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There is a rich history in American film. There is one group of people that were many times overlooked for their great attributes to American film: the Black actors. There were many aspiring black actors. Unfortunately, as in most things in the past, they did not have the same opportunities as other mainstream Hollywood actors. They were only allowed to be coons, tragic mulatto's, mammies, and the servants.
Even with those roles, they were never allowed to be the leading lady. There are many aspects that surround these Black actresses. Obviously, color was a factor because all of the Black beauties shared the same characteristics: light skin, long dark hair, and European features. The Black actress has ventured through many eras of film. Slowly, she has gone from the servant to the mammy to the sexy vixen.
In modern film, she seems to have more chances to play more respectable roles than in the past. From Nina Mae McKinney to Sanaa Lathan, Hollywood has had many changing faces of the Black actress. In the past, Black actresses were only casts in specific roles: the mammy, the tragic mulatto, seductress, sex object, or docile damsel. The mammy is similar to the comic coon, but is a female and very independent. She is usually "big, fat, and cantankerous." The mammy leads her man, but always uses comedy to relieve the pain. She always knows that her place is in the kitchen.
The tragic mulatto was heavily portrayed. This person always brought about her own destruction. This person was usually a fair skinned mulatto who was probably trying to pass to white. The films portrayed this person as likeable because of her white blood. They wanted the audience to pity this person and believe that life would have been better for her, and she would be happier if she were not a "victim of divided racial inheritance." Dorothy Dandridge and Fredi Washington usually played the roles of the tragic mulatto.
Sometimes, the tragic mulatto was also a seductress. She was always very beautiful. The seductress usually turned the hero's life upside down. She usually had a plan for the submission of her male victim. She is always in control at all times.
In some films, the black actress would be portrayed as the sex object. As the sex object, she would be used and abused without reason by both white and black men. This was shown in the movie The Pawnbroker (1965). Mabel was a young black whore who had no self-pride. Another role that black actresses were most often cast to is the docile damsel. This woman is subservient to the man, and her life is surrounded by what he wants.
She has a strong sense of loyalty, and there is quite a lack of independence. Nina Mae McKinney was the first recognized black actress on the silver screen. Nina Mae was born in 1912 in Lancaster, South Carolina. She won the role of Chick in Hallelujah when she was 17. She had the role of a seductress and a sex object. She was so beautiful and sensational that MGM signed her to a five-year contract.
Unfortunately, Hallelujah did not bring the success she expected. Five years after Hallelujah, she was virtually forgotten in America. She began to tour Europe, because like Josephine Baker, she found European audiences more receptive. She was film's first black screen princess, but she was also the first victim. She set the standard of the seductress for other great actresses to come like Lena Horne and Dorothy Dandridge.
She also learned the same lesson that they would ultimately learn; there are no leading roles for black actresses. Nina Mae McKinney died in New York City in 1967. Born in Savannah, Georgia in December 1903, Fredericka ("Fredi") Washington began her career in show business in 1921. She started off as an entertainer in nightclubs with her sister Isabelle. They became legendary beauties in the Harlem society. After her sister married Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. , she got more heavily into acting rather than entertaining.
In 1928, she performed in three movies: Black and Tan Fantasy (1930), Emperor Jones (1933), and Drum in the Night (1933). She married in 1933, then in 1934, she received her most famous role as Peola in Imitation of Life (1934). Imitation of Life was a tale of motherhood and friendship. It contained the aspects of the mammy character and the tragic mulatto. Fredi Washington played Peola, the daughter of the mammy who was passing for white. Fredi Washington's looks were perfect for this role because she had long dark hair, fair skin, and green eyes.
The media would say that she was French or Italian. Fredi Washington's unique looks were a blessing and a curse. She was beautiful and fair, but she could only play the tragic mulatto who was unhappy. It was very difficult to cast her as anything else because she could literally pass for white. She learned the same lesson that Nina Mae McKinney had learned before, there is no leading role for a black actress. Fredi Washington died of a stroke in 1994.
An actress who never played a seductress was Hattie McDaniel. She was an amazing black actress who always played the mammy. Hattie McDaniel was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1898 to a Baptist minister. She always had a love for singing, and had a career as a singer. She came to Hollywood in the late 1920 's. Hattie was big woman, and she was very dark with typical Negro features, therefore she was typecast as the mammy.
In her early movies, she was a mammy without a lot of personality. Soon, she developed the image of being an outspoken, socially equal maid. Her character was always expected to be the caretaker. Hattie McDaniel was aware of her glass ceiling, and she knew the limitations of her potential roles. Even though she was always casts as the mammy, she incorporated strength and humanity into her characters.
When asked why she only played the stereotypical domestic roles, she said: "It's better to get $ 7, 000 a week for playing a servant than $ 7. 00 a week for being one. " Hattie McDaniel continued to build her own image of the mammy. In 1939, she played the mammy of the O'Hara family in Gone with the Wind. With this performance, she became the first African American to win an Academy Award. She was named best supporting actress.
After the war, Hattie's career dramatically slowed down. She died in 1952 of cancer. In her will, Hattie McDaniel gave her "Oscar" to Howard University. Without doubt, one of the entertainment world's legends is Ms. Lena Horne.
She was definitely the most popular Negro actress in the 1940 's. Lena Horne was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 30, 1917. She entered show business at age 16 when she became a chorus girl at Harlem's Cotton Club. She dropped out of school and supported her family. By age 20, she was married and had a daughter. She went to Hollywood, and became the first black actress to sign a term contract with a film studio.
In her contract with MGM, it stated that she would not do any stereotypical roles. Many people thought that she was Latin American or that the film studio was trying to pass her as white. Lena's first big musical was Thousands Cheer (1943). She said, "They didn't make me into a maid, but they didnt make me into anything else either. " Many of her scenes in movies were cut out in the South. Lena's roles were mainly sex objects, but "she always proved herself too much the lady to be believable as a slut." Two of her most famous films were Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. In 1956, Lena was fed up with her "guest" roles in movies, and left for 13 years.
During that time, she focused on her music, and produced the highest selling album by any female artist in RCA Victor's history. In 1981, she opened her one-woman show on Broadway called Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music. The show received a special Tony award. Today, Lena Horne is 85. She is a generous and gracious woman who has devoted much of her time to helping others. She is still thought of as the black leading lady of the war era.
Dorothy Dandridge was born on November 9, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio. Her mother was an actress, Ruby Dandridge. Dorothy has been performing all of her life. As children Dorothy and her sister toured the United States as "The Wonder Kids." By the 1940 's Dorothy Dandridge had started her own career in Hollywood. She was deemed Hollywood's most successful black leading lady.
She was beautiful with her long silky hair, light skin, and sharp features, and she possessed the combined attributes of her predecessors. She set many important standards in Hollywood. She was the first black actress to receive a nomination for an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in Carmen Jones (1954). She was also the first black actress to be romantically involved with a white man on screen in Island in the Sun (1957). Dorothy Dandridge always made headlines with her interracial relationships. She seemed bold and daring, but ironically, she was portraying the tragic mulatto in her own life as well as in the movies. "Eventually she may have been forced to live out a screen image that destroyed her. " Dorothy's last important film was Porgy and Bess in 1959 with Sidney Parties.
Dandridge refused to play Bess as a whore, and her performance won her a Foreign Press Golden Globe award nomination. In the late 1950 's, Dorothy married Jack Dennison, a white restaurateur. She later divorced him and declared bankruptcy. She drifted to alcohol and pills, and in 1965, Dorothy Dandridge overdosed on anti-depression pills. She had the typical ending of the tragic mulatto. Diahann Carroll was born Carol Diann Johnson in the Bronx, New York in 1935.
When she was ten years old, she won the Metropolitan Opera scholarship for studies at New York's High School of Music and Art. She attended New York University, but soon she was appearing in movies. In 1954, she appeared in both House of Flowers and Carmen Jones. In 1961, she was casts in No Strings as a high fashion model. She won a Tony award for that role. In 1968, she starred in the TV sitcom Julia as a beautiful and independent black career woman and mother.
She set a standard because this was the first TV show to star a black personality.
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Research essay sample on The Evolution Of Black Actresses In American Film
