Black and White relations in Hollywood

[msladysoul]

I know this may seem like a silly topic but we always talk about here which stars liked or disliked each other so I figure I start a topic on which Hollywood stars were friendly with other Black actresses/actors. I often wonder which of my favorite movie stars were partial or impartial. I know half of my favorites were friendly towards Blacks.

 

Susan Hayward

Greta Garbo

Myrna Loy

Clark Gable

Thelma Todd

Tallulah Bankead

Lillian Roth

Barbara Stanwyck

Mae West, of course.

Ginger Rogers

Dolores del Rio

Carmen Miranda

Rita Hayworth

Ann Sothern

Bing Crosby

Bob Hope

Humphrey Bogart

Lana Turner

Ava Gardner

John Garfield

Carole Lombard

 

I was reading something on Barbara Stanwyck, she had her maid with her and they went to an elite white hotel and they told herr she couldn't stay with he black maid. So, sassy Stanwyck said, then send me to the best colored hotel. Since they didn't want a famous movie star to be known staying at a colored hotel, they let them stay.

 

Clark Gable was just a regular guy who stuck up numerous times for blacks. When Hattie McDaniels and other blacks weren't allowed to use the bathroom, he said he wouldn't use it either. He almost didn't go to the premiere because Hattie wasn't invited. I was reading in Billie Holiday's book how Clark punched out a guy in her defense.

Humphrey Bogart told all the neighbors that if they messed with Lena Horne and her family because they were the only black family, he would beat them up.

John Garfield got Canada Lee his significant part in Body and Soul . There's a documentary coming out on Canada Lee too soon, another unsung actor. I'm not a fan of many of these people but I respect their good deeds in life.

 

I always wondered what type of person Bette Davis was. I heard various comments on her and Blacks. I watched the documentary on her life and she said on one of her birthdays she put on a blackface, black afro wig and hung a black wreath on her door. What was that all about? What did she do all that?

 

Back then it seems some whites had a fascination for blacks or a utter hatred. Tallulah, Orson Welles, Mae West, Garbo, for example were just smitten with the Harlem nightlife and the black communities. I often wonder why? Would any of you know why the fascination? Why the fascination with black life then? Why did whites crowd into Harlem nightclubs?

[JackBurley]

"Why the fascination with black life then? Why did whites crowd into Harlem nightclubs?"

 

Things haven't changed that much. Look at the all the white junior high and high school kids from Iowa and Nebraska who, for the past 15 years have been fascinated with rap videos and have taken up the aesthetics of gangsta rap -- the clothes and accessories, the jargon. No milieu could be more different from their reality than urban, inner-city, hip hop; yet they're fascinated by it. I imagine it's "exotic" to them. And I imagine 1920's and 1930's Harlem was thought to be exotic too. It was cool to go to the Cotton Club.

 

"Won't go to Harlem, in ermine and pearls.

Won't dish the dirt with the rest of the girls;

That's why lady is a tramp!"

Lorenz Hart