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Evelyn Preer
Evelyn Preer (née Jarvis; July 26, 1896 – November 17, 1932), was an African Americans, African American pioneering screen and stage actress, and jazz and blues singer in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Hollywood during the late-1910s through the early 1930s. Preer was known within the Black community as "The First Lady of the Screen." She was the first Black actress to earn celebrity and popularity. She appeared in ground-breaking films and stage productions, such as the first play by a black playwright to be produced on Broadway, and the first New York–style production with a black cast in California in 1928, in a revival of a play adapted from Somerset Maugham's ''Rain''. Early life Evelyn Jarvis was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 26, 1896. After her father, Frank, died prematurely, she moved with her mother, Blanche, and her three other siblings to Chicago, Illinois. She completed grammar school and high school in Chicago. Her early experiences in vaudeville and "st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a historic city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the county seat. The population was 21,573 at the 2020 census. Located on a high bluff on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Louisiana, Vicksburg was built by French colonists in 1719. The outpost withstood an attack from the native Natchez people. It was incorporated as Vicksburg in 1825 after Methodist missionary Newitt Vick. The area that is now Vicksburg was long occupied by the Natchez as part of their historical territory along the Mississippi. The first Europeans who settled the area were French colonists who built Fort Saint Pierre in 1719 on the high bluffs overlooking the Yazoo River at present-day Redwood. They conducted fur trading with the Natchez and others, and started plantations. During the American Civil War, it was a key Confederate river-port, and its July 1863 surrender to Ulysses S. Grant, along with the concurrent Battle of Gettysburg, marked the turning-p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Brute (1920 Film)
''The Brute'' is a 1920 silent race film directed, written, produced and distributed by Oscar Micheaux. No print of the film is known to exist and the production is believed to be a lost film. The original version of the film included a scene where the boxer defeats a white rival, but Micheaux was forced to remove the scene by censors. Plot Herbert Lanyon is thought to be dead after a shipwreck, and his fiancée Mildred Carrison is forced by her money-minded Aunt Clara into marriage with "Bull" Magee, a gambler and underworld boss who mistreats Mildred. After Herbert returns, Magee undergoes financial difficulties that he blames on Mildred and Herbert, and seeks revenge. Herbert and a repentant Aunt Clara, however, free Mildred from Magee, and the lovers are able to marry. A subplot involves boxer "Tug" Wilson, who is ordered by his manager Magee to lay down in the seventeenth round of a prizefight at the film's climax. No other information concerning the plot has been discovere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Lafayette Players
The Anita Bush Stock Company, also known as the Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company, was an American repertory company founded by Anita Bush in 1915. The company was associated with Black theater of the Harlem Renaissance and is considered the first stock company in Harlem. The Anita Bush Stock Company was renamed The Lafayette Players in March 1916 when the company was purchased by the Lafayette Theatre. History Formation: 1915—1916 In 1914 or 1915, Anita Bush, a former dancer, approached Marie Downs and Eugene Elmore of the Lincoln Theatre, telling them she wanted to contract her stock company to perform at the theatre, although the company had not yet been formed. After entering an agreement with Downs and Bishop, Bush gathered African American actors, including Charles Sidney Gilpin, Carlotta Freeman, and Andrew S. Bishop, to form the Anita Bush Stock Company. Bush staged the company's first play in just two weeks. The Lafayette Players In March 1916, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marlene Dietrich
Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however, Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; 27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992) was a German and American actress and singer whose career spanned nearly seven decades. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola Lola in Josef von Sternberg's ''The Blue Angel'' (1930) brought her international acclaim and a contract with Paramount Pictures. She starred in many Hollywood (film industry), Hollywood films, including six iconic roles directed by Sternberg: ''Morocco (film), Morocco'' (1930) (her only Academy Award for Best Actress, Academy Award nomination), ''Dishonored (film), Dishonored'' (1931), ''Shanghai Express (film), Shanghai Express'' and ''Blonde Venus'' (both 1932), ''The Scarlet Empress'' (1934), ''The Devil Is a Woman (1935 fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English and American actor. Known for his blended British and American accent, debonair demeanor, lighthearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of Classical Hollywood cinema, classic Hollywood's definitive leading man, leading men. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Academy Award, received an Academy Honorary Award in 42nd Academy Awards, 1970, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. He was named AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars#List of 50 greatest screen legends: Top 25 Male and Top 25 Female stars, the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999. Grant was born into an impoverished family in Bristol, where he had an unhappy childhood marked by the absence of his mother and his father's alcoholism. He became attracted to theatre at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At 16, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blonde Venus
''Blonde Venus'' is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film starring Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall and Cary Grant. It was produced, edited and directed by Josef von Sternberg from a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren, adapted from a story by Furthman and von Sternberg. The original story "Mother Love" was written by Dietrich herself. The musical score was by W. Franke Harling, John Leipold, Paul Marquardt and Oscar Potoker, with cinematography by Bert Glennon. Plot Ned Faraday, an American chemist, has been inadvertently poisoned by radium and expects to die within a year, until he learns that Professor Holzapfel, a famous physician in Dresden, has developed a treatment that may be able to heal him. The night after he hears this good news, while putting his son Johnny to bed, Ned and his wife Helen recite the story of the day on which they had met. While traveling in Germany as a young man, Ned encountered Helen swimming in a pond with several other girls. Sh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg (; born Jonas Sternberg; May 29, 1894 – December 22, 1969) was an American filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the Silent film, silent to the Sound film, sound era, during which he worked with most of the major Hollywood studios. He is best known for his film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s, including the highly regarded Paramount/UFA production ''The Blue Angel'' (1930). Sternberg's finest works are noteworthy for their striking pictorial compositions, dense décor, chiaroscuro illumination, and relentless camera motion, endowing the scenes with emotional intensity. He is also credited with having initiated the gangster film genre with his silent era movie ''Underworld (1927 film), Underworld'' (1927). Sternberg's themes typically offer the spectacle of an individual's desperate struggle to maintain their personal integrity as they sacrifice themselves for lust or love. He was nominated for the Academy Aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sylvia Sidney
Sylvia Sidney (born Sophia Kosow; August 8, 1910 – July 1, 1999) was an American stage, screen, and film actress whose career spanned 70 years. She rose to prominence in dozens of leading roles in the 1930s. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in '' Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams'' in 1973. She later gained attention for her role as Juno, a case worker in the afterlife, in Tim Burton's 1988 film ''Beetlejuice'', for which she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. Early life Sidney was born Sophia Kosow in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of Rebecca (née Saperstein), a Romanian Jew, and Victor Kosow, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who worked as a clothing salesman. Her parents divorced by 1915, and she was adopted by her stepfather Sigmund Sidney, a dentist. Her mother became a dressmaker and renamed herself Beatrice Sidney. Now using the surname Sidney, Sylvia became an actress at the age of 15 as a way of overcoming ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georgia Rose
''Georgia Rose'' was a 1930 film. It was directed by Harry Gant and stars Clarence Brooks. It followed the 1928 film '' Absent'' with Brooks as its star. The film was produced by Aristo Film Corporation and the songwriter was Fred C. Washington. The film was the first film talkie actress and singer Evelyn Preer appeared in. Plot The film is about an African American family migrating north. This picture was filmed by Harry Gant, former cameraman with the Lincoln Motion Picture Company. This story is about a minister's attempt to move his flock and daughter from Georgia to better farming land in the Midwest. While boarding up with a family, the minister's daughter is smitten by the love bug and led to corruption by her new lover's brother. Of course, she is saved in the nick of time by her new lover and forgiven by her father. Cast * Clarence Brooks as Ralph * Irene Wilson as Rose * Evelyn Preer as Grace * Roberta Hyson as Helen * Allegretti Anderson ''(née'' Alegretta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Race Film
The race film or race movie was a genre of film produced in the United States between about 1915 and the early 1950s, consisting of films produced for African American, black audiences, and featuring black casts. Approximately five hundred race films were produced. Of these, fewer than one hundred remain. Because race films were produced outside the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood studio system, they were largely forgotten by mainstream film historians until they resurfaced in the 1980s on the Black Entertainment Television, BET cable network. In their day, race films were very popular among African-American theatergoers. Their influence continues to be felt in cinema and television marketed to African-Americans. The term "race film" is sometimes used to describe films of the period aimed at other minority audiences. For instance, the 1926 film ''Silk Bouquet'' (also known as ''The Dragon Horse'') starred the Asian-American actress Anna May Wong and was marketed to Chinese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Spider's Web (1926 Film)
''The Spider's Web'' is a 1926 American film directed by Oscar Micheaux which stars Evelyn Preer. It was remade in 1932 as '' The Girl from Chicago''. The film is about a beautiful young woman from Harlem in New York City who travels to a small town in Mississippi where she receives unwelcome courting. She returns to Harlem. Plot Norma Shepard is a teenage Black girl from Harlem in New York City. While visiting her aunt in Mississippi, she is crudely and sexually propositioned by Ballinger, the son of a local white plantation owner. Ballinger later attempts to rape Norma at the aunt's home. Elmer Harris, a Black employee of the U.S. Department of Justice, is investigating illegal slavery in the area. Norma tells him about the attack, and he arrests Ballinger. Norma convinces her aunt to move to Harlem. The aunt loses her life savings playing the numbers racket. With her last dollar, the aunt manages to pick a winning number. When she tries to collect her winnings from Martinez, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
