Pearl Connor-Mogotsi, ''née'' Nunez (13 May 1924 – 11 February 2005), was a Trinidadian-born theatrical and literary agent, actress and cultural activist, who was a pioneering campaigner for the recognition and promotion of African Caribbean arts. Stephen Bourne
"Pearl Connor-Mogotsi – Trailblazer for African Caribbean arts in the UK" (obituary)
''The Independent'', 14 February 2005. In the UK, in the 1950s, she was the first agent to represent black and other minority ethnic actors, writers and film-makers, and during the early 1960s was instrumental in setting up one of Britain's first black theatre companies, the Negro Theatre Workshop. In the words of John La Rose, who delivered a eulogy at her funeral on 26 February 2005: "Pearl Connor-Mogotsi was pivotal in the effort to remake the landscape for innovation and for the inclusion of African, Caribbean and Asian artists in shaping a new vision of consciousness for art and society."John La Rose
"Eulogy for Pearl Connor-Mogotsi"
, ''Caribia Digest'', 2005.

Early years in Trinidad

Pearl Cynthia Nunez, the ninth of her parents' 12 children, was born in

Diego Martin Diego Martin () is a town and is the urban commercial center and capital of the Diego Martin region in Trinidad and Tobago. Its location in the region is just on the south eastern border, west of the capital city of Port of Spain and east of the ...

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

, to Albert Antonio Nunez and Georgina Agnes Fitt, and had a convent school education in

Port of Spain Port of Spain ( ; Trinidadian and Tobagonian English, Trinidadian English: ''Port ah Spain'' ) is the capital and chief port of Trinidad and Tobago. With a municipal population of 49,867 (2017), an urban population of 81,142 and a transient dail ...

. Describing her background, in an interview with

Yvonne Brewster Yvonne Jones Brewster (; born 7 October 1938) is a Jamaican actress, theatre director and writer. She co-founded the theatre companies Talawa in the UK and the Barn in Jamaica. From 2000 to 2001, she portrayed Ruth Harding in the BBC televis ...

, she said: "I came from a family of educated

mixed-race The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...

people in Trinidad, and we were readily exposed to music and the arts in general and the folklore....And our education was of course in the same pattern as most of the colonials. It was a British education and an English education, so we were doing

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

and all that kind of thing and all the modern poets and Dickens. We were quite familiar in our secondary school education with those writers, so we had an idea what drama was, but it was the folk theatre that imbued me with the interest I had in the theatre." Her first experience of performance was at the Little Carib Theatre, founded by Beryl McBurnie, who became her greatest influence.

Life in London

In 1948, Pearl met and subsequently married in England the Trinidadian folk-singer and actor Edric Connor (1913–1968), with whom she eventually had two children: Peter and Geraldine. She had gone to the UK to study law at King's College, London University, but she deferred her studies to manage her husband's career."Biography – Pearl Connor-Mogotsi"
Extract from ''Caribbean Britain: The Cultural and Biographical Directory'' by Marjorie H. Morgan, Historical Geographies. In 1956, the couple began an agency for black artists, The Edric Connor Agency, which in the 1970s would be renamed the Afro-Asian-Caribbean Agency, representing people from the Caribbean, Malaysia, India and Africa across all art forms.Seb Whyte
"Connor-Mogotsi, Pearl (1924–2005), Actor", BFI Screen Online.
/ref> Among the many actors, dancers, musicians and writers represented by the agency in the 20 years of its existence were Carmen Munroe, Ram John Holder, Corinne Skinner, Lloyd Reckord, Patti Boulaye, Nina Baden-Semper, Yemi Ajibade, Allister Bain, George Harris, Johnny Sekka,

Osibisa Osibisa is a Ghanaian-Caribbean Afro rock band founded in London in the late 1960s by four expatriate West African and three London-based Caribbean musicians. Osibisa was the most successful and longest lived of the African-heritage bands in ...

, Joan Armatrading, and Earl Lovelace.Pearl Connor-Mogotsi biographical note, p. 17, in Roxy Harris and Sarah White (eds), ''Changing Britannia – Life Experience With Britain'', New Beacon Books/George Padmore Institute, 1999. The agency was also involved in the co-production of several films, most notably ''Carnival Fantastique'' (1959) and the cricket series ''West Indies vs England'' (1963), and in addition distributed other landmark films such as ''

Pressure Pressure (symbol: ''p'' or ''P'') is the force applied perpendicular to the surface of an object per unit area over which that force is distributed. Gauge pressure (also spelled ''gage'' pressure)The preferred spelling varies by country and eve ...

'' (London, 1975), ''

Bim Building information modeling (BIM) is an approach involving the generation and management of digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of buildings or other physical assets and facilities. BIM is supported by vario ...

'' (Trinidad, 1974), '' Smile Orange'' (Jamaica, 1976), '' The Harder They Come'' (Jamaica, 1972) and ''King Carnival'' (Trinidad). Connor-Mogotsi herself trained at the

Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama Rose Bruford College (formerly Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance) is a higher education institution in the London Borough of Bexley. Bruford has degree programmes in acting, actor musicianship, directing, theatre arts and various ...

and was a broadcaster for the BBC General Overseas Service, working for their Caribbean Service and in radio plays on the Corporation's domestic networks, including ''The Barren One'' (1958); ''My People and Your People'' (1959), a "West Indian ballad opera" broadcast on the

BBC Home Service The BBC Home Service was a national and regional radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 4. History 1922–1939: Interwar period Between the early 1920s and the outbreak of World War II, the BBC ...

; and Jan Carew's The ''Riverman'' (1968). She occasionally acted on the stage – as in Barry Reckord's ''You in Your Small Corner'' at the

Royal Court A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word ''court'' may also be app ...

in 1960 – and in television or film roles, including a cameo in Lindsay Anderson's '' O Lucky Man!'' (1973). In 1961, Connor-Mogotsi was integral in setting up one of the first black theatre companies in Britain, the Negro Theatre Workshop (NTW), and co-founding the West Indian Theatre Trust to support it. The NTW emerged after a meeting at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, with a number of black actors and writers, including Nina Baden-Semper, George Browne, Ena Cabayo, Leo Carrera, Tony Cyrus, Horace James, Bari Johnson, Carmen Munroe and Bobby Naidoo. Rehearsing at the West Indian Students' Centre in Earls Court and the newly opened Africa Centre in

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist sit ...

, the NTW launched in November that year at the Lyric Theatre in

Hammersmith Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. It ...

with a production of '' A Wreath for Udomo'', adapted by William Branch from the novel by Peter Abrahams, and with a cast that featured Earl Cameron, Edric Connor, Lloyd Reckord and Joan Hooley. Another notable NTW production was of

Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka , (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two transla ...

's ''The Road'' (1965), which was first staged for the Commonwealth Arts Festival. In 1966 the NTW also produced an interpretation of the Easter story entitled ''The Dark Disciples'', which was televised and represented Britain at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal."Connor, Pearl", in

David Dabydeen David Dabydeen FRSL (born 9 December 1955) is a Guyanese-born broadcaster, novelist, poet and academic. He was formerly Guyana's Ambassador to UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organisation) from 1997 to 2010, and was the yo ...

, John Gilmore, Cecily Jones (eds), ''The Oxford Companion to Black British History'', Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 141. In the 1960s, Connor-Mogotsi was a member of the

Caribbean Artists Movement The Caribbean Artists Movement (CAM) was an influential cultural initiative, begun in London, England, in 1966 and active until about 1972,Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD).

Cultural activism

In the early 1970s, Pearl was managing Kenyan band, Matata. She got them work in the UK and Europe as well as a job as the opening at for

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...

. The group were eventually signed to President Records. In 1971, three years after Edric Connor's death, she married Joe Mogotsi (1924–2011), leader of the South African singing group The Manhattan Brothers, and together they organised tours throughout the world for black South African artists. They also co-authored the book ''Mantindane – "He Who Survives": My Life with the Manhattan Brothers'' (2002). Margaret Busby
"Pearl Connor-Mogotsi" (obituary)
''The Guardian'', 2 March 2005. In 1972, she was awarded Trinidad and Tobago's Hummingbird Silver Medal for "outstanding services to the immigrant community in the United Kingdom". In 1992, she was an interviewee in the two-part

BBC television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It p ...

documentary ''Black and White in Colour'', directed by Isaac Julien, which examined the contribution of black and Asian people to British television history from the birth of television in 1936 to 1992. In 1995, Connor opened the 12th International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books in London. On 20 January 1997, she gave the first talk in the "Life Experience With Britain" series of talks and conversations at the George Padmore Institute in London.

Death and legacy

Connor Mogotsi died, aged 80, on 11 February 2005 in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, South Africa, where she had gone with Mogotsi for the premiere of the film ''

Sophiatown Sophiatown , also known as Sof'town or Kofifi, is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Sophiatown was a poor multi-racial area and a black cultural hub that was destroyed under apartheid. It produced some of South Africa's most famous writ ...

''. Her funeral took place at St Martin's Church,

Kensal Green Kensal Green, also known as Kensal Rise, is an area in north-west London, and along with Kensal Town, it forms part of the northern section of North Kensington, London, North Kensington. It lies north of the canal in the London Borough of Brent ...

, on 26 February. The Edric and Pearl Connor Papers, 1941–1978, were donated to the Alma Jordan Library at the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countries and territories in t ...

, St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, and a collection of additional related items is housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.Edric and Pearl Connor Papers, 1941–1978
, University of the West Indies, Special Collections.

References

External links