People, Locations, Episodes

Allen Hoskins, Child Actor born.

*Allen Hoskins was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black child actor and rehabilitation counselor.   Allen Clayton Hoskins was born in Boston, but his parents, Clayton H. Hoskins and Florence A. Fortier Hoskins, moved the family to Los Angeles, and in 1922, his acting career began. His younger sister Jannie also appeared […]

LaWanda Page, Actress, and Comedian born

LaWanda Page was born on this date in 1920. She was an African American comedic character actress.

Born in Cleveland and raised in St. Louis, Page began her career as a dancer and chorus girl billed as “the Bronze Goddess of Fire,” and later became a stand-up comic. Her greatest fame began in her 1950s when comedian Redd Foxx, a childhood friend, asked her to join his Norman Lear sitcom adapted from the British series “Steptoe and Son.” Page signed on as Fred Sanford’s crusty sister-in-law, Esther Anderson, in 1973, and stayed with “Sanford and Son” until the series ended in 1977.

Esther Rolle, Actress of Stage, Screen, and Television born

On this date in 1920, Esther Rolle was born. She was an African American Emmy Award-winning actress.

She was born in Pompano Beach, FL, the tenth of 18 children birb ti parents were of Bahamian descent. Rolle attended Booker T. Washington High School in Miami, and then attended Spelman College for a year before moving to New York. She supported herself by working in a pocketbook factory while auditioning for the theater.

George Olden, Graphic Designer born

*George Olden was born on this date in 1920.  He was a Black graphic designer.   George Elliott Olden was born in Birmingham, Alabama, the grandson of a slave and the son of a Baptist preacher. In his youth, he attended Dunbar High School in Washington, D.C., then Virginia State College, before dropping out shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor to work as a graphic designer for the Office […]

Slappy White, Comedian born

*”Slappy” White was born on this date in 1921.  He was a Black comedian and actor.   Melvin Edward “Slappy” White was born in Baltimore, Maryland.  His official biography reported that he “ran away to join the circus” as a child. White was born near the old Royal Theatre in Baltimore; by age 10, he […]

Thelma Carpenter, Singer, and Actress born

*Thelma Carpenter was born on this date in 1922.  She was a Black jazz singer and actress.   She was born in Brooklyn, NY, the only child of Fred and Mary Carpenter, and attended Girls’ Commercial High School.  As a child performer, Carpenter had her radio show on WNYC in New York and won an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre in 1938.   She […]

Norman Lear, Screenwriter, Producer, and Activist born.

*Norman Lear was born on this date in 1922. He was a white Jewish-American screenwriter, producer, and progressive activist. Norman Milton Lear was from New Haven, Connecticut; his parents were Jeanette (née Seicol) and Hyman “Herman” Lear, a traveling salesman. He had a younger sister, Claire Lear Brown. Both parents were of Russian-Jewish descent. When Lear […]

Ruby Dee, Actress, and Activist born

Ruby Dee was born on this date in 1922. She was an African American actress and activist.

Born Ruby Ann Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio, her father, Marshall Edward Wallace, was a porter and waiter on the Pennsylvania Railroad; her mother, Emma Wallace, was a schoolteacher. She grew up in Harlem, New York, and was a 1945 graduate of Hunter College.

Dorothy Dandridge, Entertainer born

*This date marks the birth of Dorothy Dandridge in 1922. She was an African American actress, singer, dancer, and entertainer.

Redd Foxx, Comedian, and Actor born

Redd Foxx was born on this date in 1922. He was an African American comedian and actor.

Born in St. Louis, John Elroy Sanford (his birth name) was the son of Fred and Mary, an electrician and minister respectively. His father deserted the family when he was four and his grandmother and mother in Chicago raised him. Foxx quit high school after one year to play in a washtub band with two friends, Lamont Ousley and Steve Trimel; they eventually ran away to New York in 1939.

George Kirby, Comedian born

*George Kirby was born on this date in 1923.  He was a Black comedian, singer, and actor.   Born in Chicago, Kirby broke into show business in the 1940s at the Club DeLisa. This South Side establishment employed a variety-show format and preferred to hire local singers, dancers, and comedians. His first recording was as […]

Julius Harris, Actor born

The birth of Julius Harris in 1923 is celebrated on this date. He was an African American actor.

Morrie Turner, Cartoonist born

*Morrie Turner was born on this date in 1923. He was a syndicated African American cartoonist and artist.

From Oakland, California, his father was a Pullman porter and his mother a nurse, he began drawing seriously in elementary school. Morris “Morrie” Turner attended McClymonds High School; in his senior year, he moved to Berkeley to finish his high school years at Berkeley High School. During this time he began questioning why there were no minorities in cartoons, his mentor, Charles Schulz who created Peanuts, suggested he create one.

Marlon Brando Jr., Actor and Activist born

*Marlon Brando Jr. was born on this date in 1924. He was a white-American actor and activist. Brando was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando Sr., a pesticide and chemical feed manufacturer, and Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. Brando had two elder sisters, Jocelyn and Frances. His ancestry was mostly German, Dutch, English, and Irish. Considered […]

William Marshall, Stage and Screen Actor born

*William Marshall was born on this date in 1924. He was an African American stage and screen actor.

Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, Marshall graduated from that cities Roosevelt High School. His acting career began in the early 1950s with the films Lydia Bailey, Demetrius and the Gladiators, and Sabu and the Magic Ring, in which he played “Ubal,” the genie.