Blacks in Blackface

  John D. Lee Jr. 1898-1965 "Johnny Lee" "John Dotson Lee Jr."     John D. Lee Jr. aka "Johnnie Lee" began in show business as a dancer. Johnny did the voice of Br'er Rabbit in the Walt Disney film Song of the South (1946).  He had featured roles in Come On, Cowboy! (1948) and She's Too Mean for Me (1948). Johnny Lee played a stuttering bill collector in the 1948 film, Boarding House Blues. Johnny Lee made a record that was released in July 1949 called "You Can't Lose A Broken Heart". He is credited as "Johnnie Lee" and the backup vocals were by The Ebonaires. Johnny also starred in an all black musical comedy called Sugar Hill in 1949 at Las Palmas Theatre in California. Johnny Lee as Algonquin J. Calhoun Johnny Lee is best known as the shyster lawyer Algo...

  Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham 1904-1981   Though best known as a comedian, Markham was also a singer, dancer, and actor. His nickname came from a stage routine, in which he declared himself to be "Sweet Poppa Pigmeat." Dewey Pigmeat Markham was born in Durham, North Carolina. His family was the most prominent on their street, which was later officially renamed Markham Street. Running away from home in 1918, Markham began his career in traveling music and burlesque shows. He took up with a white showman he ambiguously referred to over the years as "Mr. Booker" owner of a "gilly carnival." Soon, Markham found himself in blackface. "Mr. Booker came over to us before the show with a can of Stein's burnt-cork and showed us how to put it on in front of the mirror. He also had some pink and white lip make-up."  "You may ...

  Hattie McDaniel (1892-1952)     "Why should I complain about making seven thousand dollars a week playing a maid? If I didn't, I'd be making $7 a week actually being one!" In their roles as maids and mammies, cooks and man Fridays, some fine Black actors got to play characters who were altogether smarter, wiser and kinder than the White folks who were supposed to be their betters. A classic example is Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in Selznick's 1939 Gone With the Wind. She is the only sensible and likable person in the entire epic film. It's pure old-fashioned mammy nostalgia, pulled straight from the plantation literature of the nineteenth century. And it's played with enormous wit by McDaniel, who steals the film and who received the first Oscar given to a Black performer. After work...

  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...