Virgil Tibbs

Virgil Tibbs
In the Heat of the Night series character
Sidney Poitier as Detective Virgil Tibbs in the 1967 film.
First appearance	In the Heat of the Night (novel) (1965)
Last appearance	In the Heat of the Night (TV series) (1995)
Created by	John Ball
Portrayed by	Sidney Poitier Howard Rollins
Information
Nickname(s)	Mister Tibbs Detective Tibbs
Gender	Male
Occupation	Police detective Lawyer
Title	Detective
Spouse(s)	Althea Tibbs
Children	2
Nationality	American

Virgil Tibbs is a fictional character who is one of the two leading male characters in John Ball's 1965 novel, In the Heat of the Night. He is also the protagonist in six sequels to that novel, the Oscar-winning 1967 film of the same name based on the original novel, the sequel films, They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) and The Organization (1971), and the subsequent 1988-1995 television series derived from the film.

Novels

In the novels, Tibbs works for the police force of Pasadena, California. In the films, portrayed by Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier, he first works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but in later sequels, he is shown to be working for the San Francisco Police. In an unusual step, the Tibbs films are themselves mentioned in the sequel novels: when asked about the movies, Tibbs emphasizes that he's from Pasadena, not Philadelphia. He also comments positively on Poitier's looks and acting ability. In a short story (see below), Ball wrote of a meeting that his counterpart in Tibbs' universe had with Tibbs.

In the novels, Tibbs returns to Pasadena as a police officer. In the films, Tibbs also returns to his law enforcement career, in Philadelphia and subsequently in San Francisco. In the television series, set a few years after the first film, Tibbs returns to Sparta where he becomes the Chief of Detectives under Gillespie.

Tibbs has a black belt in karate and a brown belt in aikido, is highly observant, and like many fictional detectives is something of a polymath: he has an extensive depth and breadth of knowledge in many fields of the arts, sciences, and modern culture. His general demeanor is somewhat cold, and highly intellectual. He is tolerant of non-criminal behaviors outside of the social mainstream, such as nudism.

Tibbs is uninterested in glory or media attention. He is a perfectionist, and his sole motivation is duty and justice. In the films, Tibbs displays a considerably larger degree of anger over issues of race than in the books. For example, in the novel In The Heat of the Night, the phrase "They call me Mr. Tibbs" is a statement ending in a period, while in the movie, it's an angry exclamation.

Physically, Tibbs is slender, quick, strong, and handsome. His nose is relatively narrow, and his mouth is "straight and determined". His skin tone is neither exceptionally light nor dark.

Tibbs has several romantic liaisons in the novels and seems to be well on the way to be getting married by the end of the last Tibbs novel Singapore. In the first film, Tibbs is not married, although the second and third films he was depicted as having a wife (played by Barbara McNair) and two children.

For the book The Great Detectives, edited by Otto Penzler, published in 1978, John Ball contributed a short story in which Ball himself (or rather his counterpart in Virgil Tibb's universe) meets with Tibbs and asks him to recount his upbringing. This short story establishes that Tibbs' superior on the police force encouraged Ball's fictionalizations of Tibbs' cases to promote positive public relations. (Robert L. Fish took a similar approach with short story about Captain Jose Da Silva for this anthology; other writers simply contributed reminiscences of writing.) "Ms. Diane Stone, secretary to Chief Robert Mc Gowan of the Pasadena Police Department, was on the phone. "The chief has approved the release to you of the details concerning the Morales murder" she told me. He has authorized you to go ahead with it at any time, if you want to". Of course I wanted to: the unraveling of the case via the patient, intelligent investigation work of the department in general, and Virgil Tibbs in particular, would need no embellishment in the telling. As I always do in such instances, I called Virgil and suggested a meeting. Two nights later we sat down to dine together in one of Pasadena's very fine restaurants........By the time that the main course had been put down in front of us we had gone over the Morales case in detail and Virgil had filled me in on several points which had not previously been made public. As always, I agreed to publish nothing until the department had read the manuscript and had given it an official approval. This procedure helped to eliminate possible errors and also made sure that I had not unintentionally included information which was still confidential". Later Tibbs says "I have a letter from Otto Penzler" I said. Virgil nodded recognition. "The co-author with Steinbrunner of The Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection? I have a copy". "Otto has asked me for a piece about your background. How much may I tell him?". I should insert a footnote here. Virgil Tibbs is basically a quiet, self-effacing man....He has mentioned to me more than once that my accounts of some of his cases have proved somewhat embarrassing to him. However, Chief Mc Gowan feels that these books help explain the police function to the citizenry at large and to show how modern, enlightened police departments function".

Film

Virgil Tibbs is an African American police detective who is detained on suspicion of murder solely on the basis of his skin color while passing through the small town of Wells, somewhere in the Carolinas (Sparta, Mississippi in the film). When Tibbs' innocence and status as a homicide investigator is confirmed, political pressure in the town leads to his temporary assignment to aid the Wells(Sparta) police on the case - despite the reluctance of the town's racist chief of police, Bill Gillespie. Tibbs is a diligent, hard working detective who does not accept the racism of his new surroundings. When his erstwhile supervisor, Chief Gillespie, remarks that "Virgil is a pretty fancy name for a black boy like you", and asks what people call him at home, Tibbs is quick to respond, "They call me Mister Tibbs!"

The Tibbs character and his famous quote were both ranked in the AFI 100 Years... series. The Tibbs character was ranked as the 19th greatest hero in the history of American cinema whilst his famous quote was ranked as the 16th greatest quote.

Television

In the NBC/CBS television series In the Heat of the Night, Tibbs was depicted as a native of Sparta, Mississippi who left the South and eventually became a police detective in Philadelphia. During a visit to his hometown for the funeral of his mother, the politically opportunistic mayor follows up on his proposal he wrote to Tibbs to become as Chief of Detectives because his previous dealings with Gillespie. Tibbs decides to accept the position, making him second-in-command in the Sparta Police Department to the reluctant Police Chief. Although Tibbs and Gillespie have their disagreements about matters such as police methods and the limited local resources, the pair prove an effective partnership with Tibbs' sophisticated detective skills and Gillespie's intimate knowledge of the area and its population.

Tibbs was portrayed in the series by Howard Rollins, who had garnered critical acclaim for his work in the film A Soldier's Story, and for his Academy Award-nominated performance in the film Ragtime. However, because of consistent substance abuse problems, Rollins' appearances on the series began to decrease. Eventually, he was fired and the Tibbs family was written out of the series.

Cultural references

• Tibbs' famous line "They call me Mr. Tibbs!" is spoofed in the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King by the warthog Pumba. When one of the hyenas asks "Who's the pig?", Pumba responds, "They call me Mr. Pig!"^{[citation needed]}
• In the 2007 film biopic Talk to Me, Chiwetel Ejiofor's character Dewey Hughes is referred to as Mr. Tibbs by Don Cheadle's character Petey Greene for holding a well-paying professional position unlike the majority of the Blacks in Washington, D.C. where the film is set. After Hughes beats Greene in a pool game, Hughes claims "They call me Mr. Hughes" in a manner similar to Tibbs' character in the 1967 film In the Heat of the Night.
• In the 2013 Burn Notice episode, "Exit Plan," the characters Sam Axe and Jesse Porter go on an undercover operation under assumed names Chuck Finley and Virgil Tibbs.

Bibliography

Novels

All novels were written by John Ball.

• In the Heat of the Night (1965)
• The Cool Cottontail (1966)
• Johnny Get Your Gun (1969)
• Five Pieces Of Jade (1972)
• The Eyes Of Buddha (1976)
• Then Came Violence (1980)
• Singapore (1986)

Short Story

• Virgil Tibbs and the Cocktail Napkin (1977)
• Virgil Tibbs (1978)

Films

• In the Heat of the Night (1967)
• They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970)
• The Organization (1971)

Television

• In the Heat of the Night (1988–1995)