The Slow Introduction of African-Americans on Early TV

[Gregg]

I suppose we've all heard the stories about the difficulties Nat King Cole had hosting a weekly variety series in the 60s. Stations in the South didn't want to carry it, so it didn't get many sponsors. Cole's friends made sure they appeared on the program to boost the ratings, including Frank Sinatra, but the show didn't succeed. When you see a celebrity such as Pearl Bailey appear on an early variety show, you can see the tortured way the producers set up the appearance, such as have her and the host sit on stools to sing their duets so there wouldn't be even the hint of romance, even if the two sang a love song.

You look at a series like The Andy Griffith Show, and you wonder how a small town in North Carolina could be virtually devoid of black people. I only remember seeing one episode that included an African-American actor... Opie's football coach who also encouraged him to follow Aunt Bee's advice and take piano lessons in addition to playing football.

When GSN was still showing the original black-and-white Beat The Clock, I only remember seeing two black couples ever appear. On panel shows such as To Tell The Truth or What's My Line? minorities were rarely seen. Only a few times were minorities the mystery guest on Line and I only remember Sammy Davis Jr. to ever sit on the panel. On Password's black-and-white episodes, I believe Rita Moreno was a guest several times but again, I don't remember any black actors appearing, and only once did I see a black contestant. I wonder, did black people try to get on early game shows and were turned down or they just didn't try? (Of course, by the time these shows were in color, minorities were invited to be both panalists and contestants.)

There were a couple of early sitcoms with all-black casts, Beulah (which I don't remember, even in reruns) and Amos & Andy... and we all know why we don't see A&A anymore, except on You Tube.

Was Bill Cosby the first black actor to star in a major drama, "I Spy"?





Gregg
[email protected]

 

[Corky Marlowe]

I think Cole's show actually aired in 1957, but you're right about all the problems it faced. Most of the black "WML" mystery guests I've seen were athletes (Wilt Chamberlain, the Harlem Globetrotters, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Owens, and some assorted baseball players.) I only remember seeing blacks as crowd extras on Andy Griffith...I'm betting the episode you refer to was in color, and I tend to avoid those. And yes, Cosby was the first black actor to star in a dramatic show.

 

[bpatrick]

Several CBS affiliates in the South dropped
"What's My Line?" for a few months after
Harry Belafonte was a guest panelist. Seems
either viewers or station managers (or both)
had a problem with his being seated between
Dorothy Kilgallen and Arlene Francis.

Even in the late '60s, when African-Americans
were becoming more visible on TV, Belafonte
ran into problems simply because Petula Clark
(who is white) touched his arm while they were
singing a duet on a special.

One now-forgotten individual deserves a mention,
since we're talking about African-Americans on
early TV. His name was Bob Howard, a singer and
pianist nicknamed "The Jive Bomber" (he weighed
around 300 pounds). He was a regular on CBS's
late '40s/early '50s musical game show "Sing It Again,"
in which one of the show's musical regulars would sing
a song straight, then "sing it again" with new lyrics that
were clues to a person, place, or thing; host Dan Seymour
(and contrary to popular belief, it is not the same Dan Seymour
who played a rotund villain in several Bogart movies and "Adventures
Of Superman" episodes) would phone a listener and ask him or her
to identify the subject of the song "sung again."

I may be wrong but I believe Howard was the first African-American
regular on a network television show; "Sing It Again," however,
was short-lived, airing opposite Sid Caesar on Saturday nights.

Also, Rita Moreno is Hispanic, not African-American.

 

[landtuna]

You could say the same thing about Hispanics or most any other non-white in the early days of TV. But discrimination wasn't limited to blacks.

The only "good" Indian I ever remember seeing in any kind of repeating role in the 50's was Jay Silverheels (Tonto). And the only non-comedic Hispanics were Duncan Renaldo (Cisco Kid) and his sidekick Pancho, Leo Carrillo.

But there were black actors, if not on TV, then in the movies much earlier. Ernie Morrison appeared in several teen-era silents and as early as 1919 Hal Roach used him in his "Sunshine Sammy" shorts. The "Our Gang" shorts had a number of black kids among its regular cast. Both these series were very popular with all audiences with probably their widest exposure not in theaters but on early TV.

Adults, such as Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry ("Stepin Fetchit") and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson were immensely popular as well. Perry became both a millionaire and the first black actor to receive a screen credit. And Robinson is perhaps the best remembered today. Others, such as Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen had lessor careers but are still remembered fondly for their signature roles.

Only in the last 20-odd years have Hispanics made inroads on TV playing "standard" roles. And even more recently has that opportunity expanded to include Asians and Eastern Indians.

 

[easttxtv]

It was the mid-to-late 1960s before soaps would have recurring or contract players who were African-American. Another World had Micki Grant as 'Peggy Harris Nolan' (http://www.igs.net/~awhp/1peggy.html), supposedly the first African-American woman in a contract role on a daytime drama. James Earl Jones was on for a time as a doctor on As the World Turns in that timeframe, and Billy Dee Williams was also a doctor on (The) Guiding Light. The only soap I know of from the 1960s that got any real reaction from a character of color was One Life to Live. Ellen Holly played a woman passing for Caucasian but was later revealed to be African-American. I think there were a few southern TV stations that didn't want to carry OLTL because of that storyline. It was several years before daytime dramas would have African-American characters on in even a somewhat regular basis. Even though it was 1965 when Micki Grant first appeared on AW, it wasn't until 1984 when an African-American couple ('Roy' (played by Morgan Freeman) and 'Henrietta') got married on the show. Later, in the early-to-mid 1990s, 'Felicia' (played by Linda Dano) had an African-American book publishing agent (played by Randy Brooks), and it looked like for a short while, that Felicia saw more in her agent, but that was quickly brushed aside. Apparently either the producer/sponsors or the network (or both?) got cold feet about it. Finally, in AW's last few months on-air, a mixed relationship emerged between 'Marley' (a Caucasian) and 'Tyrone' (a more recent African-American character) that even showed kissing scenes (it was later noted in crossover scenes on ATWT that the 2 characters got married but it wasn't shown on-air). It wasn't until 1989's debut of Generations that a full African-American family would be shown and portrayed from the start of a soap.

 

[bpatrick]

In August 1962 CBS announced the signing of the
first African-American regular on a soap: actor Rex
Ingram on The Brighter Day. It's not known
how much work he got because the show's last
episode aired September 28 of that year.

 

[mleach]

Car 54, Where Are You ( 1961-1963 ) actually had THREE African-Americans in the cast including the great and sadly late Nipsey Russell.

 

[Bongwater]

Not just African-Americans, but Lord knows with many Asian-Americans in my family tree (as well as African-Americans), they dealt with it LONG after the African-Americans were given a break......

Like the Asian couple running a LAUNDROMAT in those Calgon commercials of the early '70s?.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjNRXfRXnoc

 

[BRNout]

Not just African-Americans, but Lord knows with many Asian-Americans in my family tree (as well as African-Americans), they dealt with it LONG after the African-Americans were given a break......

Like the Asian couple running a LAUNDROMAT in those Calgon commercials of the early '70s?.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjNRXfRXnoc

While I wholeheatedly agree with you about how Asian-Americans continue to be underrepresented on TV, I always found the Calgon ad to be charming and amusing - and NEVER considered it to be racist. If anything, the "Chinese" characters come off as young and witty. I went to the link just to make sure my memory wasn't fuzzy about that and it's not.

If anything, I miss straightforward and quaint ads like this one.....

 

[LKellerIII]

Early ethnic TV characters tended to hew to stereotype - Pepino the farm hand on Real McCoys, the characters Hop Sing and Peter on Bonanza and Bachelor Father respectively; not to mention Eddie "Rochester" Anderson on The Jack Benny Program. .

On the dramas, they tended to be just stereotypes, with a few lines each week at most. But on the sit-coms at least, they tended to be interesting and intelligent people, even if their professions were stereotyped. Rochester certainly came off as smarter and more grounded than his neurotic boss (as Benny played him), and Pepino was portrayed as more or less a member of the family, and was often the calm influence in the face of "Grandpa" Amos's temper tantrums. So as bad as it was, there were a few bright spots.

As I remember it, TV commercials started to use African American actors in the late 60s before the programs really got into it. But they were generally carefully chosen, and usually looked more like darker skinned Caucasians.

 

[cklw800]

I'm not sure how hard African-Americans themselves tried to get into TV back then. But you have to give a lot of credit to the white producers and directors for taking chances, despite network apprehension. The producers of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" came up with the episode, "That's My Boy?!" in 1963 guest-starring Greg Morris, whose character was purposely given the upper-hand in a storyline about mistaken identity. Rob Petrie reflected to his friends how he thought they brought home the wrong kid from the hospital, not knowing the other couple was black. Something with the name band caused his confusion I believe. Very well done but CBS almost abandoned the idea. Sheldon Leonard pressed for it. The producers of "The Outer Limits" ('63-65) had black characters in several episodes with dignified roles, but ABC wanted the black characters to be identified as "Negro" on the script pages so they'd know when they were dealing with black actors on the network before filming began. The first regular episode of "The Fugitive" ('63-67) after the pilot was shot featured a largely black guest-cast, about a prize-fighter who really wanted to become a doctor, but was afraid because he knew the odds were stacked against him. The fugitive pleaded with him to pursue his dream. This is only a handful of the many strides made by ground-breaking white producers like Sheldon Leonard, Joseph Stefano, Leslie Stevens and Roy Huggins in early TV. Not to mention Norman Lear, whose Archie Bunker character triggered an onslaught of great opposing points-of-view from characters like George & Louise Jefferson (next door neighbors) and spawned series like "Good Times", also while paving the way for shows like "Sanford & Son". Not belittling the efforts of African-Americans themselves for their efforts trying to break in, but pioneering white producers were in a positon to convince nervous network execs that it could work. Reminds me of how Buddy Holly had to hide his black band members so they could stay in hotels with him. Somebody like that had to try anything they could to give talented folks a chance amid intense opposition simply because of race.

 

[dustintv]

No mention of shows like Beulah?

 

[OldNumber7]

Just a tip of the hat here to the gutsy TV producers and casting directors who helped turn things around in 1966-68. It was a real tipping point and put African-American actors and actresses in significant co-starring and starring roles. Gail Fisher, Nichele Nichols, Diahann Carroll, Greg Morris, Clarence Williams and others were featured regularly and prominently in roles that transcended the stereotypes. Some complained at the time of "tokenism," but these roles subtly taught America that black Americans were not second-class citizens and that there were many talented black actors other than Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. There's even a line from an early 70s All in the Family episode, where Edith has her own odd-but-strangely-insightful view during a discussion about black equality -- she says something like "they've come a long way on TV."