Trivia: Ethel Waters was raised by her grandmother in the dismal ghettoes of South Philadelphia. She began working as a hotel chambermaid for $4.75 a week, and at age 12 she married the first of three husbands. Her goal at that time was to become a maid/companion to a wealthy white woman; instead, she launched a show-business career at 17, when she entered a local talent contest on a dare. Her exquisite, self-trained singing voice attracted the attention of a black vaudeville team, who offered her $10 weekly to join their act. Billed as Sweet Mama Stringbean in honor of her tall, slender frame, Waters toured the black vaudeville circuit singing such standards-to-be as "St. Louis Blues," and continued to hold on to her chambermaid job just in case the bubble burst. Throughout her singer years, Waters fought against performing "hot" -- i.e. sexually suggestive -- songs, preferring instead to perform religious music. But the audiences preferred "hot," and that's what she gave them during her formative years. Her popularity extended to white audiences by way of the recording of her signature tune "Dinah." In 1927, she starred on Broadway in the all-black musical revue Africana, which she followed in quick succession with Vaudeville, Blackbirds of 1930 and Rhapsody in Black. Booked into the Cotton Club, a Harlem night spot catering to a rich white clientele, Waters caught the eye of Irving Berlin with her rendition of "Stormy Weather." Berlin cast her in his 1933 musical revue As Thousands Cheer, supplying her with the hit tunes "Heat Wave," "Harlem on My Mind" and "Supper Time." The difference between As Thousands Cheer and Waters' earlier New York stage appearances was that, for the first time in Broadway history, a black female entertainer was given equal billing with her white co-stars. After spending several years in touring shows, she returned to Broadway in 1939, making her dramatic, nonsinging debut in Mamba's Daughters. The following year, she starred in the musical Cabin in the Sky, in which she introduced "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe" and "Taking a Chance on Love." Her film career, which began with her performance of "Am I Blue?" in the 1929 Warner Bros. musical On With the Show, was jump-started in 1943 with the movie version of Cabin in the Sky, wherein Waters co-starred with Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lena Horne and Louis Armstrong. Back in New York, Waters was offered the role of housekeeper Bernice Sadie Brown in Carson McCullers' Member of the Wedding, but she turned it down, insisting that her character be rewritten to include "more religion." She later accepted the role of mulatto Jeanne Crain's worldly-wise grandmother in the 1949 film Pinky, a performance that earned her an Academy Award nomination. The following year, she finally opened on Broadway in Member of the Wedding, her role at last rewritten to her specifications. By the time Waters appeared in the film version of Member of the Wedding, she'd become a law unto herself: when director Fred Zinnemann attempted to instruct Waters in a minor bit of stage business, she raised her head to the skies and bellowed "God is my director!" Evidently God knew His business, since Member earned Waters her second Oscar nomination. By rights, Ethel Waters should have spent her last years treated with the reverence and respect due a person of her accomplishments. Unfortunately, she managed to distance herself from her more militant black colleagues by (a) starring as a maid on the TV series Beulah; (b) aligning herself with such white Establishment types as Billy Graham and Richard M. Nixon; and (c) making such proclamations as "I'm not concerned with civil rights. I'm concerned with God-given rights, and they are available to everyone!" Waters worked only sporadically in her eighth decade. She died at the age of 80, in the Chatsworth, California home of the young couple then caring for her. Though she left behind a comparatively tiny financial estate, the artistic legacy of Ethel Waters includes dozens of 1920s recordings, 10 film appearances, and two autobiographies.

Trivia: The daughter of an actress and civil rights activist, African-American entertainer Lena Horne was a chorus girl in Harlem's Cotton Club at the age of 16. One year later, she had her first featured role -- as Quadroon Girl -- in the Broadway play Dance With Your Gods. Lena then went on to work as a dancer and singer for Noble Sissles's orchestra, gaining popularity with both black and white audiences, though in keeping with the racial status quo of the '30s, she was denied entrance to all-white facilities and hotels in most of the cities where she headlined on stage. Following her film in The Duke is Tops (1939), Lena was signed as a specialty performer by MGM Studios. In most of her film appearances, Lena would sing in a sequence separate from the plotline and her white costars, so that her scenes could be edited out when shown in certain Southern theatres. She managed to survive on these terms and even won leading roles in two major-studio feature films, Cabin in the Sky (1943) and Stormy Weather (1943) - both of which had all-black casts. Hollywood's attitude towards African-Americans in the '40s was slightly better than in the '30s, but producers still treaded very slowly and cautiously: Lena was allowed romantic interests in her two starring films, but her leading men were middle-aged comedians and dancers like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Dooley Wilson, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, so as not to offend those white viewers who felt threatened by handsome black men. Additionally, Lena was allowed to be sexy but not too sexy, lest she arouse dreams of miscegenation in the minds of impressionable white males; her most erotic scene in Cabin in the Sky, wherein she was discreetly "nude" in a bubble bath (the bubbles providing censor-proof camouflage) was removed from the film, not to be seen in public until shown in the 1994 compilation That's Still Entertainment. Idiotic corporate decisions like this only intensified Lena's mistrust of white men, an attitude drummed into her by her mother; yet privately she managed to find lasting happiness as the wife of white musician Lennie Hayton. Lena's career suffered in the '50s, when she had difficulty securing TV work not only because of her race but also because of her friendship with Paul Robeson, the famed black singer who'd embraced Communism. Eventually talent won out over ideology, and Lena starred on Broadway in Jamaka in 1957, following this personal triumph with numerous media and live performances. Still, Lena and her husband found a more hospitable reception when they travelled to France, a country where a mixed marriage did not automatically result in rude stares and snide newspaper commentary. In 1969, Horne returned to films in Death of a Gunfighter, where thanks to relaxed racial tensions she was able to play the former lover of white sheriff Richard Widmark. Still beautiful and in terrific voice, Horne went strong into the '90s, attaining the rare status of Living Legend. She died in 2010 at the age of 92.

Trivia: The life story of African American jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong could fill a dozen books, and in fact it has. Rising to fame with his own "Hot Five" group in the 1920s, "Satchmo" Armstrong (the nickname is derived from "Satchelmouth"; incidentally, he was known to his closest friends as "Pops") was a seasoned pro when movies began demanding his services in 1930. His earliest film appearances-- notably the Betty Boop cartoon (!) I'll Be Glad When You're Dead You Rascal You (32)--exemplified the "dangerous," sexually suggestive Armstrong who had become famous in nightclubs and on 78 RPM records. The racial barriers of 1930s Hollywood required Armstrong to smooth out his rough edges and sometimes to come in through the servant's entrance; in 1938's Going Places, for example, he appears as a stableboy, and introduces the lively but comparatively antiseptic ditty "Jeepers Creepers." Armstrong was serendipitously teamed with Bing Crosby on two memorable occasions: the 1936 musical drama Pennies From Heaven and the 1956 tune-filled remake of Philadelphia Story, High Society. Usually cast as himself (or a thinly disguised facsimile), Louis was given a rare chance to act in the 1943 all-black MGM musical Cabin in the Sky, playing the heavenly emissary "The Trumpeter." In 1964, Louis Armstrong scored so huge a hit with his recording of the title tune from the Broadway musical Hello Dolly that he was arbitrarily written into the 1969 film version, sharing a few precious on-screen moments with Barbra Streisand; it was the last of his 25 feature-film appearances.

Trivia: The African-American actor Rex Ingram -- not to be confused with the Irish-born director of the same name from the silent era -- was, for a time, the most prominent black dramatic performer in Hollywood and second only to Paul Robeson in recognition among all black actors. And like Robeson, Ingram also had a difficult time finding enough serious roles to keep himself employed and maintain a viable career. The son of a steamer fireman on the riverboat Robert E. Lee, Rex Ingram was literally born on the Mississippi River, somewhere between Natchez, MS, and Cairo, IL, where his mother resided. He spent a big part of his youth working with his father on riverboats until he entered Northwestern University and, later, medical school. After earning his degree, he took a trip to California for some rest; while standing on a street corner in L.A., he was spotted by a casting director and offered ten dollars per day to appear in a movie. He ended up playing an African tribesman in the first of the Tarzan movies (starring Elmo Lincoln), Tarzan of the Apes (1918). Ingram subsequently got a succession of the typical roles available to black actors in the silent era: butlers, porters, and native Africans. He was busier than most of his colleagues because of his startlingly good looks, his 6' 2" height, and substantial 220-pound build. The money was good and living in California agreed with him, even if the parts didn't, and he turned up in the silent The King of Kings and The Ten Commandments, as well as such early-'30s epics as Sign of the Cross. Lacking any formal acting training and having entered movies from literally right off the street, Ingram never considered working on the stage until someone suggested it. With help from English actor Alan Mowbray, he got readings and auditions and began studying everything he could find about the theater. He was cast in David Belasco's L.A. production of Lulu Belle in 1928 and proved a quick study and a superb performer. From there, he moved on to occasional roles in short-lived shows, the most notable of which was his portrayal of Crown in the drama Porgy. When there was no work in theater, he returned to movies, but the stage became his preference. A succession of theatrical roles followed, including the major part of Blacksnake Johnson in the Theatre Union's New York production of the topical play Stevedore and the title role at Suffern in Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones -- a part immortalized onscreen by Robeson. Both performances raised his stature and the latter became the favorite of all Ingram's roles. He also broke some ground on the sociological and racial front, portraying the Prince of Morocco in a production of The Merchant of Venice that starred Estelle Winwood at the University of Illinois. In addition, he wrote and produced a play, Drums of the Bayou (which closed before reaching New York). His breakthrough came with the film version of Marc Connelly's play The Green Pastures. Ingram was initially cast as Adam, but stage manager Claude Archer suggested that Warner Bros. test Ingram for the role of De Lawd, pointing out that makeup could compensate for his being two decades too young for the part. But he slipped into it so convincingly, with his forceful, articulate presence and dignified, yet unpretentious, bearing, that he was cast in the role immediately. Ingram's performance as De Lawd in The Green Pastures film was the defining moment of his movie career and turned him into the most prominent black leading man in Hollywood -- not that there was much competition. Paul Robeson, who had emerged to stardom in the 1920s in Showboat and had done The Emperor Jones on film, was living in England at the time, making films there because there were simply no vehicles or roles available in Hollywood for strong, powerful, black leading men. Alas, Ingram encountered the same problem after playing De Lawd; there were few movie roles from the major studios suitable to an actor of such stature. He would not and could not go back to playing porters or African tribesmen, but he found himself unable to go forward either. The best offer he got was to do a theatrical revival of The Green Pastures, in which he refused to take part. So he left acting, returned to medicine, and planned to go into research. A year later, Ingram was bankrupt. Faced with the need to support his wife and daughter, he returned to acting, working in stock before heading back to New York and the Broadway stage for productions of The Emperor Jones and the WPA Theater production of Haiti. He returned to the screen in 1939 for the first time in three years, with his portrayal of Jim, the runaway slave, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In 1940, Ingram played what became the most well-known and beloved role of his career, as the towering Djinni in Alexander Korda's production of The Thief of Bagdad (1940). His character stood over 200-feet tall and he played his role solo against a blue-screen background, never actually interacting with the other performers in the same shot. He also turned the fantasy part into a compelling monologue on freedom that resonated far beyond the boundaries of the movie. Ingram continued to work steadily and well in plays such as Cabin in the Sky (he later starred in the movie version, as well) and films like The Talk of the Town. His best part from this period was that of the Sudanese army sergeant who joins a ragtag band of Allied soldiers fighting a delaying action in the desert in Zoltan Korda's Sahara. His performance was also one of the best elements of Dark Waters, a Hitchcock-like thriller starring Merle Oberon and Thomas Mitchell. Ingram was busy throughout the mid-'40s, including work in an all-black Broadway stage production of Lysistrata, and played a major role in Fritz Lang's Moonrise (1948). And then disaster struck. In April 1949, Ingram was arrested and accused of violating the Mann Act -- specifically, transporting a teenage Kansas girl to New York for "immoral purposes." He pleaded guilty in May and his screen career was crippled for the next six years. He did appear in an episode of Ramar of the Jungle, a series with which he would never have been associated in better times, and, in 1955, he did The Emperor Jones on the small screen as part of Kraft Television Theatre. He returned to movies that same year in Tarzan's Hidden Jungle, the kind of film in which he'd started 25 years earlier. There were some good roles in better productions such as God's Little Acre, Anna Lucasta (in which he starred), Elmer Gantry, and even Your Cheatin' Heart, but his days as an onscreen leading man were behind him. He got some great opportunities on-stage, however, most notably in Herbert Berghof's 1957 production of Waiting for Godot, which also starred Earl Hyman, Mantan Moreland, and Geoffrey Holder. In the late '60s, Ingram got roles in the movies Hurry Sundown and Journey to Shiloh and a prominent part in one episode of I Spy ("Weight of the World"). Comedian-turned-actor Bill Cosby also saw to it that Ingram got work in an episode of The Bill Cosby Show. Ingram died of a heart attack in September 1969, two months prior to the airing of that last television appearance.

Trivia: Although little remembered today, in his time Kenneth Spencer was a notable Black actor in American movies, with a presence reminiscent of his older contemporaries Paul Robeson and Rex Ingram. In contrast to Robeson and Ingram, however, Spencer never found the same choice of leading roles with which to carve a place for himself in the movie history books or most filmgoers' memories. Born in Los Angeles, Spencer displayed an early interest in music and was awarded a scholarship at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, in the 1930s -- though to get there to avail himself of the opportunity, however, he practically had to beg for the train fare. He had spent much of his early adult life working as a day laborer, mowing lawns, banking furnaces, and selling flowers to support himself and his family. Spencer earned a Bachelor of Music degree at Eastman in 1938 and subsequently made his way west, appearing in a revival of Showboat, starring in the opera Gettysburg, and performing in concert at the Hollywood Bowl in California, as well as understudying Robeson in the play John Henry. By 1942, Spencer's bass baritone voice had earned him a regular recital show on the CBS radio network, and his good looks and six-foot-three-inch frame attracted the interest of Hollywood producers. He was particularly busy at MGM in 1943, where he played a key supporting role in the drama Bataan and was cast that same year in Vincente Minnelli's directorial debut film, Cabin in the Sky, in which he portrayed the dual role of the reverend and the heavenly general, in opposition to Rex Ingram's Lucifer Jr. Those two movies, alas, would prove to be the beginning and the end of Spencer's Hollywood career, at least on camera. Spencer, who had command of French, Spanish, Russian, German, and Hebrew, and whose repertory encompassed opera, spirituals, folk songs, Broadway, and popular song, was successful as a nightclub singer in venues such as Cafe Society Uptown in New York, but he juxtaposed engagements such as that with work on Broadway, most notably in the celebrated 1946 revival of Showboat, for which -- with the approval of the producers and publishers -- he altered the words of "Ol' Man River" from "Niggers all work on the Mississippi" to "Colored folks work on the Mississippi." Always sensitive about the way that black characters were treated on-stage and onscreen, he found few roles to play in movies after World War II, though his voice was in demand -- Spencer was chosen as the singer of the ballads composed by Earl Robinson and Millard Lampell for Lewis Milestone's drama A Walk in the Sun (1946); those ballads, heard at several key points on the soundtrack during the film's depiction of six hours in the life and death of an army platoon, were a groundbreaking musical device at the time. Spencer was getting some singing and recording opportunities (including several performances for Columbia Masterworks, the most prestigious classical label in America), but he also had vivid memories of overt racism in the United States -- he'd been driven off the stage during a benefit performance in Chicago before the war, by a group of hooligans -- and its subtle manifestations as well. Finally, like a number of notable black performers before him, including Robeson, Adelaide Hall, Josephine Baker, and John Kitzmiller, Spencer turned to Europe as a more open and hospitable, as well as a more lucrative, market for his talents as a singer and actor, and he moved his family there at the end of the 1940s. He made a half-dozen movies in Germany between the early '50s and the early '60s, and was constantly engaged as a singer over the next 15 years. He died in a plane crash just outside of New Orleans while visiting the United States early in 1964.

Trivia: John Sublett is the father of modern rhythm tap dancing and is responsible for popularizing it on stage and screen. Sublett was only seven when he began singing on-stage. Later he teamed up with dancer Ford "Buck" Lee Washington to become Buck and Bubbles. The two danced together for four decades. Sublett also appeared on Broadway in shows such as Porgy and Bess and revues such as Frolics of 1922. He also performed with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1931 with Washington. The two also appeared in a couple of films including Cabin in the Sky (1943) and A Song Is Born (1948). Sublett helped to teach Fred Astaire and other stars how to tap dance. Following Buck's death in 1955, Bubbles did not perform again until the mid-'60s when he joined comedian Bob Hope on a tour of U.S.O. shows. He then worked as the opening act for Judy Garland's Judy at the Palace. Sublett also appeared on several talk and variety shows. After suffering a debilitating stroke around 1967, Sublett retired from performing.

Trivia: Appropriately nicknamed "Google Eyes" by his childhood friends, African-American actor Mantan Moreland joined a carnival at 14 and a medicine show a year later - and both times was dragged home by juvenile authorities. Most of Moreland's early adult years were spent on the "Chitlin Circuit," the nickname given by performers to all-black vaudeville. After a decade of professional ups and downs, Moreland teamed with several comics (notably Benny Carter) in an act based on the "indefinite talk" routine of Flournoy and Miller, wherein each teammate would start a sentence, only to be interrupted by the other teammate ("Say, have you seen...?" "I saw him yesterday. He was at..." "I thought they closed that place down!"). Moreland's entered films in 1936, usually in the tiny porter, waiter and bootblack roles then reserved for black actors. Too funny to continue being shunted aside by lily-white Hollywood, Moreland began getting better parts in a late-'30s series of comedy adventures produced at Monogram and costarring white actor Frankie Darro. The screen friendship between Mantan and Frankie was rare for films of this period, and it was this series that proved Moreland was no mere "Movie Negro." Moreland stayed with Monogram in the '40s as Birmingham Brown, eternally frightened chauffeur of the Charlie Chan films. The variations Moreland wrought upon the line "Feets, do your duty" were astonishing and hilarious, and though the Birmingham role was never completely free of stereotype, by the end of the Chan series in 1949 Monogram recognized Moreland's value to the series by having Charlie Chan refer to "my assistant, Birmingham Brown" - not merely "my hired man." Always popular with black audiences (he was frequently given top billing in the advertising of the Chan films by Harlem theatre owners), Moreland starred in a series of crude but undeniably entertaining comedies filmed by Toddy Studios for all-black theatres. The actor also occasionally popped up in A-pictures like MGM's Cabin in the Sky, and worked steadily in radio. Changing racial attitudes in the '50s and '60s lessend Moreland's ability to work in films; in the wake of the Civil Rights movement, a frightened black man was no longer considered amusing even by Mantan's fans. Virtually broke, Moreland suffered a severe stroke in the early '60s, and it looked as though he was finished in Hollywood. Things improved for Moreland after 1964, first with a bit in the oddly endearing horror picture Spider Baby (1964), then with a pair of prominent cameos in Enter Laughing (1968) and The Comic (1969), both directed by Carl Reiner. With more and more African Americans being hired for TV and films in the late '60s, Moreland was again in demand. He worked on such TV sitcoms as Love American Style and The Bill Cosby Show, revived his "indefinite talk" routine for a gasoline commercial, and enjoyed a solid film role was as a race-conscious counterman in Watermelon Man (1970). In his last years, Mantan Moreland was a honored guest at the meetings of the international Laurel and Hardy fan club "The Sons of the Desert," thanks to his brief but amusing appearance in the team's 1942 comedy A-Haunting We Will Go (1942).

Trivia: African American actor Willie Best made his screen debut in Harold Lloyd's Feet First (1930). When Best, a veteran of a travelling show, came to Hollywood, he immediately fell prey to the stereotyping of the era. Promoted as a "new Stepin Fetchit," Best was transformed into a shuffling, "Yassuh boss" character billed as "Sleep 'N' Eat." Studio press releases of the 1930s made outrageous claims that not only did Best enjoy humiliating himself in "darkie" roles, but that the only compensation he wanted for his screen work was three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep. Despite the demeaning nature of his roles, Best performed them with consummate skill and razor sharp comic timing. Bob Hope, who worked with Best in The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Nothing But the Truth (1941), once referred to Willie as "the finest actor I knew." In the 1950s, Willie Best was a fixture at the Hal Roach Studios, playing supporting roles in such Roach-produced TV series as My Little Margie, The Stu Erwin Show and Mark Saber.

Trivia: Handsome, dark-haired William Norton Bailey was as easily cast in drawing rooms as in action melodramas. In films from 1912, Bailey directed Universal comedies prior to securing himself a place in action film history opposite the fragile Juanita Hansen in the serials The Phantom Foe (1920) and The Yellow Arm (1921). Despite the success of the chapterplays, Bailey spent most of the 1920s playing the "Other Man" or the hero's best friend. In 1926, independent producer Goodwill changed his name to the friendlier Bill Bailey and starred him in a series of Westerns. Defeated by low budgets and poor writing, the actor abandoned all hopes of stardom, embarking on a long career as a supporting player in talkie B-Westerns, which lasted well into the 1950s. Often playing a lawman, Bailey later portrayed the title role in the second and final season of the syndicated television series Cactus Jim (1951).

Trivia: Born in Tampa, where her father worked as a stevedore and her mother as a maid, Thelma McQueen determined early in life to become a dancer. By age 13 she was living in Harlem performing with a dance troupe and theater company. While appearing in a 1935 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, she danced in the Butterfly Ballet, earning her professional name of Butterfly McQueen in the process (she hated the name Thelma and later had her new moniker legalized). Her first Broadway appearance in the 1937 George Abbott production Brown Sugar led to an even better assignment in the long-running stage comedy What a Life! This in turn led to her discovery by film producer David O. Selznick, who cast McQueen as the simple-minded slave Prissy ("I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies!") in his super-production Gone With the Wind (1939). Though the role earned her worldwide fame, it also typecast her as screechy-voiced, hysterical domestics. Even so, she delivered memorable performances in such '40s productions as Cabin in the Sky (1943), Mildred Pierce (1945), and Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946). Her inability to get along with most of her co-stars, coupled with her unhappiness over the film roles assigned her, prompted the actress to quit the movies in 1947. The ensuing two decades were not easy ones for McQueen; she was obliged to accept a dizzying series of clerical and domestic jobs, occasionally resurfacing in short-running stage productions and briefly co-starring as Oriole on TV's Beulah series. At one point, she served as hostess at the Stone Mountain Civil War Memorial Museum in Atlanta, GA. She returned to Broadway in 1964, and four years later scored a personal success with a tailor-made role in the off-Broadway musical spoof Curley McDimple. She came back to films in 1974 while pursuing a Political Science degree at New York's City College. In 1980, she won an Emmy for her performance in the TV special The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid, and in 1986 made her final screen appearance (looking and sounding pretty much as she did back in 1939!) in Peter Weir's The Mosquito Coast. Butterfly McQueen was 85 when she died of burns sustained in a fire caused by a faulty kerosene heater.

Trivia: Ruby Danridge appeared on radio, stage, screen and television. She started out as a singer and later worked on Broadway. She appeared in her first film, Gallant Lady in 1942. She is the mother of actress/singer Dorothy Dandridge.

Trivia: African American comic actor Eddie Anderson was born into a show-business family: his father was a minstrel performer, and his mother a circus tightrope walker. Anderson entered show business at 14, teaming with his brother Cornelius in a song-and-dance act. His movie career began with a lengthy uncredited part as Lowell Sherman's valet in 1932's What Price Hollywood? The best of his earliest film assignments was the part of Noah in the 1936 cinemazation of Marc Connelly's all-black Broadway production The Green Pastures. On Easter Day of 1937, Anderson was engaged to play a one-shot role as a railway porter nicknamed Rochester on radio's The Jack Benny Program. Response was so overwhelmingly positive to Anderson's sandpaper voice and razor-sharp comic timing that the actor was hired as a regular on Benny's program, cast as Jack's know-it-all butler; it was an association which would last until Benny's death in 1974. In addition to his weekly radio duties, Anderson was co-starred with Benny in such films as Man About Town (1939), Buck Benny Rides Again (1940) Love Thy Neighbor (1941) and The Meanest Man in the World (1942); he also continued in the Rochester role on Benny's TV series, which ran until 1965. Outside of his work with Benny, Anderson played various tremulous chauffeurs and handymen in many other films, sometimes in a stereotypical fashion, but nearly always on equal footing with his white co-stars; indeed, his relationship with his screen "boss" Dennis O'Keefe in 1945's Brewster's Millions was so casual that the film was banned in lily-white Mississippi. In 1943, Anderson was afforded top billing in the MGM musical Cabin in the Sky, sharing screen time with such stellar black talent as Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, Rex Ingram and Louis Armstrong. One of the wealthiest black entertainers in the business, Anderson enhanced his film, radio and TV earnings with shrewd real estate investment. He suffered a stroke in the early 1960s which forced him to cut down his activities, though he was always available to work with Jack Benny in the latter's television specials. A prized "social awareness" moment occurred on a Benny special of the late 1960s when Jack invited "Rochester" to portray his servant once more. "But, boss," Eddie Anderson raspily responded, "we don't do that any more!"

Trivia: African American composer/ musician Duke Ellington was leader of the house band at New York's Cotton Club when talking pictures first gained popularity in 1928-1929. Ellington was one of many performers who showed up in quickie musical short subjects designed to show off the new sound system. He and his band made their feature-film debut in Check and Double Check (30), which starred radio's famed comedy duo Amos 'N' Andy. He was top-lined in such black-oriented "B" pictures as The Duke is Tops (38) and also made guest appearances in such minor musicals as Hit Parade (37), New Faces (37) and Reveille With Beverly (43). Duke Ellington was given his best movie break by director Otto Preminger, who engaged Ellington to write the now-famous jazz score for 1959's Anatomy of a Murder, and also wedged in a brief on-screen cameo for the Duke.