Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only

by Patrick McGilligan

  Details of Robert Burton Russell’s life and death proved maddeningly elusive. As far as I can determine, there are no archival copies of The Maxton Blade and no extant issues of The Scottish Chief from the time Russell was involved with the newspaper. I could not locate his death certificate (there are few North Carolina death records prior to 1909), and a local researcher tramped around area cemeteries without pinpointing his grave. I was aided by items from a “Maxton Area Centennial” booklet (published in 1974), some court and deed records, and context and information supplied by North Carolina historians Sam West, Charles Hensey, and Jane B. Hersch.

  “Alice was so damn polished…” is from Pearl Bowser’s 1988 interview with Carlton Moss in the Museum of the Moving Image oral history collection. “Pretty and charming” is from George Berkin’s profile of “Hortense Tate, 104 Montclair Activist,” in the Newark Star-Ledger (September 10, 2003). “I liked his approach…” is Bee Freeman from Oscar Micheaux: Film Pioneer.

  “It was quite a social event…” is from the Chicago Defender (National Edition, April 3, 1926).

  “Seven-thousand mile trip by auto…etc.,” is from the Chicago Defender (September 24, 1927).

  “It was the dawn of a new day…” is Ina Duncan in the Pittsburgh Courier (August 12, 1930). Ida Anderson’s rejection of Richard E. Noman’s salary offer is cited in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles: The Flying Ace, the Norman Company, and the Micheaux Connection.” “If you could get $45…” is Leigh Whipper from “We Were Stars in Those Days.”

  Myrtle Gebhart’s article about the new “ebony heroes” of Hollywood “talkies” was in Extension magazine (November 1929). Evelyn Preer was profiled by Dorothy Manners in “Enter the Dixies,” Motion Picture Classic (February 1929).

  “The [race-picture] game is too fast…” is from the Chicago Defender (April 10, 1920).

  My account of the Micheaux brothers’ split, and the imbroglio over The Millionaire, is drawn largely from documents in the motion picture script files of the New York State archives One of the best accounts of OM’s bankruptcy filing is in The Afro-American (February 25, 1928).

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: 1928–1931

  “Why does the heroine…” is from Obie McCollum’s “Things Theatrical” column in The Afro-American (May 5, 1928).

  My chief source on Lorenzo Tucker (LT) is Richard Grupenhoff’s invaluable The Black Valentino: The Stage and Screen Career of Lorenzo Tucker (Scarecrow Press, 1988), which reports the actor’s life story and film career in detail. Tucker was extensively interviewed by Grupenhoff (a transcript of which was published as “Lorenzo Tucker: The Black Valentino,” in Black Film Review, Spring 1988), although he was also interviewed for other books and documentaries. Except where I cite other sources, I am quoting Tucker from the Grupenhoff book.

  “If you passed him [Micheaux] on the street…” is from “We Were Stars in Those Days.” “Reminded me of a symphony orchestra leader…,” “Any time any other company…,” the “What’s wrong with you…” anecdote and “In those days, Rudolph Valentino…” are from Oscar Micheaux: Film Pioneer. Chappy Gardner wrote about Micheaux in his January 5, 1929, column, and about black actors “too white” for Hollywood in his January 12, 1929, column, both in the Pittsburgh Courier.

  Theophilus Lewis criticized A Daughter of the Congo in his “The Harlem Sketch Book” column in the New York Amsterdam News (April 16, 1930). “They saw Micheaux as an illiterate…” is CM from Clyde Taylor’s illuminating “Oscar Micheaux and the Harlem Renaissance,” in Temples for Tomorrow: Looking Back at the Harlem Renaissance (Geneviève Fabre and Michel Feith, eds., Indiana University Press, 2001). (A footnote cites the quote from a “transcript of Carlton Moss’s interview, in author’s private possession.”) “Those circles never took Micheaux…” is CM from “Remembering Oscar Micheaux.”

  Other books: Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Give Us Each Day, The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (Gloria T. Hull, ed., W. W. Norton, 1984); Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer, Black Magic: A Pictorial History of the Negro in American Entertainment (Prentice Hall, 1967).

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: 1931–1935

  John Hammond wrote a glowing introduction to Jack Schiffman’s biography of his father, but had more measured words, including recalling Frank Schiffman “talking about Negroes…” in Showtime at the Apollo.

  “Rena, her brother, and Miss Molly…” is from Mrs. Ethel Williams’s undated 1932 letter to CWC. “Rank plagiarism…” is from CWC’s May 16, 1932, reply to his daughter.

  “Sometimes we would get on the set…,” “When you finished…,” “We’d make these scenes at night…,” and “In railroad stations he had a trick…” are LT from Oscar Micheaux: Film Pioneer. “A lot of scenes in Bronx Park…” is LT from “We Were Stars in Those Days.”

  “Displaying an attitude of a man…,” “Made it clear that he wrote…,” “He saw the black population as two groups…,” “The actors pleaded with him…,” and “He said that if a black man…” are CM from “Remembering Oscar Micheaux.” “Declassed, meaning…” and “She’d edit [the scripts]…” are from Pearl Bowser’s interview with CM in the Museum of the Moving Image oral history collection.

  “Personally, I think Veiled Aristocrats…” is from the Chicago Defender (June 18, 1932).

  The Lucille Lewis lawsuit is reported in the Chicago Defender (May 21, 1932). The Hooten-Hooten lawsuit is chronicled in The Afro-American (October 3, 1931). Micheaux’s first arrest in the Schiffman court action (“Collected money which he failed to turn into the company offices…,” etc.) is recounted in the Chicago Defender (November 26, 1932), while his second is reported in The Afro-American (October 7, 1933). Ralph Matthews wrote “An Open Letter to Mr. Oscar Michaux [sic]” in The Afro-American (May 20, 1933).

  Donald Bogle’s 1930 statistics of black employment in “white” Hollywood are from Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood (Ballantine, 2005).

  The dialogue transcript from Lem Hawkins’ Confession and the testimony from Leo Frank’s trial are culled from longer excerpts in “Oscar Micheaux and Leo Frank: Cinematic Justice Across the Color Line.” Lou Layne wrote about Lem Hawkins’ Confession in his “Moon Over Harlem” column in the New York Age (May 25, 1935). “A mixture of the old and new…” and “Capacity houses in Dixieland…” are from the Atlanta World (May 7, 1934).

  Other articles and books: Michael Bronski, “The Return of the Repressed: Leo Frank Through the Eyes of Oscar Micheaux,” Shofar (Summer 2005); Ted Fox, Showtime at the Apollo (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983); Rusty E. Frank, Tap! The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories, 1900–1955 (Morrow, 1990); Jack Schiffman, Apollo Uptown: The Story of Harlem’s Apollo Theatre (Cowles, 1971); Jack Schiffman, Harlem Heyday (Prometheus, 1984).

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: 1936–1940

  The backstory of the Sack brothers was compiled from local clippings from the Dallas and San Antonio public libraries, including many small items from the San Antonio Jewish Weekly and Jewish Press. The statistics about black theaters came from various news items and also from “Hollywood in the Bronx,” Time (January 24, 1940).

  “Southern hymn singing…” and “A faster tempo…” are from the Atlanta World (May 7, 1934). “Not as buffoons…” is from “Col. Julian Outshines Elinor Lee Premier” in the New York Amsterdam News (January 20, 1940).

  “I used to go to their house…” and “I said to him once…” are LT from Oscar Micheaux: Film Pioneer. “The big problem is getting…” is from Ralph Matthews’s “Mixing Sex, Rhythm and Romance Is Job of Pioneer Producer of Sepia Film” in The Afro-American (February 27, 1937), an article that also specifies some costs of production of Micheaux’s 1930s films. The anecdote about the “pair of wastrels” Andrew Bishop and Lorenzo Tucker comes from the Grupenhoff book.

  I am indebted to Joe Mosbrook’s “Jazzed in Cleveland,” a special WMV Web News Cleveland series at www.cleveland.oh.us.wmv_news/jazz, for details of the musical career of Carman Newsome. “We don’t ha
ve the money to spend…” is from W. Ward Marsh’s “Colored Star Brings His Own Films Here; Shows First at Globe Theater” in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (October 19, 1938). This is the interview with Newsome that credits the authorship of “Naomi, Negress” to Alice B. Russell.

  The filming of Birthright in “the heart of South Jamaica” comes from a rare on-set glimpse of Micheaux at work in the New York Amsterdam News (November 6, 1937). The Harlem protests against God’s Stepchildren were chronicled in “Motion Picture Is Withdrawn After Protest in New York” by John Harding in the New York Age (May 28, 1938). The Boston protests were reported in “Show God’s Stepchildren in Boston Despite Protests” in the New York Amsterdam News (December 9, 1938).

  “Nixed…in favor of pictures…” is from the New York Amsterdam News (September 30, 1939). Clarence Muse wrote about Micheaux in his “What’s Going on in Hollywood” column in the Chicago Defender (February 24, 1940).

  “Only three days” is Edna Mae Harris as interviewed by Delilah Jackson in the Hatch-Billops archives; the Edna Mae and (her sister) Vivian Harris interviews were published in Artist and Influence 1991, Volume X, James V. Hatch and Leo Hamalian, eds. (Hatch-Billops Collection, 1991). Other quotes from Harris are drawn from Richard Grupenhoff’s interview with the actress in the Museum of the Moving Image oral history collection. Harris is also interviewed (“After we made all these pictures…”) in Pearl Bowser’s film Midnight Ramble. Frances Williams is quoted from Pearl Bowser’s interview with the actress in the Museum of Moving Image collection.

  The story of Micheaux and Hubert Julian’s partnership is derived from the following main sources: the page-one article “Col. Julian Outshines Elinor Lee Premiere” in the New York Amsterdam News (January 20, 1940); “Hollywood in the Bronx” in Time (January 29, 1940); Julian’s memoir (as told to John Bulloch), Black Eagle: Colonel Hubert Julian (The Adventurers Club, 1965); and H. Allen Smith’s column as reprinted in Low Man on a Totem Pole (Doubleday, 1944).

  Other articles and books: “The Celluloid Sister: (Mis) Representation of the Black Female On Film,” Michigan Citizen (July 31, 1999); Richard Corliss, “Black Cinema: Micheaux Must Go On,” series of web-exclusive articles for www.time.com in May-June, 2002; M. Green, “Harlem’s Fabulous Flyer,” American Mercury (February 1941); J. (James) Hoberman, “A Black Pioneer: The Case of Oscar Micheaux,” No Rose (Fall, 1976); James Earl Jones (with Penelope Niven), Voices and Silences (Scribner’s, 1993); Charles H. Martin, The Angelo Herndon Case and Southern Justice (Louisiana State University Press, 1976); Clyde Taylor, “The Crisis of 1937–1939: Crossed Over & Can’t Get Black,” Black Film Review (Vol. 7, Issue 4); Wilson Record, The Negro and the Communist Party (Atheneum, 1971).

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: 1941–1947

  Details of Micheaux’s life as a writer in the early 1940s are drawn from his novels, especially The Case of Mrs. Wingate and The Story of Dorothy Stanfield, both of which feature his alter-ego character, the “former” race-picture producer Sidney Wyeth. I was guided by fingerpoints in the “Biographical Backstory” of With a Crooked Stick—The Films of Oscar Micheaux.

  “It will tell the story…” is from Time (January 29, 1940). Micheaux’s (“Over 300 pounds”) continuing friendship with Ernest Jackson is reported in “Negro Who Homesteaded in Rosebud Now Big Man in U.S. Moving Pictures” in the Sioux Falls Daily Argus-Leader (March 4, 1940). “I’ve reviewed a lot of books…” is Constance Curtis as quoted by Elton Fax in the Bowser interview.

  “Undoubtedly, he placed more books…” is CM from “Remembering Oscar Micheaux.” “The biggest single success” is from Micheaux’s obituary in the New York Amsterdam News (April 7, 1951). “Instead of calling him Mr. Micheaux…” is LT from Oscar Micheaux: Film Pioneer.

  I have quoted J. Ronald Green on Micheaux’s “plagiarism” of The House Behind the Cedars from my e-mail correspondence with him on the subject.

  “To get back into pictures…” and all subsequent quotes from Alice B. Russell (Mrs. Oscar Micheaux) are from her January 7, 1948, letter to “my dear sister Ethel,” one of Micheaux’s sisters, living in Kansas. This letter was obtained by Richard Grupenhoff during his researches and published in its entirey as part of his article “The Rediscovery of Oscar Micheaux, Black Film Pioneer,” Journal of Film and Video (Winter 1988). “To have this thing so I can sit in my office…” is from “We Were Stars in Those Days.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: 1947–1951

  The postproduction of The Betrayal (“days of virtual amputation”) is described from publicity material courtesy of Leroy Collins. This material includes “‘The Negro and the Photoplay,’ a statement by Oscar Micheaux, author and producer of the super-production, The Betrayal.”

  “Around 1949 or so” and “I don’t go out now…” are from “We Were Stars in Those Days.” Micheaux’s achievements as a novelist were highlighted in Constance Curtis’s article, “Novelists As Part of Past Forty Years,” in the New York Amsterdam News (December 10, 1949).

  There is some ambiguity about the date of Micheaux’s death, even. His death certificate says March 25, 1951, which was Easter Sunday. The New York Amsterdam News account of his death says he died on “Easter Monday.” The Great Bend funeral card for his memorial services says March 27, 1951. Until further evidence emerges, scholars have agreed on March 25, 1951—which is inscribed on his tombstone.

  My information on the rediscovery and restoration of Micheaux’s films comes principally from issues of the Oscar Micheaux Society Newsletter and G. William Jones’s book Black Cinema Treasures: Lost and Found (University of North Texas Press, 1991).

  Other articles and books: David T. Friendly, “An Overdue Honor for Film Pioneer,” Los Angeles Times (May 17, 1986); Richard Gehr, “One-Man Show,” American Film (May 1991); National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, “Out of Focus, Out of Sync, Take 3,” A Report on the Film and Television Industry (November 2003); “Oscar Micheaux Given Special Award By DGA,” Variety (May 10, 1986); Saundra Sharp, “At Long Last: Director’s Guild Honors Oscar Micheaux,” Black Film Review (Summer 1987).

  FILMOGRAPHY

  Key sources: Oscar Micheaux & His Circle; Bernard L. Peterson Jr., “A Filmography of Oscar Micheaux: America’s Legendary Black Filmmaker,” in Celluloid Power: Social Film Criticism from The Birth of a Nation to Judgment at Nuremberg (David Platt, ed., Scarecrow Press, 1992); Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., The African-American Theatre Directory, 1816–1960 (Greenwood Press, 1997); Black Entertainers in African-American Newspaper Articles, Volume 1; Larry Richards, African-American Films Through 1959 (McFarland, 1997); Blacks in Black and White: A Source Book on Black Films; and my own supplemental research.

  PERMISSIONS

  PHOTOGRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS:

  Photographs of Micheaux from the Simms’ Blue Book and National Negro Business and Professional Directory and at the M.O.W.M. Bookstore in Harlem, courtesy of the General Research and Reference Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Micheaux’s Pullman porter records courtesy of Pullman Archives, the Newberry Library, Chicago; re-creation of “Oscar’s homestead in South Dakota” courtesy of Don Shorock and the website www.micheaux.org; group portrait of the Lafayette Players courtesy of Sister Francesca Thompson; newspaper photograph of Shingzie Howard, stills of The Homesteader and Birthright (sound version), frame enlargements from Within Our Gates and Body and Soul, and newspaper advertisement for The Symbol of the Unconquered courtesy of Pearl Bowser, Jane Gaines, and Charles Musser, Oscar Micheaux & His Circle, and the Oscar Micheaux Society; all photographs from Pearl Bowser’s collection courtesy of African Diaspora Images; photograph of Lorenzo Tucker from The Black Valentino; frame enlargements (with Micheaux) from Lem Hawkins’ Confession, courtesy of Matthew Bernstein; promotional material for Murder in Harlem, Birthright, and God’s Stepchildren courtesy of the W. Ward Marsh Cinema Archives, Cleveland Public Library; advertisement for The Betrayal cour
tesy of Leroy Collins; special thanks to Allied Digital Photo, Mequon, Wisconsin.

  CITATIONS:

  Charles Waddell Chesnutt papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio; George P. Johnson Negro Film Collection, University of California, Los Angeles; George P. Johnson Oral History, Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles; Richard E. Norman Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University; Paul and Eslanda Goode Robeson Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Oral Histories of Edna Mae Harris (interview by Richard Grupenhoff), Elcora “Shingzie” Howard McClane (interview by Pearl Bowser), Carlton Moss (interview by Bowser) and Frances Williams (interview by Bowser) are from the “From Harlem to Hollywood” collection of the American Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, New York.

  Portions of chapter 17 originally appeared in Film Quarterly and the Los Angeles Times.

  SEARCHABLE TERMS

  Note: Entries in this index, carried over verbatim from the print edition of this title, are unlikely to correspond to the pagination of any given e-book reader. However, entries in this index, and other terms, may be easily located by using the search feature of your e-book reader.

  Abbott, Robert S., 130, 227, 329

  Abdul Hamid, Sufi, 283–84

  Abrams, Ed “Dick,” 167

  Addams, Jane, 109

  Anderson, Ida, 228–29

  Anita Bush Stock Company, 124

  Apollo Theater, 257

  Armstrong, Louis, 226

  Astor Pictures, 340, 343n

  Atlanta, Georgia, 100