Redd Foxx was known for his sharp tongue and quick wit, but during one infamous week on the set of Sanford and Son, the laughs stopped—and things got shockingly real.
It happened during the filming of a Season 4 episode. The script included a joke—one that Fred Sanford was supposed to aim at his friend Grady. It was meant to be a throwaway line, something about Grady’s forgetfulness. But when Foxx delivered it, actor Whitman Mayo, who played Grady, didn’t laugh. He froze. And then he snapped back, ad-libbing a line that wasn’t in the script.
The two kept going, throwing barbs in-character… until it was clearly not acting anymore.
Cameras kept rolling, but the atmosphere turned icy. A stunned crew watched as Foxx broke character and shouted at Mayo: “You think I’m making this show work for free?” Mayo fired back. “You’re not the only reason people watch, Redd!”
What the audience didn’t know was that tension had been brewing for months. Foxx had been complaining about script quality, while Mayo had grown tired of being treated as comic relief. That night’s scene was the spark.
Production was shut down mid-episode.
The next morning, both men arrived separately—Foxx with his manager, Mayo with a lawyer. NBC scrambled to calm things. The studio was terrified the fight would derail the show. And while the actors eventually agreed to finish the season, insiders say the tension never fully disappeared.
That episode was heavily edited. The original footage of the argument was never aired and may have been destroyed entirely. But a few lucky crew members still remember it.
“It was electric,” said one camera operator. “You couldn’t tell where the acting ended and the real fight began.”
To fans, Sanford and Son was a comedy. But behind the scenes, it could be anything but funny.
