Scarcity of Roles for People of Color

[deadpandiva]

Teresa Harris sort of got to break out of the servant role in Hold Your Man but she did get called a dark cloud. She's my favorite golden era actress. She had such grace and beauty that I think it transended her servant roles. I have to say that I think they did her a diservice in Blossoms In The Dust though. That's the only color movie I've seen her in and she looks purple. I am sure they could have fixed that.

Also Jaunita Moore had an intersting but small part in a Barbara Stanwyck/George Sanders Movie.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Yes, I remember Moore. She had a great role in Imitation of Life, playing the long-suffering mother of a young woman who wants to and does pass for white. Susan Kohner played that role.

Moore does play the servant and friend of Lana Turner, who has her own troubles with a daughter.

The name Juanita also recalls Juanita Hall, the African-American musical actress who played on Broadway and also in the movies. She played Bloody Mary in South Pacific, also was in Flower Drum Song. She played a Pacific Islander in South Pacific, also played a Chinese person.

Hall was the first African American woman to win a Tony award for her performance as Bloody Mary.

karol

 

[FATS88]

GREAT TOPIC!

While recently watching TCM, I saw somthing that I didn't
realize existed;
In the classic 1932 film "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang"
there is a unbelivable scene, unbelivable for the era;
during one of Paul Muni's escapes he buys a train ticket,
exits the station and passes three black people immaculately dressed, standing
with dignity and elegance, having a conversation among themselves
while waiting for the train to arrive.
I found it so unusal, and laudable, That the director,
Mervyn LeRoy became a instant favorite of mine.

 

[Mickey Caesar]

I recall Bill Cosby, who was in I Spy back in the mid-60's played a sidekick to I believe it was Robert Culp. Non-stereotypical, I believe.

One of the earliest black characters I recall on an early 50's TV series was Eddie "Rochester" Anderson who played a manservant to Jack Benny. He had a stereotypical role, but got some of the funniest lines, causing Benny to give the audience "that look."

Are we discussing African Americans or all people of color in Hollywood? Asian Americans were in short supply. I recall Anna May Wong, who usually played mysterious and sometimes sinister roles. Wasn't Charlie Chan played by a white man? If it was a lead, Katherine Hepburn or Louise Rainer got the role.

Then, of course, there are the Native Americans, who, if they were really good roles, got played by white people: Burt Lancaster in Apache, Jeff Chandler in Broken Arrow, Sal Mineo in Tonka. Etc.

Hispanics? I recall the actress Katy Jurado, who was in High Noon, Pedro Armidarez, who was one of John Ford's stock characters in a number of westerns. Anthony Quinn was Mexican and did play a lot of Hispanic roles, as well as Greek (Guns of Navaronne, Zorba the Greek). He won a best supporting actor for Viva Zapata. Who played the leading in that film? Marlon Brando....

karol

What about "Julia" starring Dianne Carrol. She played a widowed mother raising a son working as a nurse. I remember one episode dealt with her son being called the :"N word".

 

[ukali1066]

I remember reading a book on James Cagney, who was very anti-racism...

He was filming an adaptation of a book with the two leading characters being one white/one black...

He got to set and was furious to find the black role had been changed to white because the Director said " I'm not having Cagney share the screen with a nigger"

 

[Doctor Strange]

The New York Times just put up a piece on this very subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/movies/awardsseason/13movies.html

 

[skyvue]

For those interested in this topic, I highly recommend Donald Bogle's books, particularly Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood.

 

[Lady Day]

The New York Times just put up a piece on this very subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/movies/awardsseason/13movies.html

That was a good little read.
I personally think that even with all the social progress, with film storytelling, especially in Hollywood, its really hard dropping a person of color into a story without their race actually pertaining to a plot point.

Its frustrating for me, who has watched countless white characters in the same story, and they do it with a black character, and the character's race is most often referenced. The article mentions Disney's Princess and the Frog. Thats an awesome example.

Its hard, Id imagine for film makes white and black alike to brake form a habit that is at the history of the industry's founding. Because it is so easy to use a character's race as a plot device, and so hard to not. And often as a viewer when you see a person of color and they are simply there, you often wonder what is their 'purpose' in the story because thats mostly all you know.

LD

 

[Stormy]

Does anyone know if it's true that the next Bondsman will be played by a black actor?

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Probably the earliest example of a non-stereotyped black role that I can think of (or at least as close as it gets) was a very minor one in the Shanghai Lil number of Footlight Parade. The musical number takes place in a waterfront dive populated by an assortment of colorful characters. At one point the camera pans down the bar where everyone is discussing Shanghai Lil (Ruby Keeler). One of them is a black man dressed as a French colonial soldier who suavely comments "since she met that gob, she's acting like a snob." He then turns to his female drinking companion who asks "who the heck is Shanghai Lil?" However, I can't tell whether she's white or a light-skinned black.

Look for it at 3:10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YXSO94aDnw&feature=related

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Does anyone know if it's true that the next Bondsman will be played by a black actor?

I think it would be cool for the next Bond to have a British West Indian, Indian/Pakistani, Caribbean, or Kenyan ancestor in his family tree.

 

[Deco-Doll-1928]

The top thing on my list of things I don't like from the Golden Era was the obvious racism during that time, especially in film. It's sad to think that even today, that's still going on.

I can't make any promises that they haven't been typecast, stereotyped, or even experience racism.

How about.....

Sessue Hayakawa

He was asked by Paramount to have a starring role in The Sheik, but turned it down (went to then unknown Rudolph Valentino). It was because of Hollywood's typecasting that he started his own studio. He produced, starred, wrote, edited, designed, and directed his own films.

More about him here:

http://goldsea.com/Personalities/Hayakawas/hayakawas.html

Our Gang (the Little Rascals)

Cast members Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison (first to be signed to a long term contract!), Matthew "Stymie" Beard, and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas have all defended their work on the show saying the show was far from racist. The other cast members were also equally stereotyped as well. From the words of Morrison, ""[W]hen it came to race, Hal Roach was color-blind".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Gang

Someone mentioned Nichelle Nichols earlier (she is such a beautiful lady, I saw her once in person. She's so classy. Very lovely).

She shared an interracial kiss with co-star William Shatner. For the time that was extremely controversial. Talk about groundbreaking! Mae Jemison (an astronaut) and Whoopi Goldberg have both cited her role on Star Trek as an influence to them.

 

[Gregg Axley]

I just read about Sessue Hayakawa the other night.
He was in House of Bamboo.
What's really amazing was the amount of money thrown around in the early days of film.
IMDB said he had a gold plated Pierce Arrow with a footman. When Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle bought the same type car, Hayakawa donated his to the Long Island Fire department!
For the film "Tong Man" in 1919 his salary apparently was $200K.
From inflation calculator that equals 2.4 million dollars in today's money.
Such an incredible talent though, not just his acting.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I just read about Sessue Hayakawa the other night.
He was in House of Bamboo.
What's really amazing was the amount of money thrown around in the early days of film.
IMDB said he had a gold plated Pierce Arrow with a footman. When Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle bought the same type car, Hayakawa donated his to the Long Island Fire department!
For the film "Tong Man" in 1919 his salary apparently was $200K.
From inflation calculator that equals 2.4 million dollars in today's money.
Such an incredible talent though, not just his acting.

Sessue Hayakawa also played football for the University of Chicago (he was a quarterback) where he was once penalized for using jiujitsu to stop an opposing player. I have this rare original print of him by Hartsook, a well-known celebrity photographer on the West Coast back then.

 

[C-dot]

I just read about Sessue Hayakawa the other night.
Such an incredible talent though, not just his acting.

I didn't know much about him except for a few short bios in books before I watched The Bridge on the River Kwai, then I read up on him a bit more. What a talented and interesting man.

Did anyone catch TCM a few weeks back showing how Arabs were portrayed in classic films? They all seemed to own camels, or wear turbans lol

 

[Gregg Axley]

C-Dot that was just stereotyping, I mean coincidence...yeah coincidence.
Juijitsu? Hmmm they probably thought he was having a fit at first.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Also the traditional Arab headdress is the kaffiyeh, not the turban. So they got that wrong lol

 

[Rats Riley]

Now when it comes to early TV and movies, I'm not sure it was intentional racism. Probably more laziness or possibly indifference?

Costumes may have been one way or another because no one had the time or desire or funds for that matter to research the "correct" costume? Then again maybe they also felt they needed to dumb the audience down and use stereotypical costumes so the audience could understand whom was who?

Look at the costumes for American Indians in many westerns.

 

[C-dot]

Also the traditional Arab headdress is the kaffiyeh, not the turban. So they got that wrong lol

They sure did! My mister is Middle Eastern, and when I showed him some of the TCM pictures, he was ruffled: "Why do they dress us like Indians?!" lol

Now when it comes to early TV and movies, I'm not sure it was intentional racism. Probably more laziness or possibly indifference?

You could be right. My theory is that since these characters were no more than comic foils, they had to be comedic. And stereotypes are usually comedic. Also, since there wasn't the "global village" we have today, it wouldn't have made sense to an American audience to see a PC representation of another culture.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The costume stereotypes come mostly from vaudeville and comic strips -- a quick shorthand way of defining the character, rather than wasting time on long expository passages. In comedy, timing is everything, and when your act only has twelve minutes on stage or four panels across the page, there's just no time to establish characterization except thru stereotyping.

Stereotyping was viewed as an essential part of movie and radio writing during the Era for just these reasons -- there are textbooks for scriptwriters which state this quite clearly. "Of course all Frenchmen don't wear berets, have pencil moustaches, and say 'ooh la la,' but the moviegoer/radio listener understands these as cues that the character is French. Better to use these cues to set up your character and keep the action moving than to bog the story down with nonessentials."

This sort of thing applied to pretty much every ethnic/regional group imaginable -- the cheap Scotchman, the thick-headed Irish cop and his screaming washerwoman wife, the silly-ass English aristocrat and the salt-of-the-earth Cockney, the emotional Italian, the taciturn Yankee farmer, the shotgun-totin' hillbilly, the dizzy Southern belle, the stern monocle-wearing German, the inscrutable Chinese tong warrior, etc. etc. etc. For every one of those types, the audience would have had a particular stock character come to mind, which meant less time required to establish that character's background and traits. That might strike modern audiences as lazy at best and demeaning at worst -- but it kept stories moving.

This philosophy still exists today. Think of all the romantic comedies you've seen where the angsty blonde heroine's best friend is a sassy, snappy-talking black gal with dreadlocks.