Canada Lee
Encyclopedia
Canada Lee was an American
actor
who pioneered roles for African American
s. A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, he died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee
. He became an actor after careers as a jockey
, boxer
, and musician. Lee furthered the African-American tradition in theater pioneered by such older actors as Paul Robeson
. Lee is the father of actor Carl Lee
.
. He was raised by his West Indian parents in New York City
. He was a talented musician, and by age 12 was a concert
violin
ist. In his early teens, he ran away from home to become a jockey
and after growing too large to ride, he decided to try boxing
.
. His professional boxing record is listed variously as 38 wins with 15 knockouts, 32 losses with 8 knockouts, and 8 draws; 44 wins with 11 knockouts, 31 losses, and three draws; or 33-31-7 with 13 knockouts. He fought and lost to world champions Jack Britton
, Tommy Freeman, and Lou Brouillard
. He boxed a 10 round draw with middleweight champion Vince Dundee
in 1928.
During a 1930 bout with Willie Garafola a glancing blow to his right eye detached his retina
. His sight was impaired and ended his career as a boxer 1933. Lee left the ring and began to conduct a fifteen-piece orchestra at a nightclub in Harlem, The Jitterbug, which he also managed. Neither the band nor the nightclub could survive the Great Depression
. Despite having made an estimated US$90,000 during his boxing career (roughly equivalent to $ today), by the mid-1930s Lee was impoverished.
to apply for a job as a laborer, Lee stumbled upon an audition in progress and was invited to audition. He earned a supporting role in Frank Wilson’s 1934 production of Brother Moses, which played to a crowd of ten thousand in Central Park
. Lee, who received favorable reviews, settled on acting as a new career.
This career brought him into contact with many of the most famous actors and directors of the late 1930s. Lee summered at Pine Brook Country Club
in Nichols, Connecticut
. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre (New York). Some of the other artists who summered there were; Elia Kazan
, Harry Morgan
, John Garfield
, Lee J. Cobb
, Will Geer
, Clifford Odets
, Howard Da Silva
and Irwin Shaw
.
Working with the Federal Theater Project, he appeared in Stevedore in 1934, with various small roles following. His first major role in a seminal production came in Orson Welles
's so-called Voodoo Macbeth
(1936) for the Negro Theater Project, a division of the Federal Theatre Project
. Lee played Banquo
in this controversial production, which featured a Haiti
an motif in the set, African-themed drumming and a black cast of over two hundred actors. The play's treatment of African-Americans proved controversial, and Lee is reported to have rescued Welles from angry protestors on two occasions.
After two more years of work in black theater and Theater Project productions, including the lead role in The Big White Fog, Lee reunited with Welles for the stage production of Richard Wright
's Native Son
. The 1941 production was a spectacular hit, both for Welles and for Lee, whom The New York Times
called "the greatest Negro actor of his era and one of the finest actors in the country." Wright also applauded the performance, noting the contrast between Lee's affable personality and his intensity as Bigger Thomas. The sympathetic portrayal of a black man driven to murder by racial hatred brought much criticism however, especially from the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
and the Legion of Decency, and the ensuing pressure forced the play to close in December 1942.
During World War II, Lee continued to act in plays and in films. In 1942, he played in two comedies by William Saroyan
; Lee earned approving reviews despite the generally negative response to these plays. In 1943, he took a lead role in a production of the race-themed drama South Pacific, which was directed by Lee Strasberg
, and concerned a cynical African-American soldier who had racially based reservations about fighting the Japanese. The following year, he became the first African-American to play Caliban in Margaret Webster
’s 1945 Broadway rendition of The Tempest
. Lee had admired Shakespeare since his turn in Macbeth; indeed, at the time of his death he was preparing to play Othello
on film. The following year he participated in another milestone; George Rylands cast him as Bosola in a Broadway staging of John Webster
's The Duchess of Malfi
: this was one of the first occasions on which a black actor portrayed a white character (Lee wore whiteface).
After the war, Lee continued to act. In 1946, he played a principal role in On Whitman Avenue, a drama about racial prejudice directed by Margo Jones
. Lee produced the play, making him the first African-American producer on Broadway; the play spoke directly to the need for interracial housing following WWII and won the praise of former First-Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote weekly columns encouraging readers to see it. Two years later, he played the part of an obedient slave in Let My People Go, a dramatization of the life of Denmark Vesey
.
's Lifeboat
(1944), in which he played a sailor. Lee insisted on changing his dialogue, which had been a semi-comical dialect typical of racist films. In 1947, he played a supporting role in Robert Rossen
's Body and Soul
, another boxing picture. In 1949, he took another supporting role in Lost Boundaries, a drama about passing
. Lee's last film role was in Cry, the Beloved Country
(1951).
Along with his varied and successful stage and screen careers, Lee became the first African-American DJ on a major radio station hosting The Canada Lee Show, and would continue a successful and lengthy radio career as both actor and narrator. His dedication to the groundbreaking series New World A-Comin’, a radio show dedicated to presenting Negro history and culture to mainstream American audiences.
, for instance, wrote two brief plays for Lee; these were submitted to the Theater Project, but their criticism of racism in America was deemed too controversial, and neither was staged. Lee spoke to schools, sponsored various humanitarian events, and began speaking directly against the existing segregation in America’s Armed Forces, while simultaneously acknowledging the need to win the Second World War
. To this latter end, he appeared at numerous USO
events; he won an award from the United States Recruiting Office and another from the Treasury Department for his help in selling war bonds. These sentiments would carry on throughout his life, culminating in his early firsthand account of apartheid in South Africa.
By the late 1940s, the rising tide of anti-Communism had made many of his earlier contacts politically dangerous. In 1949, the trade journal Variety
stated that under no circumstance was he to be used in American Tobacco’s televised production of a radio play he had recently starred in because he was “too controversial.”
In the same year, the FBI offered to clear Lee’s name if he would publicly call Paul Robeson a Communist. Lee refused and responded by saying, “All you’re trying to do is split my race.” According to newspaper columnist Walter Winchell
, Lee stated that he intended to come out and “publicly blast Paul Robeson.” However, the fact that the friendship between the two actors remained until Lee's death suggests that Robeson put no faith in Winchell's claim.
At the height of the Hollywood blacklist
, Lee managed to find work in 1950 as the star of a British film Cry, The Beloved Country
, for which both he and Sidney Poitier were smuggled into South Africa
as indentured servant
s in order to play their roles as African ministers. During filming he had his first heart attack, and he never fully recovered his health.
The film’s message of universal brotherhood stands as Lee's final work towards this aim; after it, the blacklist prevented him from getting work. Scheduled to appear in Italy to begin production on a filmed version of Othello, he was repeatedly notified that his passport “remained under review.”
, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility
. They met in 1940, when Geiger, a 14-year-old middle class Jewish runaway, was backstage at a Broadway production of Native Son. Lee agreed to take Geiger in when he showed up at his door in Harlem asking for a place to stay. Geiger stayed with Lee for over a year (with the consent of Geiger's parents), and Lee played the role of surrogate father. During his time with Lee, Geiger was introduced to people like Langston Hughes
, Billy Strayhorn
, Richard Wright
, and Adam Clayton Powell. After many years of varied experiences and an on-going friendship with Lee, Geiger eventually became a journalist, then a doctor. He later went on to formulate the first community health center in the United States - Columbia Point
Health Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts
.
Geiger would go on to become active in civil rights, to become the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, then Physicians for Human Rights
, establishing community health centers in Mississippi
and South Africa
, which would eventually lead to 900 community health care centers providing primary health care for more than 14 million low income people in the country. Geiger says he would never have moved so deeply in these worlds so quickly if not for his experiences with Canada Lee.
. They were divorced during the controversy over Native Son
.
In 1934, he began a love affair with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby despite the threat of miscegenation laws
. They often had lunch in uptown New York in Harlem
at the then new restaurant Franks where they could maintain their secret relationship. When Lee was performing in Washington D.C during the 1940s, the only restaurant in Washington D.C. where they could eat together was an African restaurant named the Bugazi. Crosby and Lee's intimate relationship continued into the mid-1940s. In March 1951 Lee married Frances Pollack and they remained together until he died just over a year later.
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
who pioneered roles for African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s. A champion of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s, he died shortly before he was scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
. He became an actor after careers as a jockey
Jockey
A jockey is an athlete who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing.-Etymology:...
, boxer
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
, and musician. Lee furthered the African-American tradition in theater pioneered by such older actors as Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
. Lee is the father of actor Carl Lee
Carl Lee (actor)
Carl Lee , born Carl Vincent Canegata, was an African-American actor. He was also the son of late pioneering African American actor/professional boxer Canada Lee .-Career:...
.
Early life
Lee was born as Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata on March 3, 1907 in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was raised by his West Indian parents in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was a talented musician, and by age 12 was a concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist. In his early teens, he ran away from home to become a jockey
Jockey
A jockey is an athlete who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing.-Etymology:...
and after growing too large to ride, he decided to try boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
.
Boxing career
Lee began boxing in 1926. Before one match an announcer, stumbling over Lionel’s surname, mispronounced his name as 'Canada Lee'. Lee adopted the mistake as his own. At 5 in 9 in (1.75 m) and about 144 pounds (65.3 kg), he fought as a welterweightWelterweight
Welterweight is a weight class division in combat sports. Originally the term "welterweight" was used only in boxing, but other combat sports like kickboxing, taekwondo and mixed martial arts also began to use it for their own weight division system...
. His professional boxing record is listed variously as 38 wins with 15 knockouts, 32 losses with 8 knockouts, and 8 draws; 44 wins with 11 knockouts, 31 losses, and three draws; or 33-31-7 with 13 knockouts. He fought and lost to world champions Jack Britton
Jack Britton
Jack Britton was three-time world welterweight boxing champion, born William J. Breslin in Clinton, New York....
, Tommy Freeman, and Lou Brouillard
Lou Brouillard
Lucien Pierre Brouillard, better known as Lou Brouillard, , was a professional boxer in the welterweight division....
. He boxed a 10 round draw with middleweight champion Vince Dundee
Vince Dundee
Vince Dundee , the former New York State middleweight champion of the world was born Vincenzo Lazzara in Sicily in 1904.-Personal:The Lazzara family emigrated from Sicily to the United States and lived in Baltimore...
in 1928.
During a 1930 bout with Willie Garafola a glancing blow to his right eye detached his retina
Retina
The vertebrate retina is a light-sensitive tissue lining the inner surface of the eye. The optics of the eye create an image of the visual world on the retina, which serves much the same function as the film in a camera. Light striking the retina initiates a cascade of chemical and electrical...
. His sight was impaired and ended his career as a boxer 1933. Lee left the ring and began to conduct a fifteen-piece orchestra at a nightclub in Harlem, The Jitterbug, which he also managed. Neither the band nor the nightclub could survive the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Despite having made an estimated US$90,000 during his boxing career (roughly equivalent to $ today), by the mid-1930s Lee was impoverished.
Theater career
Lee's acting career began by accident. While at a YMCAYMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
to apply for a job as a laborer, Lee stumbled upon an audition in progress and was invited to audition. He earned a supporting role in Frank Wilson’s 1934 production of Brother Moses, which played to a crowd of ten thousand in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
. Lee, who received favorable reviews, settled on acting as a new career.
This career brought him into contact with many of the most famous actors and directors of the late 1930s. Lee summered at Pine Brook Country Club
Pine Brook Country Club
-Introduction:Pine Brook Country Club began when Benjamin Plotkin purchased Pinewood Lake and the surrounding countryside on Mischa Hill in the historic village of Nichols, Connecticut. Plotkin built an auditorium with a revolving stage and forty rustic cabins and incorporated as the Pine Brook...
in Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols, a historic village in southeastern Trumbull on the Gold Coast of Fairfield County, was named after the family who maintained a large farm in its center for almost 300 years. The Nichols Farms Historic District, which encompasses part of the village, is listed on the National Register of...
. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre (New York). Some of the other artists who summered there were; Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
, Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan
Harry Morgan is an American actor. Morgan is well-known for his roles as Colonel Sherman T. Potter on M*A*S*H , Pete Porter on both Pete and Gladys and December Bride , Detective Bill Gannon on Dragnet , and Amos Coogan on Hec Ramsey...
, John Garfield
John Garfield
John Garfield was an American actor adept at playing brooding, rebellious, working-class character roles. He grew up in poverty in Depression-era New York City and in the early 1930s became an important member of the Group Theater. In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, eventually becoming one of Warner...
, Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb
Lee J. Cobb was an American actor. He is best known for his performance in 12 Angry Men his Academy Award-nominated performance in On the Waterfront and one of his last films, The Exorcist...
, Will Geer
Will Geer
Will Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....
, Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
, Howard Da Silva
Howard Da Silva
Howard Da Silva was an American actor.-Early life:He was born Howard Silverblatt in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Bertha Silverblatt. His parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia. He had a job as a steelworker before beginning his acting career on the stage...
and Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...
.
Working with the Federal Theater Project, he appeared in Stevedore in 1934, with various small roles following. His first major role in a seminal production came in Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
's so-called Voodoo Macbeth
Voodoo Macbeth
The Voodoo Macbeth is a common nickname for the Federal Theatre Project's 1936 New York production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, featuring an all-African American cast directed by Orson Welles...
(1936) for the Negro Theater Project, a division of the Federal Theatre Project
Federal Theatre Project
The Federal Theatre Project was a New Deal project to fund theatre and other live artistic performances in the United States during the Great Depression. It was one of five Federal One projects sponsored by the Works Progress Administration...
. Lee played Banquo
Banquo
Banquo is a character in William Shakespeare's 1606 play Macbeth. In the play, he is at first an ally to Macbeth and they are together when they meet the Three Witches. After prophesying that Macbeth will become king, the witches tell Banquo that he will not be king himself, but that his...
in this controversial production, which featured a Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an motif in the set, African-themed drumming and a black cast of over two hundred actors. The play's treatment of African-Americans proved controversial, and Lee is reported to have rescued Welles from angry protestors on two occasions.
After two more years of work in black theater and Theater Project productions, including the lead role in The Big White Fog, Lee reunited with Welles for the stage production of Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
's Native Son
Native Son
Native Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
. The 1941 production was a spectacular hit, both for Welles and for Lee, whom The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called "the greatest Negro actor of his era and one of the finest actors in the country." Wright also applauded the performance, noting the contrast between Lee's affable personality and his intensity as Bigger Thomas. The sympathetic portrayal of a black man driven to murder by racial hatred brought much criticism however, especially from the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes territory that was previously part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, was established as a separate diocese in 1853 when the City of Brooklyn was separate from New York City....
and the Legion of Decency, and the ensuing pressure forced the play to close in December 1942.
During World War II, Lee continued to act in plays and in films. In 1942, he played in two comedies by William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
; Lee earned approving reviews despite the generally negative response to these plays. In 1943, he took a lead role in a production of the race-themed drama South Pacific, which was directed by Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
, and concerned a cynical African-American soldier who had racially based reservations about fighting the Japanese. The following year, he became the first African-American to play Caliban in Margaret Webster
Margaret Webster
Margaret Webster was an American-born theater actress, producer and director. Through her parents, she held dual US/UK citizenship.-Career:...
’s 1945 Broadway rendition of The Tempest
The Tempest
The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1610–11, and thought by many critics to be the last play that Shakespeare wrote alone. It is set on a remote island, where Prospero, the exiled Duke of Milan, plots to restore his daughter Miranda to her rightful place,...
. Lee had admired Shakespeare since his turn in Macbeth; indeed, at the time of his death he was preparing to play Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
on film. The following year he participated in another milestone; George Rylands cast him as Bosola in a Broadway staging of John Webster
John Webster
John Webster was an English Jacobean dramatist best known for his tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi, which are often regarded as masterpieces of the early 17th-century English stage. He was a contemporary of William Shakespeare.- Biography :Webster's life is obscure, and the dates...
's The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi
The Duchess of Malfi is a macabre, tragic play written by the English dramatist John Webster in 1612–13. It was first performed privately at the Blackfriars Theatre, then before a more general audience at The Globe, in 1613-14...
: this was one of the first occasions on which a black actor portrayed a white character (Lee wore whiteface).
After the war, Lee continued to act. In 1946, he played a principal role in On Whitman Avenue, a drama about racial prejudice directed by Margo Jones
Margo Jones
Margo Jones was an influential American stage director and producer best known for launching the American regional theater movement and for introducing the theater-in-the-round concept in Dallas, Texas. In 1947, she established the first regional professional company when she opened Theatre ’47 in...
. Lee produced the play, making him the first African-American producer on Broadway; the play spoke directly to the need for interracial housing following WWII and won the praise of former First-Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote weekly columns encouraging readers to see it. Two years later, he played the part of an obedient slave in Let My People Go, a dramatization of the life of Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey originally Telemaque, was an African American slave brought to the United States from the Caribbean of Coromantee background. After purchasing his freedom, he planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States...
.
Film career
Lee made his screen debut in Keep Punching (1939), a film about boxing. Perhaps his most famous film role was in Alfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
's Lifeboat
Lifeboat (film)
Lifeboat is an American war film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story written by John Steinbeck. The film stars Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee, and is set entirely on a lifeboat.The film is...
(1944), in which he played a sailor. Lee insisted on changing his dialogue, which had been a semi-comical dialect typical of racist films. In 1947, he played a supporting role in Robert Rossen
Robert Rossen
Robert Rossen was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades. His 1949 film All the King's Men won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, while Rossen was nominated for an Oscar as Best Director...
's Body and Soul
Body and Soul (1947 film)
Body and Soul is a 1947 film noir which tells the story of a boxer who becomes involved with crooked promoters. It stars John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere and William Conrad....
, another boxing picture. In 1949, he took another supporting role in Lost Boundaries, a drama about passing
Passing (racial identity)
Racial passing refers to a person classified as a member of one racial group attempting to be accepted as a member of a different racial group...
. Lee's last film role was in Cry, the Beloved Country
Cry, the Beloved Country (1951 film)
Cry, the Beloved Country is a 1951 British drama film directed by Zoltán Korda. Based on the novel of the same name by Alan Paton, it stars Canada Lee and Charles Carson.-Selected cast:*Canada Lee as Stephen Kumalo*Charles Carson as James Jarvis...
(1951).
Along with his varied and successful stage and screen careers, Lee became the first African-American DJ on a major radio station hosting The Canada Lee Show, and would continue a successful and lengthy radio career as both actor and narrator. His dedication to the groundbreaking series New World A-Comin’, a radio show dedicated to presenting Negro history and culture to mainstream American audiences.
Civil rights activism
As an actor, Lee came into contact with many of the leading progressive figures in the country. Langston HughesLangston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, for instance, wrote two brief plays for Lee; these were submitted to the Theater Project, but their criticism of racism in America was deemed too controversial, and neither was staged. Lee spoke to schools, sponsored various humanitarian events, and began speaking directly against the existing segregation in America’s Armed Forces, while simultaneously acknowledging the need to win the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. To this latter end, he appeared at numerous USO
United Service Organizations
The United Service Organizations Inc. is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military, with programs in 160 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense , and has provided support and...
events; he won an award from the United States Recruiting Office and another from the Treasury Department for his help in selling war bonds. These sentiments would carry on throughout his life, culminating in his early firsthand account of apartheid in South Africa.
By the late 1940s, the rising tide of anti-Communism had made many of his earlier contacts politically dangerous. In 1949, the trade journal Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
stated that under no circumstance was he to be used in American Tobacco’s televised production of a radio play he had recently starred in because he was “too controversial.”
In the same year, the FBI offered to clear Lee’s name if he would publicly call Paul Robeson a Communist. Lee refused and responded by saying, “All you’re trying to do is split my race.” According to newspaper columnist Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell
Walter Winchell was an American newspaper and radio gossip commentator.-Professional career:Born Walter Weinschel in New York City, he left school in the sixth grade and started performing in a vaudeville troupe known as Gus Edwards' "Newsboys Sextet."His career in journalism was begun by posting...
, Lee stated that he intended to come out and “publicly blast Paul Robeson.” However, the fact that the friendship between the two actors remained until Lee's death suggests that Robeson put no faith in Winchell's claim.
At the height of the Hollywood blacklist
Hollywood blacklist
The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or...
, Lee managed to find work in 1950 as the star of a British film Cry, The Beloved Country
Cry, the Beloved Country (1951 film)
Cry, the Beloved Country is a 1951 British drama film directed by Zoltán Korda. Based on the novel of the same name by Alan Paton, it stars Canada Lee and Charles Carson.-Selected cast:*Canada Lee as Stephen Kumalo*Charles Carson as James Jarvis...
, for which both he and Sidney Poitier were smuggled into South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
as indentured servant
Indentured servant
Indentured servitude refers to the historical practice of contracting to work for a fixed period of time, typically three to seven years, in exchange for transportation, food, clothing, lodging and other necessities during the term of indenture. Usually the father made the arrangements and signed...
s in order to play their roles as African ministers. During filming he had his first heart attack, and he never fully recovered his health.
The film’s message of universal brotherhood stands as Lee's final work towards this aim; after it, the blacklist prevented him from getting work. Scheduled to appear in Italy to begin production on a filmed version of Othello, he was repeatedly notified that his passport “remained under review.”
Jack Geiger
Canada Lee met and was an influence on H. Jack GeigerH. Jack Geiger
H. Jack Geiger, MD, MSciHyg,is a founding member and past president of Physicians for Human Rights, a founding member and past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a founding member and past president of the Committee for Health in South Africa, and a founding member and national...
, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Physicians for Social Responsibility is the largest physician-led organization in the USA working to protect the public from the what they consider threats of nuclear proliferation, climate change, and environmental toxins...
. They met in 1940, when Geiger, a 14-year-old middle class Jewish runaway, was backstage at a Broadway production of Native Son. Lee agreed to take Geiger in when he showed up at his door in Harlem asking for a place to stay. Geiger stayed with Lee for over a year (with the consent of Geiger's parents), and Lee played the role of surrogate father. During his time with Lee, Geiger was introduced to people like Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, Billy Strayhorn
Billy Strayhorn
William Thomas "Billy" Strayhorn was an American composer, pianist and arranger, best known for his successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington lasting nearly three decades. His compositions include "Chelsea Bridge", "Take the "A" Train" and "Lush Life".-Early...
, Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, and Adam Clayton Powell. After many years of varied experiences and an on-going friendship with Lee, Geiger eventually became a journalist, then a doctor. He later went on to formulate the first community health center in the United States - Columbia Point
Columbia Point (Boston)
Columbia Point, later referred to as Harbor Point, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts sits on a peninsula jutting out from the mainland of eastern Dorchester into the bay.-History:...
Health Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is named after the town of Dorchester in the English county of Dorset, from which Puritans emigrated and is today endearingly nicknamed "Dot" by its residents. Dorchester, including a large...
.
Geiger would go on to become active in civil rights, to become the founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility, then Physicians for Human Rights
Physicians for Human Rights
Physicians for Human Rights was founded in 1986 by a small group of doctors who believed the unique scientific expertise and authority of health professionals could bring human rights violations to light and provide justice for victims...
, establishing community health centers in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, which would eventually lead to 900 community health care centers providing primary health care for more than 14 million low income people in the country. Geiger says he would never have moved so deeply in these worlds so quickly if not for his experiences with Canada Lee.
Family life
Lee was married twice and between the two marriages carried on a long-term love affair. In December 1925, he married Juanita Waller, by whom he had a son, the actor Carl Vincent LeeCarl Lee (actor)
Carl Lee , born Carl Vincent Canegata, was an African-American actor. He was also the son of late pioneering African American actor/professional boxer Canada Lee .-Career:...
. They were divorced during the controversy over Native Son
Native Son
Native Son is a novel by American author Richard Wright. The novel tells the story of 20-year-old Bigger Thomas, an African American living in utter poverty. Bigger lived in Chicago's South Side ghetto in the 1930s...
.
In 1934, he began a love affair with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby despite the threat of miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws
Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that enforced racial segregation at the level of marriage and intimate relationships by criminalizing interracial marriage and sometimes also sex between members of different races...
. They often had lunch in uptown New York in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
at the then new restaurant Franks where they could maintain their secret relationship. When Lee was performing in Washington D.C during the 1940s, the only restaurant in Washington D.C. where they could eat together was an African restaurant named the Bugazi. Crosby and Lee's intimate relationship continued into the mid-1940s. In March 1951 Lee married Frances Pollack and they remained together until he died just over a year later.
Death
He died of a heart attack on May 9, 1952 in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
Selected filmography
- LifeboatLifeboat (film)Lifeboat is an American war film directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a story written by John Steinbeck. The film stars Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Heather Angel, Hume Cronyn and Canada Lee, and is set entirely on a lifeboat.The film is...
(19441944 in filmThe year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....
) - Body and SoulBody and Soul (1947 film)Body and Soul is a 1947 film noir which tells the story of a boxer who becomes involved with crooked promoters. It stars John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere and William Conrad....
(19471947 in filmThe year 1947 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*May 22 - Great Expectations is premiered in New York.*November 24 : The United States House of Representatives of the 80th Congress voted 346 to 17 to approve citations for contempt of Congress against the "Hollywood Ten".*November 25...
) - Cry, The Beloved CountryCry, The Beloved CountryCry, the Beloved Country is a novel by South African author Alan Paton. It was first published in New York City in 1948 by Charles Scribner's Sons and in London by Jonathan Cape; noted American publisher Bennett Cerf remarked at that year's meeting of the American Booksellers Association that there...
(19521952 in filmThe year 1952 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 10 - Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
)
Additional reading
- Hill, Erroll. Shakespeare in Sable: A History of Black Shakespearean Actors. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.
- Leiter, Samuel. Encyclopedic Dictionary of the New York Stage, 1940-1950. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.
- Smith, Mona Z., Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee, London: Faber and Faber 2004. ISBN 0-571-21142-9
- Rampersad, ArnoldArnold RampersadArnold Rampersad is a biographer and literary critic. The first volume of his Life Of Langston Hughes was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He was born in Trinidad and Tobago....
. The Life of Langston Hughes. 2 Volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. - Woll, Allen. Dictionary of the Black Theatre: Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Selected Harlem Theatre. New York: Greenwood Press, 1983.
External links
- His page Canada Lee's Homepage
- Biography at the African-American Registry
- Website for the documentary 'Blacklist: Recovering the Life of Canada Lee
- Website for Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee by Mona Z. Smith
- This American Life episode in which Jack Geiger, a middle class Jewish kid, tells his story of becoming friends with Canada Lee and how his influence changed Jack's life
- http://bfeldman68.blogspot.com/2008/03/canada-lee.html "Canada Lee" folk song lyrics