.

The younger patrons would head to the back disco room.