No Surrender! No Retreat!

No Surrender! No Retreat! No Surrender! No Retreat! African American Pioneer Performers ofTwentieth~Century American Theater Glenda E. Gill Palgrave Macmillan NO SURRENDER! NO RETREAT! Copyright © 2000 Glenda E. Gill. All rights reserved. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-312-21757-0 No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. ISBN 978-1-349-62002-9 ISBN 978-1-137-05361-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-05361-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data to be found at the Library of Congress. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First edition: April 2000 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 To the memory of my mother and father, Olivia Dunlop Gill and Melvin Leo Gill Sr. and to the memory of my maternal grandparents, Sanford Lee and Lu9' Tandy Dunlop Until the lions have their own historian, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. -Kenyan proverb Table of Contents Preface and Personal Memoir xi Foreword by Daniel Lamer XV Acknowledgements XlX Chapter I What Shall the Negro Dance About? 1 Chapter II Crucible and Community: The Vision of Rose McClendon 21 Chapter III The Silencing of Paul Robeson 35 Chapter IV Measure Her Right: The Tragedy of Ethel Waters 59 ChapterV Marian Anderson: A Serene Spirit 75 Chapter VI Five Interpreters of Porgy and Bess 91 Chapter VII Swifter than a Weaver's Shuttle: The Days of Canada Lee 107 Chapter VIII Pearl Bailey: The Black Dolly Gallagher Levi 137 Chapter IX Ossie and Ruby are One! 151 Chapter X James Earl Jones: "My Soul Looks Back , and Wonders How I Got Over 173 Chapter XI Morgan Freeman's Resistance and Non-Traditional Roles 193 Chapter XII Has Anything Changed? 205 Index 219 Preface and Personal Memoir n 15 April 1999, distinguished African American actor Charles S. 0 Dutton exclaimed on national television, "Theatre advances civi lization!" I have written this book with that credo as a motivat ing factor. My passion for the theatre began when I was five years old, and I was growing up on "The Hill" at Alabama A. and M. College, at Normal, where my mother, Olivia Dunlop Gill, was a professor in the Department of Business, and my father, Melvin Leo Gill, Sr., a postmaster. We had a host of top-drawer artists and first-rate speakers who came to campus from the time I was five until I left at age 30, for good. It was the greatest artistic feast from which I have partaken in my life-Marian An derson, Talley Beatty, Carol Brice, Dorothy Maynor, Langston Hughes, The Shakespearean Players of Catholic University, Pearl Primus, Adam Clayton Powell,Jr.-an amazing array. Except for the summer of 1961 and one year (1962-63), during which I attended Wisconsin-Madison, I spent 25 years of my life at Alabama A. and M., and went from the first grade through my senior year in college there. I also taught for two years at Councill Train ing High School, the laboratory school for A. and M., and in 1963 began my teaching career at A. and M. At the age of five, I played Little Emily in Thornton Wilder's Our Town; Eunice (Warren) Moore was the grown-up Emily. I return from the dead to celebrate my twelfth birthday. While at the time I most looked forward to eating the bacon Lillie Webb, a college student, prepared for my stage breakfast, in more mature years, I realize the importance of valuing" clocks ticking" and "warm baths" while I live. Acting in plays and teaching drama have taught me many lessons. I have written this book not just because I have been fascinated with theatre all of my life, but because I am equally interested in justice and pos itive social change. While not every person in this series of mini biogra phies is an activist, many are. Paul Robeson, according to Charles S. Dutton, "made more money than the President of the United States," yet he sacrificed his career, his family, and his health for the sake of dignity and xii No Surrender' No Retreat! respect. Most African Americans, regardless of profession, have something in common with those whose lives appear in this collection. In many ways, I write about the universal human condition-the sheer tenacity, good will, and courage that it takes to live. I also write for the 18-year-old brilliant white male student currently en rolled in my HU352 18th Century and Restoration class who came into my office yesterday and asked, as he saw Black llliOmen in America, edited by Dar lene Hine (Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing, Inc., 1993) on top of my file cab inet, "Do you write only about black people?" And I think of those Caucasian children, aged eight to ten, in Mobile, Alabama, this morning, in terviewed on ABC's Good Morning America who said, "Black people murder more." I also write for those students in and out of my classes who under stand the worth, already, of all in the human race, and that all races have both good and some very flawed people, as well as achievements and struggles. I write this book also because, in my own acting experiences with the Alabama A. and M. Thespians, I came to understand the power of theatre. The late and extraordinary]. Preston Cochran cast me, starting when I was 12 years old, in adult roles. I was Reba, the maid, in Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It with You; Talton Rosser played Grandpa Vanderhof. I was also Mazie, a maid, in George Kelly's Craig's Wife, with Dora Scruggs in the title role. Sometimes some black directors can perceive black women as maids as much as some white directors. After protesting my maid status to a black director at an all-black college, I got better roles. I have always had a low tolerance for accepting less than I felt I deserved, even though I was there by]. P.'s graces, to begin with. I was not yet a college student. Cochran was generous to cast me at all. At the age of 14, I played Mrs. Bradman in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, also directed by]. Preston Cochran. It was the first time I had seen a seance conducted; it was also the last. I was Stella Carlisle, a rather meaty role of a has-been actress in a summer production Cochran mounted of Rehearsal for Death. For that, I wore a flaming red dress. I graduated from high school at age 16 and moved up "The Hill" to college. I auditioned my freshman year for the Thespians. I hoped that lessons were learned and that there was an aesthetic ap preciation for drama when an audience saw me play the evil housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca directed by Fannie Ella Fra zier Hicklin. Mrs. Danvers sets the house on fire rather than serve the sec ond wife of Maxim de Winter, played in our 1956 production by Emily Veale. Edward Harris was de Winter. Rebecca, the first wife, has died. Mrs. Danvers had an obsession with Rebecca. I fully realized how good a part I had been given when I saw Judith Anderson play the role in a 1940 pro- Preface and Personal Memoir xiii duction after I moved to Houghton, Michigan, in the 1990s. I was also the Princess of San Luca in Alberto Casella's Death Takes a Holiday, also di rected by Dr. Hicklin. I understood the archetype of the Cannibal Mother who devours her son when I was the wealthy Mrs. Phelps in Sidney Howard's The Silver Cord, directed by Fannie Ella Frazier Hicklin in 1957 at Alabama A. and M. As my younger son, Robert, played by Charles Ray, knelt at my feet as a swift final curtain closed, I hoped that those like Mrs. Phelps in the au dience might change. I had, clad in my mother's silver fox furs, played a very self-absorbed woman, bent on smothering two sons, but managing, successfully, to break the engagement of one. I came to understand how vastly different the white world was as I left an all-black college campus in 1962, on Alabama Out of State Aid for Ne groes, to attend one heavily white, the University ofWisconsin-Madison. My second summer at Madison, without hesitation, I auditioned for a part. Initially, I played a maid role, Cleota, in Thurber's The Male Animal, di rected by Lowell Manfull, and then several bit parts in Brecht's Galileo, di rected by the late Ronald Mitchell. The resources at Madison were vastly different from those at Alabama A. and M. We had a paid head usher at Madison who happened to be African American. Madison's Union Theatre, perched on splendid Lake Mendota, and built in 1939, was listed at the 1940 San Francisco World's Fair as "one of the twenty-five most distinguished buildings in the world." It seated 1300 and remains an architectural wonder. At Alabama A. and M. we had performed on the stage of Bibb Graves Auditorium, in a classroom and office building. Our dressing room, unlike the ones at Madison, was Rev. Bradford's adjacent office, which we hoped we would not upset.

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