Skip to main content

Blacks in Blackface: Spencer Williams, Jr. - Andy Brown

 

Spencer Williams, Jr.
1893-1969
"Andy Brown"

 

Spencer Williams, Jr. as Andy Brown

Spencer Williams, Jr. who would become known to White TV audiences as Andy Brown in The Amos 'N' Andy Show in the early 1950s, produced, directed, and acted in numerous race movies through the 1930s and 1940s. He also wrote, produced, directed and costarred in a few of the most charming films of the genre, including The Blood of Jesus (1941), Go Down, Death! (1944), and The Girl in Room 20 (1946).

Williams entered the film business at a time when "race movies" were being made alongside the Hollywood versions. Race movies were low-budgeted and mostly aimed at black audiences in segregated movie-houses of the South and where large city black populations lived in the North.

 


Spencer Williams, Jr. as Andy Brown in
 The Amos 'N' Andy Show

Since the making of his first film, Tenderfeet in 1928, Williams' list of film credits is extensive. His success as a black filmmaker led to his most famous and controversial role as Andy Brown in The Amos 'N' Andy Show.

Born July 14, 1893 in Vidalia, Louisiana, Spencer Williams had come out of retirement to play the role of Andy; when the show was cancelled, he lived on income from Social Security and a Military pension.
Spencer Williams died of kidney disease on December 13, 1969 in Los Angeles, California, and is buried in Section 209, row Z, space 3 in the Los Angeles National Cemetery.

Filmography

Tenderfeet (1928)
The Lady Fare (1928)
The Melancholy Dame (1928)
Music Hath Harms (1929)
Oft the Silly Night (1929)
Framing of the Shrew (1929)
Widows Bite (1929)
Brown Gravy (1929)
Georgia Rose (1929)
Harlem on the Prairie (1938)
The Bronze Buckaroo (1938)
Bad Boy (1939)
Two-Gun Man from Harlem (1938)
Son of Ingagi (1940)
Toppers Take a Bow (1941)
The Blood of Jesus (1941)
Brother Martin Servant of Jesus (1943)
Marching On (1943)
Of One Blood (1944)
Go Down Death (1944)
Where's My Man Tonight (1944)
Glory Road (1945) 
Harlem Hot Shots (1945)
Girl in Room 20 (1946)
Dirty Gertie from Harlem, U.S.A. (1946)
The Beale Street Mama (1946)
Juke Joint (1947)
Rhapsody of Negro Life (1949) 

Blackface logo

Blackface! -- Contents


History of Blackface

Blacks in Blackface

History of Minstrel Shows

Minstrel Show Female Impersonators

Stephen Foster

Origins of Jump Jim Crow

Blackface Origins in Clowning

Blackface History Prior to Minstrel Shows

Excerpts from Monarchs of Minstrelsy (1911)

Famous Blackface Minstrel Performers

Blackface Around the World

About This Web Site


YouTube Logo

Visit the Blackface! YouTube Channel
for more blackface and minstrel show videos


 

Explore the History of other
Racial and Racist Stereotypes in the Media

 

Blackface!
Black Stereotypes

Yellowface!
Asian Stereotypes

Brownface!
Hispanic Stereotypes

Redface!
Indian Stereotypes

Arabface!
Arab Stereotypes

Jewface!
Jewish Stereotypes


Please visit our partners:

 

 

 Buy * Will Write for Food * T-shirts

Kachina.us - Guide to Hopi Kachina Dolls

Agile Writer -- Biography and History


Copyright © 2024 Ken Padgett

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blacks in Blackface - Introduction

  Blacks in Blackface Famous Black actors whose personas were derived from racist blackface stereotypes The American minstrel show was effectively dead by WW1, yet some old-timers continued to peddle the same blackface stereotypes later in vaudeville, films and television. It's one of the interesting twists of history that in the first half of the twentieth century, the main purveyors of the old-fashioned blackface minstrel tradition were Black performers, who'd began in show business wearing the blackface mask -- either literally or figuratively -- and were reluctant to give it up.  But they also had little choice in the roles they were offered. Until well into the 1950s, Black male actors were limited to stereotypical roles: Coons, for example, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Eddie Rochester Anderson

Eddie Anderson 1902-1977 "Rochester"   Eddie "Rochester" Anderson was born in Oakland in 1906. His father, Big Ed Anderson, had been a minstrel performer; his mother, Ella Mae, had been a circus tightrope walker until an accident ended her career. Eddie Anderson started out in vaudeville and had appeared in a number of films when he debuted as the voice of a Pullman porter on Jack Benny's popular radio show in 1937. Audiences responded with such enthusiasm that the canny Benny soon made Rochester his man Friday and inseparable sidekick, and the duo starred together on radio, in movies and on television for twenty-three years.  He was born in Oakland, California, USA on September 18, 1905. As a boy, Anderson sold newspapers on a street corner and permanently damaged his vocal cords ...
Post a Comment
Read more

About This Blog

  About This Blog This blog is an updated copy (2024) of my web site at: https://black-face.com/ that began in 2009. Sources The following books were my primary sources and are recommended for further reading: African American Films Through 1959 -- Larry Richards  Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America -- Robert C. Toll Black Film/White Money -- Jesse Algeron Rhines  Black Like Me -- John Strausbaugh  Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films -- Henry T. Sampson Blacks in Blackface: A Source Book on Early Black Musical Shows -- Henry T. Sampson Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, The Story of Black Hollywood -- Donald Bogle  Channeling Blackness -- Darnell M. Hunt  Darkest America, Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-Hop -- Yuval Taylor and Jake Austen Inside the Minst...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Louise Beavers

  Louise Beavers (1902-1962)   Beavers began her performing career as a minstrel show singer, but when she moved to Hollywood in the early 20s, it was as a maid to actress Leatrice Joy. Like Hattie McDaniel and most other Black actors of the period, Louise Beavers was limited to character roles, most often playing a "mammy" a subservient but jovial African-American maid or cook. Like McDaniel, she was heavy and dark-skinned, and her characters were extremely cheerful, loyal, and asexual.  Before long, though, she made her feature debut in "Gold Diggers" (1923). She acted in other silent films such as the 1927 version of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" but really made her mark with the coming of sound. In over 160 films between 1929 and 1960, working in every genre and at every studio, Beaver...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Allen Clayton Hoskins "Farina"

  Allen Clayton Hoskins 1920-1980 "Farina"    Born Allen Clayton Hoskins August 9, 1920 - July 26, 1980. Allen Hoskins was the character of Farina in the Our Gang short films from 1922 to 1931. Farina was cast to be the stereotypical pickaninny in the tradition of the character Topsy from Uncle Tom's Cabin. He appeared in 106 installments of the Our Gang series and later had a successful career as a psychological technician.  Allen Clayton Hoskins, aka "Farina" embarked on his screen career at the tender age of fourteen months. According to studio publicity, Hoskins, was discovered when he was a one-year-old who followed another black Our Gang actor, Sunshine Sammy, into the studio. Hal Roach took one look at the infant and knew he was star material. Hoskins made his Our Gang debut in 1922 and remained wit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen

  Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen I didn't mind playing a maid the first time, because I thought that was how you got into the business. But after I did the same thing over and over I resented it. I didn't mind being funny but I didn't like being stupid.     Thelma "Butterfly" McQueen (1911 - 1995) is most famous for her role in Gone With the Wind (1939) as the slave "Prissy" with the high squeaky voice who didn't "know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies." Though she believed the part was demeaning, McQueen brought a comic pathos to her portrayal. For most of her film career, McQueen was usually relegated to playing domestics. Among her better known films are Cabin in the Sky (1943), Mildred Pierce (1945) and Duel in the Sun (1947). McQueen could not attend Gone With The Wind's pre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Billy Kersands

  Billy Kersands (1842-1915)   Billy Kersands was a blackface minstrel and a vaudeville performer who was known for his comedy, dancing, singing, musical performances, and acrobatics. Kersands was about six feet tall and weighed near 200 pounds. He had a large mouth, which he filled with various objects during his stage performances. He was one of the most popular African American entertainers of his time.  Kersands began as a minstrel performer in the 1860s. His exact birth location is not known, but has been given as Baton Rouge, LA. In 1895, Billy Kersands married Louisa Strong in Ascension, LA, and the couple would later own a vaudeville company. Billy Kersands performed with a number of groups, the Charles Hicks Minstrels, the Harvey Minstrels, Richards and Pringle's Georgia Minstrels, and others, including his own company Kersands' Minstrels, and Louisa and Billy Kersands' vaudevil...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Willie "Sleep 'n Eat" Best

  Willie Best  1913-1962 Sleep 'n' Eat     Willie Best was one of the first well-known African American film actors and comedians, although his work, like that of Stepin Fetchit, is today sometimes reviled because he was often called upon to play stereotypically lazy, illiterate, and simple-minded characters in films. Of the 124 films he appeared in, he received screen credit in at least 77 of them, an unusual feat for a bit player. Willie Best came to Hollywood as a limo driver for a vacationing couple. He was discovered in a LA stage play by a talent scout and got into films. In addition to being a talented comedian and character actor, Best was also a musician/song writer.  When Stepin Fetchit became very demanding and difficult, studio executives and directors began to use Willie Best as a replacement. Best's easy-going manner and work...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Bert Williams

  Bert Williams 1874-1922 "I have never been able to discover that there was anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient -- in America." "A black face, run-down shoes and elbow-out make-up give me a place to hide. The real Bert Williams is crouched deep down inside the coon who sings the songs and tells the stories." Born in Nassau, Bahamas in 1875, Egbert Austin Williams moved to New York and then California with his family as a boy. Forced to abandon his college study of civil engineering at Stanford to earn a living, he turned his self-taught musical skills and gift for comic mimicry into a lifelong career. Bert first entered show business as a barker for medicine shows in the Riverside area. At the time, medicine shows traveled the small towns and villages throughout the country ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blacks in Blackface: Mantan Moreland

  Mantan Moreland 1902-1973     Mantan Moreland parlayed his cocky but jittery character into a recognizable presence in the late 1930s and early 1940s, appearing in a long string of comedy thrillers and more than 300 films in all. At the age of 12, Mantan Moreland joined the circus and found success in vaudeville for many years before coming to Hollywood. Mantan's focus gradually shifted towards film, where he initially appeared in servile bit-parts (shoeshine men, porters, waiters). However, his talent for making people laugh couldn't be overlooked and he soon earned featured status in Harlem-styled western parodies and grade "A" comedy films playing the superstitious, ever-terrified manservant running from any kind of impending doom. Moreland's film debut was in That's the Spirit (1936), although he did not have a credited role. Boxer Joe Louis helped him land his part in Sp...
Post a Comment
Read more