The story behind why ‘The Six Triple Eight’ is honoring Clarence and Jacqueline Avant

If you watched “The Six Triple Eight” on Netflix over the holidays (and more than 23.3 million viewers did, according to the streamer), you might’ve wondered why the World War II movie — about the battalion of 855 Black women and women of color who untangled a three-year backlog of mail (17 million pieces of it) and dramatically improved morale — is dedicated to “the life, service and memory” of entertainment mogul Clarence Avant and his wife, philanthropist Jacqueline Avant.

Their daughter, diplomat-turned-film producer Nicole Avant was the person who brought the incredible untold true story to Tyler Perry’s attention.

When Nicole was a little girl, Jacqueline told her about Major Charity Adams (portrayed by Kerry Washington), the first African American woman to become an officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. But Nicole doesn’t remember her mother mentioning that Adams commanded the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion (or the Six Triple Eight, as they were known) or their heroics during World War II. So, when Nicole received a sizzle reel from a team of filmmakers looking to bring the story to the big screen, she showed her mom the video.

“She said, ‘I’ve told you about the Six Triple Eight.’ I said, ‘No, you told me about Charity Adams, but I didn’t know about 800 women,’” Nicole says, laughing as she recounts their playful disagreement.

Jacqueline was thrilled Nicole planned to shine a spotlight on these heroes. “Her love for history is what gave me my love for history,” Nicole says of her mother. “Her message to me growing up was: ‘Your job is to take the baton. Everybody before you — 60 years, 100 years, 500 years, 1,000 years — your ‘Thank you’ [to them] is your life. You take the baton and make your own goodness with it.’”

“The Six Triple Eight” was the final project they discussed before Jacqueline was killed in a home invasion in December 2021.

After that tragic night, Clarence moved in with Nicole and her husband, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, living with the couple until his death in August 2023. During that time, Nicole chronicled her experience working through the grief in the memoir “Think You’ll Be Happy” and she simultaneously worked on “The Six Triple Eight,” with encouragement from her father every step of the way. She’d share dailies from the set and, before he died, she showed him a cut of the finished film.

“It was a little bit after midnight and he’s listening to the [end credits] song,” Nicole recalls, saying she joked with Clarence about how the movie’s original track “The Journey” was written by Diane Warren — aka his “friend who likes to curse.”

“They had that in common,” cracks Sarandos, joining his wife for the brief interview at Tyler Perry’s Paley Honors ceremony last month.

“I had a feeling it was almost time for the transition, so we switched places,” Nicole says gesturing toward her husband, who sat with Clarence as he died. Sarandos wrote about that emotional experience in a poignant new foreword for the paperback edition of “Think You’ll Be Happy.” The book hit shelves on Dec. 3, just hours before Nicole walked the red carpet for the world premiere of “The Six Triple Eight.”

You could call it coincidence, but Nicole would not. “I believe in divine timing. I believe in divine order and I live by it,” she says, noting that the making of the movie was marked by a series of such concurrences.

For instance, when Avant and Perry were discussing the role of Major Adams in Washington’s upcoming project, Washington had recently discovered the Six Triple Eight. In honor of Lena Derriecott King, one of the few remaining members of the battalion, she decided to emulate her for a social media campaign that highlighted the achievements of Black women throughout history. Little did Washington know, as she shared the post on Instagram, Perry had just received an email regarding the “Six Triple Eight” movie in his inbox.

“Everything just came together,” Nicole says of the serendipitous process. “It was such a full circle moment to start this journey with my mom’s excitement and end the journey with my father, knowing that he always kept me going — he’d tell me, ‘No matter what, you have to persevere. You have to finish things, even if they are hard,’ — that’s why this movie is extra special.”

For Sarandos, “The Six Triple Eight” is unique as it bridges the gap between studio head and spouse. From the Netflix perspective, the film was a marker of the studio’s investment in Perry.

“This is a different level of work for Tyler — a different level of scope and ambition. He has a remarkable body of work, but these projects really do stand out,” Sarandos says of “The Six Triple Eight” and its predecessor “A Jazzman’s Blues,” which Perry released in 2022. “It’s giving him the ability to work on a bigger canvas — which has been something I’ve been quite proud of.”

And on a personal note, he adds, “This film is an embodiment of that energy that got poured into it. What Clarence and Jackie were always trying to do was to tell people’s stories and make sure these people don’t get lost to history. They instilled that in Nicole.”