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***SHOWBOAT***
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Musical Staring Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Agnes Moorehead, William Warfield, Frances Williams, Marge and Gower Champion directed by George Sidney, Produced by Arthur Freed, Screen play written by John Lee Mahin based on Edna Ferber's novel.
Not long ago, I watched Showboat, attracted not to the movie itself. I'd seen it many years ago. Katherine Grayson and Howard Keel's songs still ring in my head more so than the plot. No, I watched because Frances was in it. For a few brief seconds, she appeared, a background figure as was the other Black actors and a host of extras - delivering one line, or moving in and out of scenes, barely on camera. My eyes focused on my
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TV screen; I scanned
each scene, searching for a glimpse of my friend. Finally I spotted
her in her brown frock buttoned to the neck, looking modest,
prim and proper, hair pulled back into a neat bun, just slightly out of
focus. Reacting to the goings on of the main characters, she smiled,
clapped her hands and nodded her head as they delivered their lines
deftly. And I remembered all she'd told me about that production, the
seventeen bandanas wardrobe presented to her; she refused each time. Her
reaction to Joe E. Brown, "a right-wing reactionary," she called him
and with her usual candor, told him how she felt about the country denying Black
people equal privileges. She talked about William Warfield - came close to
calling him an Uncle Tom, and
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about her meeting with Ava Gardner whom she
liked. But mostly I thought about her training in all areas of theater,
the fourteen years at Karamu, the oldest Black theater in the country where
she'd learned to write, direct, act, work the lights and create costumes; her two years in Moscow studying theater; and her roles on
Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun and You Can't Take It With You,
among others. Yes, there she was, Queenie, with one line and out of focus
shots, and I shook my head in disgust - Hollywood!
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