In the 1960’s community theater was thriving in L.A. Among them were Ebony Showcase theater on Washington Blvd. (Nick and Edna Stewart); Inner City Cultural Theatre (C. Barnard Jackson); Performing Arts Society in Los Angeles (PASLA), (Vantile Whitfield); Frances William Corner Theatre on Exposition and Frank Silvera’s theatre on La Cienega in Hollywood. I attended performances…
I first met James Edwards when I moved out from New York to Los Angeles in the 1960’s. I happened to be passing Ebony Showcase Theatre created and run by Nick Steward and his wife Edna. Steward played (Lightnin’) in the cast of the TV series Amos and Andy. The neighborhood theatre presented plays and…
In 1993, my friend Frances E. Williams introduced me to Maya Angelou when Dr. Angelou was on a book tour. She was speaking at the Aquarius Book Store, the oldest African American bookstore in L.A. owned by Alfred and Bernice Ligon. She was there to promote her book, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now. …
Black Magic is a pictorial history of the African American in the Performing Arts by Langston Hughes and Milton Meltzer. I stumbled across this book in the used book section of a library in Las Vegas. As I read it, I am reminded of how much of my history I don’t know. Langston Hughes, poet…
CARLTON MOSS (Feb. 1909-August, 1997) One of the persons I contacted after Frances died was Carlton Moss. She mentioned him during our discussion about the film Salt of the Earth. She described him as a brilliant, well-respected black writer and film maker who created his own documentaries for which he was given a budget. He was asked to…
I was watching “Good Neighbor Sam” (1964) starring Jack Lemon, when I spotted a man I’d seen in several films but I didn’t know his name. He played the Judge, a dignified roles uncredited along with several others in the film. I also remembered seeing his photo among Frances’s photos. I looked him up on…
