For Black History Month this year, I tried something new and set myself a challenge: writing a Facebook post a day about a Black actor or actress. Some of the performers I chose were familiar; some were people whose work I’d just begun to explore.
I had no idea what the response would be like when I started and I’m so glad so many people liked them. I also ended up learning something new about almost everyone I wrote about, which was an added bonus.
Although the posts are still up on Facebook, I wanted to give them a second home, so I’ll be reposting them here, starting with this batch from the first week.
Day 1: Hattie McDaniel
The first African American actor to win an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress for ‘Gone with the Wind’), Hattie McDaniel knew how to make the most of limited screen time and could stand on an equal footing with everyone from Katharine Hepburn to Mae West. She specialized in playing domestic servants. When criticized for doing so, she quipped, “I’d rather play a maid than be one.”
What to watch: ‘Gone with the Wind’
Day 2: Sidney Poitier
In the late 1950s, Sidney Poitier achieved a status almost unheard of for a Black actor in Hollywood: that of a leading man. The first Black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for ‘Lilies of the Field’), he played men who were intelligent, sophisticated and tough, becoming a symbol of Black integrity at the height of the civil rights movement. The Honorary Oscar he received in 2002 is inscribed: “To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.”
What to watch: ‘In the Heat of the Night’
Day 3: Lena Horne
Lena Horne battled racism her entire career. Starting out as a dancer at the Cotton Club, Horne’s exquisite voice and beauty soon got Hollywood’s attention and she became the first Black performer to get a contract from a major studio (specifically, MGM). Yet she was often relegated to specialty numbers and minor roles, so the studio could edit her out before the films were shown to audiences who refused to accept Black performers as anything but servants or sidekicks. Undaunted, she simply kept on going. Dancer and choreographer Louis Johnson once said, “Lena is the mother of us all.”
What to watch: ‘Stormy Weather’
Day 4: Harry Belafonte
The only thing more remarkable than Harry Belafonte’s career as a performer is his work as an activist. The first Black performer to win an Emmy and the first artist to sell over a million copies of an album (‘Calypso’, including his iconic version of ‘Day-o!’), he was also a staunch supporter of Martin Luther King Jr., raising money for civil rights causes and helping organize the March on Washington. He would later become a UNICEF goodwill ambassador and fight against apartheid.
What to watch: ‘The World, the Flesh and the Devil’
Day 5: Dorothy Dandridge
Dorothy Dandridge lived her entire life in the limelight. By the time she was five, and her sister Vivian was six, they were touring professionally as The Wonder Children, a song-and-dance act also known for their acrobatic routines. The family moved to Hollywood and Dorothy kept performing, appearing in a Duke Ellington revue and becoming a successful nightclub singer before landing the role that transformed her career: Carmen in ‘Carmen Jones’. Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, the first for an African American.
Yet despite her star power, Hollywood had few roles for her and she made only a handful of films before her death at the age of 41. When Halle Berry won an Oscar for Best Actress for ‘Monster’s Ball’, she dedicated it to Lena Horne, Diahann Carroll and Dorothy Dandridge.
What to watch: ‘Carmen Jones’
Day 6: Louis Armstrong
One of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong was also a gifted actor who appeared in over two dozen feature films and shorts. Mainly cast as jazz musicians (and often as a version of himself), he was always magnetic, supplying a burst of energy and charm that could make a good film great and a great one a classic.
What to watch: ‘High Society’
Day 7: Juanita Moore
Juanita Moore worked her way up from uncredited film extra to Oscar-nominated actress. She danced in nightclubs in New York then moved to Hollywood, appearing in small film roles and performing at the Ebony Showcase Theatre, the first African American-owned legitimate theatre in Los Angeles.
In the 1950s, she worked nights as a waitress at a chicken restaurant to support herself, catching only a few hours’ sleep before attending 8 a.m. classes at the Actors Laboratory Theatre. One of her regulars at the restaurant was Marlon Brando, who encouraged her to keep studying at the Lab.
Her breakthrough role came in 1959’s ‘Imitation of Life’, where she gave an indelible performance as a Black mother whose daughter rejects her in order to pass as white. The film earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, yet roles that showcased her range as a performer remained scant. “I didn’t want to carry the trays anymore. And I knew that that was the only kind of job that I was going to get,” she said.
She kept working in television and film well into her eighties and died in 2014 at the age of 99.
What to watch: ‘Imitation of Life’
Turner Classic Movies interviewed Juanita Moore about her life and career in 1995.
I followed this series on Facebook and it was great! Very informative and inspiring.
Thank you! I’m so glad you liked it.