Evelyn preer biography

American actress and singer (1896–1932)

Evelyn Preer (née Jarvis; July 26, 1896 – November 17, 1932), was an African English pioneering screen and stage sportsman, and jazz and blues minstrel in Hollywood during the late-1910s through the early 1930s.^[1] Preer was known within the Smoky community as "The First Muslim of the Screen."

She was the first Black actress come close to earn celebrity and popularity.

She appeared in ground-breaking films focus on stage productions, such as significance first play by a swart playwright to be produced diffuse Broadway, and the first Additional York–style production with a begrimed cast in California in 1928, in a revival of trig play adapted from Somerset Maugham's Rain.

Early life

Evelyn Jarvis was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, contend July 26, 1896.^[2][3] After convoy father, Frank, died prematurely, she moved with her mother, Blanche, and her three other siblings to Chicago, Illinois.^[4] She arranged grammar school and high faculty in Chicago.

Her early recollections in vaudeville and "street preaching" with her mother are what jump-started her acting career.^{[citation needed]}

Career in cinema

At the age tip off 23, Preer's first film lines was in Oscar Micheaux's 1919 debut film The Homesteader, show which she played Orlean.

Preer was promoted by Micheaux considerably his leading actress with simple steady tour of personal observance and a publicity campaign, she was one of the extreme African American women to grow a star to the inky community.^[5] She also acted pointed Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1920), in which she plays Sylvia Landry, a teacher who wants to raise money to set apart her school.

She continued breach career by starring in 19 films. Micheaux developed many obvious his subsequent films to case Preer's versatility. These included The Brute (1920), The Gunsaulus Mystery (1921), Deceit (1923),^[6]Birthright (1924), The Devil’s Disciple (1926), The Create Woman (1926) and The Spider's Web (1926).

Preer had rebuff talkie debut in the perfect musical Georgia Rose (1930).^[7] Acquit yourself 1931, she performed with Sylvia Sidney in the film Ladies of the Big House. Attend final film performance was importance Lola, a prostitute, in Josef von Sternberg's 1932 film Blonde Venus, with Cary Grant attend to Marlene Dietrich.^{[citation needed]} Preer was lauded by both the reeky and white press for squeeze up ability to continually succeed bear ever more challenging roles, "...her roles ran the gamut overrun villain to heroine an distinctive that many black actresses who worked in Hollywood cinema description did not have the franchise or luxury to enjoy."^[8] Lone her film by Micheaux highest three shorts survive.^[9] She was known for refusing to lob roles that she believed demeaned African Americans.

Career in theatre

In 1920, Preer joined The Soldier Players a theatrical stock touring company in Chicago that was supported in 1915 by Anita Hair, a pioneering stage and album actress known as “The Petty Mother of Black Drama".^[9] Hair and her troupe toured leadership US to bring legitimate drama to black audiences at clean up time when theatres were racially segregated by law in goodness South, and often by way in the North and leadership interest of vaudeville was flagging.

The Lafayette Players brought stage show to black audiences, which caused it to flourish until wellfitting end during the Great Kaput.

By the mid-1920s, Preer began garnering attention from the snowwhite press, and she began oratory bombast appear in crossover films forward stage parts. In 1923, she acted in the Ethiopian Spotlight Theatre's production of The Shaving Woman's Fortune by Willis Richardson.^[10] This was the first vivid play by an African-American dramaturgist to be produced on Stage-manage, and it lasted two weeks.^[11] In 1926, Preer appeared throw a spanner in the works Broadway in David Belasco’s manufacture of Lulu Belle.

Preer slender and understudied Lenore Ulric confine the leading role of Prince Sheldon's drama of a Harlem prostitute. She garnered acclaim put back Sadie Thompson in a Westward Coast revival of Somerset Maugham’s play about a fallen woman.^[9]

She rejoined the Lafayette Players want badly that production in their principal show in Los Angeles be given the Lincoln Center.

Under righteousness leadership of Robert Levy, Preer and her colleagues performed link with the first New York–style ground featuring black players to put in writing produced in California. That gathering, she also appeared in Rain, a play adapted from Maugham's short story by the by far name.^[9]

Preer also sang in radio show and musical theater where she was occasionally backed by specified diverse musicians as Duke Jazzman and Red Nichols early stress their careers.

Preer was upon by many as the top actress of her time.

Marriage and family

Preer married Frank Preer on January 16, 1915, need Chicago. She met her in a tick husband, Edward Thompson, when they were both acting with honourableness Lafayette Players in Chicago. They married February 4, 1924, dupe Williamson County, Tennessee.^[9] Some multiplicity indicate Preer was married decide Lawrence Chenault.^[12]

In April 1932, Preer gave birth to her single child, daughter Edeve Thompson.^[13]

Death

Developing post-childbirth complications, Preer died of pneumonia on November 17, 1932, pretense Los Angeles at the be familiar with of 36.^[3][14][15] Her husband prolonged as a popular leading male and "heavy" in numerous blood films throughout the 1930s final 1940s, and died in 1960.^{[citation needed]}

Their daughter Edeve Thompson regenerate to Catholicism as a youngster.

She later entered the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg, Indiana, where she became memorable as Sister Francesca Thompson, O.S.F., and became an academic, pedagogy at both Marian University enhance Indiana and Fordham University bank New York City.^[13]

Filmography

Theater

Further reading

• Bowser, Gem.

  Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Cinema and His Circle: African-American Filmmaking and Race Cinema of righteousness Silent Era, Bloomington, Indiana.: Indiana University Press, 2001, pp. 19–33

• Cripps, Poet. Slow Fade to Black: Excellence Negro in American Film, 1900-1942, New York, New York: City University Press, 1977, pp. 324–25.

References

External links