The final set of Facebook posts celebrating Black History Month.
Day 22: Diahann Carroll
Diahann Carroll refused to let herself be limited by others’ expectations. The first African American woman to win a Tony, she also broke ground by starring in ‘Julia’, the first television series to focus on the life of a Black professional woman.
Carroll grew up in Harlem, singing in the children’s choir of the Abyssinian Baptist Church as a child and winning a television talent competition and modelling for ‘Ebony’ magazine in her teens.
In the mid-1950s, she made her Broadway debut in the musical ‘House of Flowers’ and caught the attention of Richard Rodgers, who wrote the musical ‘No Strings’ especially for her. Opening in 1962, the show was a hit and earned Carroll a Tony, yet she still struggled to find work. “I’m living proof of the horror of discrimination,” she said, testifying at a congressional hearing on racial bias in the entertainment industry. “In eight years I’ve had just two Broadway plays and two dramatic television shows.”
In 1968—after winning over the show’s creator, who thought she was too glamorous—Carroll made history playing the titular ‘Julia’, a widowed nurse juggling her career with the demands of being a single mother. The show was an immediate success and won Carroll a Golden Globe. Yet despite its progressive ambitions, ‘Julia’ was also criticized by some Black viewers for its unrealistically rosy depiction of Black life.
Carroll continued to challenge expectations, giving a gritty, Oscar-nominated performance in ‘Claudine’ as a single mother very different from Julia, going shoulder pad to shoulder pad with Joan Collins as a wealthy businesswoman in ‘Dynasty’ and becoming the first African American woman to play Norma Desmond in the musical adaptation of ‘Sunset Boulevard’.
What to watch: ‘Claudine’
Day 23: Bill Robinson
No one ever danced quite like Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson. One of the most celebrated tap dancers in history, he moved with precision and grace and developed his own unique style: dancing high on his toes while keeping his upper body relatively still.
He was already a vaudeville star when Twentieth Century Fox cast him in ‘The Little Colonel’ (1935), playing a Black servant who befriends his employer’s plucky granddaughter (Shirley Temple). Together they perform what had become Robinson’s signature routine: tap dancing up a staircase. The film was a box office hit and Robinson and Temple made three more together. But the characters he played were often based around racist stereotypes and some Black audiences thought Robinson himself was too eager to please white viewers.
Nevertheless he remained popular, carving out a successful film career and finally landing his first leading role in 1943’s ‘Stormy Weather’, as a dancer loosely based on Robinson himself.
In tribute to his artistry, in 1989 the U.S. Congress passed a resolution designating his birthday, 25 May, as National Tap Dance Day.
What to watch: ‘Stormy Weather’
Day 24: Pam Grier
Pam Grier was one of Hollywood’s first female action heroes. The queen of 1970s blaxploitation cinema, she made her name playing tough, fearless women who punished the people threatening their communities—drug dealers, corrupt politicians and thugs. (The poster for ‘Foxy Brown’ says it all: “If you don’t treat her nice, she’ll put you on ice!”)
In an interview in the ‘New York Times’, she once said, “It wasn’t called blaxploitation until I put my feet in the men’s shoes. Men had done the same type of formulaic films before I did. It wasn’t until I stepped in their shoes that they said, ‘Well, these movies are for a Black audience.’”
What to watch: ‘Coffy’
Day 25: Orlando Martins
Orlando Martins was the first Nigerian film star, an actor whose career spanned three countries and five decades. He grew up in Lagos and initially worked as a bookkeeper. During the First World War, his grandmother became a prisoner of war in German-occupied Cameroon. In response, the 18-year-old Martins left Lagos for London, determined to join the British Navy and fight against the Germans. He ended up serving in the Merchant Marines instead.
After the war, he settled in London and took up acting, while also working as a porter and a snake charmer in a circus to make ends meet. He made his screen debut in 1926 with a bit part in the silent romance ‘If Youth But Knew’ and in 1928, he joined the chorus of the London production of ‘Showboat’ (the same production in which Paul Robeson appeared).
He gradually built a reputation as a character actor and in 1945 he was cast in a production of ‘The Hasty Heart’ as Blossom, one of a group of Allied soldiers convalescing in a British military hospital during World War II. He reprised the role for the film adaptation in 1949, appearing alongside Patricia Neal and Ronald Reagan and giving one of his best-remembered performances.
By the late 1940s he was also committed to creating a Negro Theatre in London, hoping it would be a showcase for Black actors. But the idea never came to fruition. (The Negro Theatre Workshop, which existed on similar lines, was founded in the early 1960s without Martins’ involvement.)
He returned to Lagos in the late 1950s and went into semi-retirement, appearing occasionally in films and giving his last performances in adaptations of work by two of Nigeria’s greatest writers, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.
What to watch: ‘The Hasty Heart’
Day 26: Eartha Kitt
Famed for her beauty and distinct, sultry sound, Eartha Kitt was a singer, dancer, actress, author and activist.
She was born in South Carolina, the daughter of a Black mother and a father she never knew and spent her earliest years being ostracized for her mixed-race heritage.
Stardom came hard. In her teens she joined the Katherine Dunham Company (a group of singers, dancers, actors and musicians), touring extensively and making her screen debut with them in 1946 in ‘Casbah’. She eventually struck out on her own, receiving her first starring role when Orson Welles cast her as Helen of Troy in his production of ‘Dr. Faustus’, then landed a role in a hit Broadway revue, performing in the film version of ‘New Faces of 1954’ in the mornings, the stage version in the evenings and in nightclubs at night. She also began recording hit songs, including ‘Santa Baby’, the perennial Christmas favourite.
Kitt worked steadily in films and nightclubs and on stage and on television (notably succeeding Julie Newmar in the role of Catwoman on ‘Batman’). Then, at a White House luncheon in 1968, First Lady ‘Lady Bird’ Johnson asked her what she thought about the Vietnam War. Her unequivocally anti-war stance hurt Mrs. Johnson’s feelings and Kitt’s career in the U.S. came to an abrupt halt.
She turned to Europe instead, giving acclaimed performances in London’s West End.
She once told NPR, “I always thought of myself as a sepia Cinderella, and look I’m still looking for my prince, but the prince turned out to be me, because I had to work for everything I got.”
What to watch: ‘St. Louis Blues’
Day 27: James Edwards
Born in Indiana, James Edwards served in the army in World War II before becoming an actor. He worked his way up to Broadway then moved to Los Angeles, joining a theatre group and appearing in films. Producer Stanley Kramer spotted him on stage and offered him the role of Pvt. Peter Moss, a Black soldier forced to confront his white colleagues’ racism in the war drama ‘Home of the Brave’. Considered daring for its treatment of discrimination, the film was a success and Edwards became a star overnight.
He was talented, handsome and ambitious, doing his best to avoid playing stereotypes. He was also outspoken. When FBI agents asked him to denounce Paul Robeson, who had been blacklisted, he not only refused, but admitted it publically, damaging his career. Despite his early promise, the starring roles never came.
“Jim Edwards was not prepared to compromise or duck,” Ossie Davis said, “to make that adjustment which would make white folks comfortable. Not at all.”
Edwards died in 1970 at the age of 51.
What to watch: ‘Home of the Brave’
Day 28: Pearl Bailey
A Broadway star beloved for her ebullience and wit, Pearl Bailey grew up in Philadelphia and began her career singing and dancing in clubs. In the 1940s, she sang with Count Basie’s and Cootie Williams’ bands and appeared in USO shows for the troops, before making her Broadway debut in 1946 in the musical ‘St. Louis Woman’.
Bailey had her own unique style, a blend of the risqué and the refined that, paired with her warm voice, drew audiences in and invited them to share her jokes. “I’m not a comedienne,” she once said. “I call myself a humorist. I tell stories to music and, thank God, in tune. I laugh at people who call me an actress.”
She split her time between stage and screen, appearing in ‘St. Louis Blues’ and the film adaptations of ‘Carmen Jones’ and ‘Porgy and Bess’ in between shows. And in 1967, she headlined an all-Black production of ‘Hello, Dolly!’ on Broadway. The show was so successful (she received a special Tony for her performance) Bailey took it on a national tour, including a stop in Washington D.C., where President Lyndon B. Johnson attended a performance. In typical Bailey fashion, she roped him into joining the cast for a sing-along on stage after her curtain call—likely the first time a sitting President of the United States had ever sung in a chorus.
What to watch: ‘Carmen Jones’
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