Mae Mercer (June 12, 1932 – October 29, 2008) was an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

singer Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...

and actress. She was born in the Temperance Hall community of Edgecombe County. Mercer lived in North Carolina through age 15. She spent eight years in the 1960s singing in a blues bar in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, the Blues Club, owned by publisher Maurice Girodias and touring Europe. She eventually came to own and operate a blues club in the city. Mercer returned to the United States in the early 1970s to begin a career as an actress in films and television. Films in which she appeared included ''

Dirty Harry ''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American action-thriller film produced and directed by Don Siegel, the first in the Dirty Harry (film series), ''Dirty Harry'' series. Clint Eastwood plays the title role, in his first appearance as San Francisco Polic ...

'' (1971), '' The Beguiled'' (1971), ''

Frogs A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough skin texture due to ...

'' (1972), '' Cindy'' (1978), and '' Pretty Baby'' (1978). She was co-producer of the

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

''Angela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary'' (1972). In 1996, the Mayor of Rocky Mount, NC, Fred Turnage, declared June 12 ''Mae Mercer Day''. During this time, Mercer sought to produce her own biographical picture through her production company Black Owl Productions and was backed by local pastor Reverend James Bullock. Filming was slated to take place in Edgecombe County and other parts of North Carolina, New York,

and

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

Filmography

References

External links

*
''Los Angeles Times'' obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mercer, Mae 1932 births 2008 deaths American blues singers American film actresses American television actresses 20th-century African-American women singers People from Rocky Mount, North Carolina Actresses from North Carolina 20th-century American singers 20th-century African-American actresses 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American actresses 21st-century African-American actresses