Kevin Costner Needed HAIR LOVE

If you have not seen the short animated feature called HAIR LOVE, a few minutes of gorgeous joy are missing from your life. When I first saw it last year, I thought "This has GOT to win an Oscar." Matthew A. Cherry has given us lovely valentine to African American fatherhood and daughters. Thank you, Matthew Cherry.

Do yourself a favor now and watch HAIR LOVE from Sony Pictures Animation.

There was a movie back in 2015 that most folks ignored at the box office. It had no special effects. No caped superheroes. No car chases. Just average Southern California people dealing with loss, heartbreak, social class and race. Black and white folks. And they're related. This movie starred Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer. We see Octavia after she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for THE HELP and before she and Costner were reunited for HIDDEN FIGURES.

The first film Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer made together was 2015's BLACK OR WHITE. At the end, I found myself wishing that someone would come up with a quality script that would have Costner and Spencer as a married couple. Those two actors hit a cool groove together onscreen in BLACK OR WHITE. The movie is not bad. It's satisfactory. Their chemistry, however, is above average and kept me watching. Watch this trailer and you will see why I feel Kevin Costner's character needed to see HAIR LOVE.

There you have it. Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer were giving us MIXED-ish years before MIXED-ish became an ABC sitcom. Have a good day -- and take care of the hair.

See THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US

You need to see this series about diversity  and the long, long attempts by black talents to break through the high and thick color barriers in the entertainment industry. This struggle is not just here in the U.S. You'll hear from talent in Great Britain too. Now on Netflix, the name of the series is THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US. Artists in it who tell their stories and give their comments include Harry Belafonte, Whoopi Goldberg, Laurence Fishburne, Don Cheadle, director/actress Kasi Lemmons, director/writer Barry Jenkins, John Boyega and the late Diahann Carroll and John Singleton. I'm pretty sure this series premiered in Great Britain last year. A buddy in London sent me a clip and I was eager to see the whole show. You'll see a representation of British talent giving comments. Earl Cameron, who did some breakthrough British film work, is now 102. The celebrities you'll see in the first hour are candid and revealing. This is history you need to hear.

Look at the 20 current Oscar nominated actors. Last year, there were marvelous film performances from Eddie Murphy, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Wesley Snipes in the warm and wise comedy biopic, DOLEMITE IS MY NAME.  

                                                       

     

In the Southern California horror thriller, US, there was a powerful dual role performance from Lupita Nyong'o. In CLEMENCY, Alfre Woodward is riveting as the prison warden dealing with men on death row and a marriage that losing its life. One black person is nominated -- Cynthia Erivo for HARRIET, the story of American hero Harriet Tubman and directed by Kasi Lemmons.

To get work, to get seen, to break stereotypes and be included. We are trying to make changes and be part of the conversation -- not just be talked about.  As I write this, I'm watching GOOD MORNING AMERICA. It's Friday. The Oscars are Sunday. ABC's entertainment news anchor, Chris Connelly, just did a segment covering a new study on diversity on screen and behind the camera. He interviewed Cynthia Erivo, the lone black actor up for an Oscar. I don't mean this as a slam against Connelly. However, this is the 3rd year in a row I've seen him, a white gentlemen, talk about Hollywood diversity, or the lack thereof, at Oscar time. In the past, he did not mention some major Black History made in Oscar nominations. It's my opinion that there should be a black/Latino veteran entertainment news contributor with him at Oscar time to add some extra substance, awareness and color to his diversity segments.

The Hollywood credo was "Black Stories Don't Sell." Black filmmakers were disadvantaged by it. That credo also handicapped black actors seeking agents. If black actors were not sought for work as much as white actors were, agents were unenthusiastic about signing black talent -- figuring they could make a larger 10% commission off a white film/TV performer. It's been a struggle for black actors and filmmakers to keep their history, their stories, their skills from being overlooked, ignored or treated as disposable. Today, it's imperative we defy all that and tell our own stories. Here's a look at THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US. The first hour takes us from Hattie McDaniel winning a breakthrough Oscar for 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND to the colossal box office success of BLACK PANTHER.

The first episode is one-hour long and Harry Belafonte opens it with his sage observations about race in the Hollywood system. He praises the late Joan Fontaine (above) who played his love interest in the 1957 20th Century Fox film, ISLAND IN THE SUN. Fontaine, an Oscar winning star, got racial hate mail for showing a romantic interest in Belafonte onscreen.

Diahann Carroll gets candid about her affair with Sidney Poitier.

Director Norman Jewison. He's not it but this info is relevant. His IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1967. He want to a film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play, A SOLDIER'S PLAY to be retitled A SOLDIER'S STORY for film. Hollywood studios turned Jewison down saying "Black stories don't sell" and his project had a predominantly black cast. He worked for way less than his usual fee and got the money to shoot it. (Jewison also directed THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR). Robert Townsend was in the 1984 military drama movie and he talks about it.

Back in 1997, after an interview, I asked Spike Lee if he'd like to direct something like BATMAN. He said, "I'd love to direct a BATMAN movie. But Warner Bros. would never let me." Keep that in mind when you hear the actors talk about working with Spike and making 1992's MALCOLM X for Warner Bros.

The memorable Oscars moment when we all discovered that the real winner of the Best Picture Oscar was  LA LA LAND MOONLIGHT was, in a way, symbolic. Damien Chazelle, the young writer and director of LA LA LAND, was the new "It" guy of movies. Critics were raving about his musical. Meanwhile,  I noticed that Black Twitter had started buzzing and praising a new indie film called MOONLIGHT. The buzz and praise began to build thanks to black/Latino critics whose names were not in large newspaper ads next to rave review quotes about LA LA LAND. Black Barry Jenkins, co-writer/director of MOONLIGHT, was not getting the TV exposure that white filmmaker Damien Chazelle got. Then came Oscar night.

MOONLIGHT snatched the Oscar for Best Picture of 2016. Barry Jenkins is another filmmaker who was told black stories don't sell.

THEY'VE GOTTA HAVE US -- enlightening, infuriating, accurate. Check it out on Netflix.

Kirk Douglas Made My Day

Movies starring Kirk Douglas were a memorable part of my youth as I grew up in South Central Los Angeles. My all-time favorite family pastime was when we packed into dad's big Plymouth and went to the drive-in movies. To me, from the time I was learning how to read in school, seeing movies at the drive-in was always a magical experience. And a bargain. Two movies plus a cartoon and coming attractions for a low ticket price. Kids under 12 got in free. Mom and Dad were Kirk Douglas fans. We saw him in Disney's "squid pro quo" adventure, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA.

If I was too young to understand the maturity the film's action, I was thrilled to see the movie and I could tell if it was important by the way my parents reacted to it. Kirk Douglas movies, at the drive-in and on TV, were entertainment and an education. My parents were the first -- and still the only -- people who said that SPARTACUS had relevance to the Civil Rights movement.

We saw it when the movement was in full action. Spartacus is a slave leading a revolt again oppression and bigotry. He and his followers are treated as equals or as humans. They're treated like animals. In the relationship of Spartacus and his wife, we discover their humanity. With America's history of slavery and the Civil Rights movement, my parents were absolutely correct. We also went to the drive-in to see TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. I didn't understand that one when I was a kid, but it sure was cool to watch. Mom and Dad talked about SEVEN DAYS IN MAY a lot after we saw it. They found that political thriller fascinating.

Mom coaxed my sister, our little brother and me to watch a Kirk Douglas movie with her when it aired on network TV. The movie was LUST FOR LIFE. That was my introduction to the biography and art of Vincent van Gogh. It sparked enough interest in me to seek out picture books with van Gogh paintings at our neighborhood library.

On TV, I was a thoroughly happy kid watching Kirk Douglas in YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, DETECTIVE STORY and, especially, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL. Man, how I love that 1952 Vincente Minnelli Hollywood-on-Hollywood film with Douglas as a gifted yet manipulative movie producer.

I was also keen on THE BIG CARNIVAL. Billy Wilder's prescient journalism smackdown aired on local L.A. television a lot. It was a public domain feature that had been retitled. It was a flop with critics and movie audiences when released in 1951. Now remastered, restored and considered a classic, it's available with its original title -- ACE IN THE HOLE. 

In college, I came to appreciate Kubrick's PATHS OF GLORY and Douglas' modern-day western, LONELY ARE THE BRAVE. I was captivated at how Douglas could pull off almost primitive masculine outbursts and also express tender, vulnerable emotions. Look at the jealous. unsympathetic outbursts that ruin his marriage in William Wyler's DETECTIVE STORY. Look at how he plays his relationship with the overly macho Gauguin in Minnelli's LUST FOR LIFE like a gay male marriage that he's desperately trying to hold together. Douglas plays the relationship (opposite brawny Anthony Quinn) as if they're in a romantic domestic partnership.

September 12, 1988 was an extremely special Monday for me. I had my own half-hour weeknight celebrity entertainment talk show on VH1. It was a prime time Monday through Friday show that premiered on September 12th.

My first and only guest for the premiere edition was Kirk Douglas. We'd taped it the previous week. The taping day was wonderful and nerve-wracking. Kirk Douglas showed up early. Two days early at our studios on West 57th Street across from CBS. He was schedule for noon on Thursday. He arrived for noon on Tuesday. We had just done a lighting and sound check on the set and were about to break for lunch, when I got a call from the receptionist in the lobby. She whispered into the phone "Can you hear me? Kirk Douglas is here. Alone. In the lobby." I said, "He's not booked until Thursday." She replied, "You want me to tell Spartacus to go home?"

Of course not. I dashed into the studio. Told our great crew that Spartacus was early and in the lobby. They all postponed lunch and prepared to tape my show with Kirk Douglas. My love and knowledge of his films and co-stars carried me through as we also discussed his book, THE RAGMAN'S SON. When I got to the lobby to greet him, I saw that he was indeed solo. No publicist. No entourage. He had his itinerary and showed it to me. I realized his mistake -- which I never told him was a mistake. He mistook a handwritten "Th" for a "Tu" and, thus, figured he was due Tuesday. He was gracious, charming and complimented that our young crew was aware of his old movies. He had Old Hollywood class and charisma. You could tell he was quite at ease with his Hollywood legend status.

Here's a clip of him on my VH1 show talking about his son, Michael Douglas.

Here's a short reel with another clip of Kirk Douglas from our VH1 interview. He's up after Norman Mailer.

I never forget how lucky I was to work on VH1. Three of the best years of my career. I was never, ever offered another national talk show host opportunity. And I really wanted another talk show host opportunity.  I loved that VH1 job and the crew. I will always cherish my time with Kirk Douglas.

One more thing. Kirk Douglas starred in a 1979 comedy western called THE VILLAIN. Ann-Margret and Arnold Schwarzenegger co-starred. It's not one of Douglas' better efforts. He plays a bank robber and the movie basically is a stretched out version of a Warner Bros. Yosemite Sam cartoon. But, one hour into the story, the film is completely stolen by Paul Lynde on horseback as a Native American Indian Chief called Nervous Elk. I live to hear Nervous Elk, on horseback, say "White woman is crazy."

I Feel Like Nicholson in CHINATOWN

I told myself that I wouldn't, but I watched anyway. I grew up in a house with parents who urged me to pay attention to current events. That included watching the State of the Union address -- even when the president represented the opposite party. Mom and Dad were Democrats. I am too. Last night, I was a livid American as I watched.

To see a Presidential Medal of Freedom be bestowed upon radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, was an insult to Lady Liberty. There are audio clips of him making racist comments on his show, making racially offensive comments about Barack Obama and Mexicans and mocking the physically disabled actor, Michael J. Fox. And there's more. Furthermore, I can't take any more of Sen. Mitch McConnell praising and supporting the millionaire former reality TV game show host currently living in the White House. I was on summer vacation from school decades ago and watched President Nixon resign on live network television. The shadiness of this current administration, its abuse of power, makes Nixon's seem like Tracy Flick's high school election campaign in the 1999 satire, ELECTION.

All those politicians on the Hill who are in the Cult of the Orange One -- and the Orange One himself -- make me feel like the 1930s private investigator J.J. Gittes in CHINATOWN when he grills the wealthy and corrupt California businessman Noah Cross with "Why are you doing it? What can you buy that you couldn't already afford?"

THE OSCAR Has Cheese to Please

This all-star Hollywood-on-Hollywood movie is brilliantly bad. Something that should be on a double bill with SNAKES ON A PLANE or VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. I'm talking about the 1966 drama, THE OSCAR, starring the handsome and underappreciated Stephen Boyd as a ruthless actor nominated for an Oscar. He uses and abuses friends and Hollywood industry figures so he can win the Oscar. No actor in THE OSCAR got an Academy Award nomination for the film -- but Edith Head got a well-deserved nomination for the fabulous fashions she designed for Jill St. John, Elke Sommer and Eleanor Parker, among others, to wear. I saw THE OSCAR at the movies when it was new. I was in middle school and a Stephen Boyd fan. 1959's BEN-HUR got 11 Oscar nominations. I still feel today that should have received 12. Stephen Boyd should've been in the Best Supporting Actor category for his "loved HUR, hated him" performance as Ben-Hur's former best friend-turned rival. By then, my deep film love was known in the family. I entered a local radio contest and I was one of the winners. I won tickets for family members and me to attend a sneak preview screening on the 20th Century Fox lot of the sci-fi fantasy thriller, FANTASTIC VOYAGE starring Stephen Boyd and Raquel Welch. I still have the 8x10 autographed photo of Raquel Welch that I got. Mom, my sister, our little brother and I had big fun on the Fox lot seeing FANTASTIC VOYAGE. On a Saturday afternoon, Mom let me go to the movies alone to see THE OSCAR. She drove me to the local theater and told me she'd pick me up after the show. If we'd had a middle school newspaper, and I'd have written reviews for it, I would've given THE OSCAR two out of four stars. A line in my review would've been "Oy. Two hours of my life that I could've spent in my room doing homework. This movie is a colorful waste of time. And talent." Since then, I have seen it several times -- mostly during the week heading into the Oscars telecast on network TV. It's so bad, it's good for laughs at pre-Oscars festivities.

Not only that. I'd memorized some of the cheesy dialogue. Tony Bennett (yes, THAT Tony Bennett) made his film acting debut in THE OSCAR. The 1966 potboiler also marks the last acting role Bennett ever did in a film. He plays Hymie Kelly, the former best friend of Frankie Fane, asshole actor. Hymie, at the Oscars, flashes back to the real story of how Frankie clawed his way to the top from working in low bars and getting in trouble with the law.  There's history in THE OSCAR. The story happens when the Oscars were still held in Santa Monica. Later, they moved to downtown L.A. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. My favorite line of bad dialogue was spoken by Bennett. In the late 80s, he was a guest on VH1. I had to meet him. My parents had his albums, I grew up loving his records, and I just had to shake his hand. I broke him up laughing when I did my imitation of him as Hymie Kelly in his big dramatic scene saying "She died under the knife! She died having your baby!"

Elke Sommer plays the woman who believes she can change and redeem Frankie. Her hairstyles must have inspired future Southern mothers of little girls they'd enter into pageant competition. We would see similar hairdos styled on the heads of 10-year old girls named Amber and Tiffani.

I wasn't kidding about the all-star cast in this movie. THE OSCAR stars Steven Boyd, Elke Sommer, Eleanor Parker, Jill St. John, Edie Adams, Ernest Borgnine, Joseph Cotten, Milton Berle, Merle Oberon, Peter Lawford and Walter Brennan. This movie was a Joseph E. Levine production. Levine was a guy who believed that "sex sells." His movies usually had sex and this one was no exception. There's sex, broken hearts, some good acting and a cowpie of a script. The Oscars are this coming Sunday. Now for a clip from the brilliantly bad 1966 movie I'll be watching later this week before Sunday. Here's Stephen Boyd with Jean Hale.

The screenplay was co-written by Harlan Ellison.

There's a current article about THE OSCAR in The New Yorker magazine. The movie's now available on home video and comedian/actor Patton Oswalt viewed it for the article entitled "The Return of THE OSCAR, an Unseeable, Unwatchable Flop."

Well... it was a flop. It's not a good movie. But it's so chock full of Hollywood cheese that it is watchable. It's a camp classic. It's not great, yet it sure is memorable. Especially that final scene.

THE OSCAR is now available here:  www.kinolorber.com.

About QUEEN & SLIM

This post is, in a way, a bookend to my previous one. The post previous one is about the groundbreaking African American playwright and screenwriter, Lorraine Hansberry. Hansberry, a Civil Rights activist and a lesbian, wrote the 1961 screenplay adaptation of her hit play. For a black person, especially a black woman, to get an onscreen card in the opening credits that had her name -- and her name alone -- under the words "Screen Play By" was a huge and historic achievement in a production from a top Hollywood studio. This weekend, I saw the 2019 drama QUEEN & SLIM, released by Universal. The credits roll at the end of the movie. There is a single card onscreen that reads "Screenplay By Lena Waithe." Another huge achievement from another talented black lesbian writer in a production from a top Hollywood studio. QUEEN & SLIM was directed by Melina Matsoukas. What an impressive job she did. QUEEN & SLIM is her first feature-length film.

Someone might describe this as a "Black Lives Matter" movie, but it's more than that. BOYZ N THE HOOD, the 1991 classic from director John Singleton took place in the modern-day South Central Los Angeles, where I grew up. Nonetheless, at its heart, BOYZ N THE HOOD is a modern-day equivalent of a classic John Ford western -- a western like THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.  In QUEEN & SLIM, we meet two young African American adults on an achingly innocent first date in a diner. As he escorts her home, they're pulled over by a white cop. Slim is a responsible young man. Almost pleasantly boring. He doesn't drink. There's no drug substance in his car. No weapon. Just a pocketknife in the glove compartment. Queen, by the way, is a lawyer. The cop gets increasingly aggressive as he questions Slim and orders him out of the car. The situation turns ugly. The cop ignores Queen who identifies herself as an attorney and requests his badge number and name. Things get uglier. Two shots are fired. She's wounded. The cop is dead. This is a first date that would make folks swear off Tinder forever.

The two black characters must flee and this becomes a road movie. On the road from Ohio to Florida, they will find family dysfunction, violence, disappointment, support and love. They will discover things about themselves and each other. This story could've been a classic western with a more psychological depth than the standard old Hollywood westerns. Think of William Wellman's THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, Fred Zinnemann's HIGH NOON and Martin Ritt's HOMBRE.  It could've also been a film set in an earlier decade while also being an ode to a certain genre -- like Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE in 1967. Penn's hit film about two real-life Depression-era outlaws was a Warner Bros. release. In the 1930s, Warner Bros. was the king studio for gangster movies and other "crime doesn't pay" stories. James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart all had machine gun duty in some 1930s Depression era films from Warner Bros.  Lena Waithe's screenplay is tough, tender, smart, relevant and, at times, funny. The direction is economical and intelligent. Two young black people are on the run in a car. They feel hunted and trapped. Yet notice how often they appear to be free. Theirs is often the only vehicle on the road -- the long, long road. Melina Matsoukas doesn't fill the frame with excess. She lets space exist around people and between people.

The opening scene is one of wit and revelation. Queen and Slim sit facing each other at a diner table. They've just received their orders. She makes an exasperated face as he folds his hand and says a rather long silent grace before his meal. She claims to be an atheist. We learn that Tinder brought them together. She's understandably a bit tense and critical because of work. A client of hers was executed. She abhors the death penalty. She points out to him that he ordered scrambled eggs but got them over easy instead. She wants the waitress to correct it. He casually lets it go because he's acquainted with the waitress. He knows she's working hard to raise four kids and has an alcoholic husband. He likes the diner because he supports black-owned businesses. Queen and Slim are played by Jodie Turner-Smith and (from GET OUT) Daniel Kaluuya. Here's a trailer.

Flea, the Red Hot Chili Peppers band member, has a supporting role in this film. He's very good as a sympathetic friend to the pair on the run. He was also very good as the homophobic and verbally abusive gay conversion therapy staff member in the 2018 film, BOY ERASED. As for Waithe's screenwriting wit, there's one scene that really broke me up. The two are early in their getaway journey. They stop at a fast food joint and give a mouthy little boy some cash so he'll buy them some food. He can keep the change. A minor accident occurs. It's a scene that adds another bite of racial significance to the story while also giving you a flavor of BONNIE AND CLYDE meets SANFORD AND SON.

Writer, actress, producer Lena Waithe has got the gift. So does QUEEN & SLIM director Melina Matsoukas. QUEEN & SLIM is tense, moving, well-acted entertainment.

Black History Month and A RAISIN IN THE SUN

February is Black History Month. Early this morning on Twitter, I saw a posting that included a photo of GONE WITH THE WIND star, Hattie McDaniel. Above it: "In honor of Black History Month, I'll be recognizing many of the African-Americans who have won Oscars." McDaniel was the first black performer ever nominated for an Oscar and the first to win. She played "Mammy" in GONE WITH THE WIND. The Twitter post was from @ EveryOscarEver. I appreciate the attention. However, if you've read my posts, you know that I feel that kind of attention would be stronger if it included the other side of the story, a reason why we need Black History Month. We need it because our history is often unnoticed, ignored or discarded. Yes, Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Oscar. She was also the first in a long, frustratingly long line of talented black women who were nominated for Oscars, mostly in the Best Supporting Actress category, and never got a second nomination because Hollywood wasn't/isn't a kingdom of equal opportunities. Many of those black actresses turned to TV for steady employment. Among the one-time only black female Oscar nominees: Hattie McDaniel, Ethel Waters, Dorothy Dandridge, Juanita Moore, Cicely Tyson, Diana Ross, Diahann Carroll, Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, Taraji P. Henson, Gabourey Sidibe, Beah Richards, Jennifer Hudson, Lupita Nyong'o and -- late in her career -- Ruby Dee, star of A RAISIN IN THE SUN.

A RAISIN IN THE SUN was written by the trailblazing African American playwright, Lorraine Hansberry. Ruby Dee was a member of the original Broadway cast, the cast that repeated its performances in the 1961 film adaptation. The movie was a Columbia Pictures production. 1961's A RAISIN IN THE SUN has one of the Oscar-nomination worthy performances Dee delivered in her film career. Ruby Dee's one nomination, in the Best Supporting Actress category, was for 2007's AMERICAN GANGSTER. Here she is with Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands and Claudia McNeil in 1961's A RAISIN IN THE SUN.

Right now, Scarlett Johansson is going into Oscars Sunday with two nominations. She's up in the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories. Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence has four Oscar nominations to her credit and she's only 29. But, then, she didn't have to turn to TV for steady work after her first Oscar nomination.

If @ EveryOscarEver wanted to salute African American women nominated for Best Actress, one for each day of Black History Month, he/she wouldn't have enough for a whole two weeks. As of now, only one black woman has won the Oscar for Best Actress -- Halle Berry for the 2001 drama, MONSTER'S BALL.

The Oscars ceremony has been pushed way up this year. The show next weekend, Sunday Feb. 9th. We have 20 actors nominated for Oscars -- Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress. There's only one black nominee -- British actress/singer Cythia Erivo for HARRIET. Did Academy members just not see Eddie Murphy, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Wesley Snipes gives us comedy excellence in DOLEMITE IS MY NAME? Did they not see the dual dramatic role Lupita Nyong'o rocked in US? And I guess they just never played their screeners of HUSTLERS to see Jennifer Lopez play her financially-savvy stripper role as intelligently as Leonardo DiCaprio played his Wall Street character in 2013's WOLF OF WALL STREET. The fact that Alfre Woodard is not in the Best Actress category for her prison warden role in CLEMENCY makes me want to weep.

Here's some Hollywood history: The first black performer nominated for an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel for 1939's GONE WITH THE WIND. The second was Ethel Waters for playing a retired, uneducated domestic worker down South in the 1949 race drama, PINKY, directed by Elia Kazan.

In between those years, the next performer to receive an Oscar nomination for playing a dark-skinned black character was a white actress from England. I kid you not. Did you ever see William Wyler's 1939 classic, WUTHERING HEIGHTS? Remember the sad housekeeper in the first 20 minutes who sits and tells the story of Cathy and Heathcliff that we see in flashback? That actress was Flora Robson. Robson also played Queen Elizabeth I in THE SEA HAWK opposite Errol Flynn. She was about as white as Frosty the Snowman. But Warner Bros. put her in a Hollywood make-up chair, slapped some dark cosmetics on her, and she played the strict Haitian maid to Ingrid Bergman's character in the 1945 costume drama SARATOGA TRUNK.

If the role was good enough to get a woman an Oscar nomination, why didn't Hollywood let a black actress like Theresa Harris (BABY FACE, JEZEBEL, BUCK BENNY RIDES AGAIN) or Dorothy Dandridge (SUN VALLEY SERENADE, LADY FROM LOUISIANA, SUNDOWN) play the black maid? The first black male actor to receive an Oscar was James Baskett. It was an Honorary Oscar for his performance as Uncle Remus in Disney's SONG OF THE SOUTH. It's a live action/animation musical set on a plantation. Baskett sang "Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah" which won the Oscar for Best Song of 1946 and became Disney's theme song for decades until it was replaced by "Let It Go" from FROZEN. Baskett sang another number in SONG OF THE SOUTH that was covered by pop vocalists. It's the jaunty "Sooner or Later" (You're Gonna Be Comin' Around). He sang it in a duet with Hattie McDaniel, seen in the movie as the plantation cook and friend to Uncle Remus. In the list of the top grossing U.S. films of 1946, Disney's SONG OF THE SOUTH was number one.

Now for something I'm proud to point out during Black History Month. This is something I never, ever hear mentioned by the white hosts on movie channels who highlight the film accomplishments of black talent during Black History Month. I never, ever hear it mentioned by hosts in June when they honor LGBTQ images and accomplishments in film during Gay Pride Month. We need to recognize and praise this about the late, great Lorraine Hansberry.

The Chicago native saw her play produced on Broadway in 1959.  In 1961, the Columbia Pictures film adaptation of her A RAISIN IN THE SUN opened. In the opening credits, one card onscreen reads "Based On The Play By Lorraine Hansberry."  A few seconds later, we see this:

It's 1961. The Civil Rights Movement is in action. Black folks are demanding the right to vote, the right to a decent education, the right to marry outside their race. Interracial marriage was still illegal in several American states. Lorraine Hansberry was young, gifted, black -- and a lesbian. She was openly gay. How many black people by that time -- male or female, straight or gay -- had ever seen their name on a movie screen alone under the words "Screen Play By" in huge letters -- and in a film released by a major Hollywood studio? THAT was a major accomplishment.

Hansberry succumbed to cancer in 1965 at age 34. Her next play produced on Broadway was 1964's THE SIGN IN SIDNEY BRUSTEIN'S WINDOW.

The remarkable Rita Moreno won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her powerhouse performance in 1961's WEST SIDE STORY. Rita Moreno has completed filming her role in the Steven Spielberg version of WEST SIDE STORY which premieres in December of this year. Moreno is one of those Black/Latina actresses who turned to TV and stage after her one and only Oscar nomination. Hollywood had no other opportunities for her for seven years after WEST SIDE STORY. I hope Rita Moreno's role and performance in Spielberg's version is so strong that it brings her a historic second Oscar nomination for WEST SIDE STORY.  I would love to interview her and, among other things, talk to her about Lorraine Hansberry. She was in the cast of the late playwright's 1964 Broadway production.

Happy Black History Month.