BALTIMORE'S VISIONARY OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE By Belinda Trotter-James Derick Thomas now Derick Prince always wanted to be a filmmaker. As a kid he was inspired by the actor Robert Guillaume; you may best know him on the hit television show Benson. At the age of six he has always been a fan of television and it just unfolded into the film-making business when he was a teenager. That’s when he finally got a chance to explore all aspects of film-making. “At the age of six there were not a lot of us on television and television influences children which is one of the reasons why we have so many bad influences today, but that’s another story,” says Derick. “Robert Guillaume was intelligent, articulate, he had power, he had persuasion plus he was the guy who had everything and at six years old I watched him and thought, ‘I can do that.’ He was just a great role model for that time.” When I asked what was he like as a child, he