Appearing in over sixty movies throughout her career, Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. In addition to her roles in silent films, television, and stage, Wong landed a role in one of the first movies made in Technicolor. Internationally recognized, her legacy continues to influence entertainers around the world.
Jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott was not only the first African-American woman to host her own television show, but she also bravely stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood studio machine. The gifted and popular performer dazzled audiences in the U.S. and abroad with her jazzy renditions of classical works.
Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory was an Irish dramatist, folklorist and theatre manager who co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, and wrote several short works for both companies. Lady Gregory produced several books retelling stories from Irish mythology.
Vida Ognjenović is a Serbian theater director, writer, professor and diplomat.
Hanna Maron was a German-born Israeli actor, comedian and theater personality who held the world record for the longest career in theater.
Dorothy Green was an American silent film actress who had film roles in Forest Rivals (1919), The Lesson (1917), The Wonderful Adventure (1915), A Parisian Romance, Her Mother’s Secret, The American Way Souls Aflame, The Devils at His Elbow, The Good Bad Wife, the serial Patria, The Praise Agent with Arthur Ashley, and The Grouch. She also performed on stage with the New Shakespeare Company. She was best known for playing “vamp” roles, in cluding in Patria, The Devils at His Elbow, and A Parisian Romance. Green retired from acting in 1930.
Abbie Mitchell was an African-American soprano opera singer who performed the role of Clara in the original production of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess in 1935, and was also the first to record “Summertime” from that musical. At age 14, she was cast by African-American composer Will Marion Cook and lyricist Paul Laurence Dunbar for a role in their one-act musical comedy Clorindy: The Origin of the Cakewalk (1898), which ran for the whole season at the Casino Roof Garden. The 14-year-old married the 29-year-old Cook in 1898 and bore him two children before her 20th birthday. Mitchell appeared in the lead role in Cook’s Jes Lak White Folks (1899) and performed in his production The Southerners (1904).
In London Mitchell appeared in the 1903 musical In Dahomey (with music by Cook). Mitchell received international acclaim for her performance, and was invited to appear with the company in a Royal Command Performance for King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra at Buckingham Palace.
She later performed with the “Black Patti’s Troubadours”, and in the 1908 operetta The Red Moon. In 1913, she appeared in the film Lime Kiln Field Day, but it was never completed or released. In 1919, Mitchell went to Europe with Cook’s Southern Syncopated Orchestra, as well as appearing in concert and in operas in New York.
Mitchell appeared in several Broadway plays including “In Abraham’s Bosom” (1926), “Coquette” (1927) with Helen Hayes, and “The Little Foxes” (1939) with Tallulah Bankhead. Mitchell was best known for her last musical role on the stage, performing in the role of “Clara” in the premiere of Porgy and Bess (1935). After this, she taught and coached many singers in New York and appeared in non-musical dramatic roles on the stage, and taught at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Lee De Forest made a short film of Mitchell singing, Songs of Yesteryear (1922), using his DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process; the film is preserved in the Library of Congress’s Maurice Zouary film collection.
Googie Withers was an English entertainer who was a dancer and actor whose career spanned nine decades in theatre, film, and television. She was particularly well-known as a star of British films during the World War II and postwar years.
She emigrated to Australia in the late 1950s, where she became best known in theatre, although she played prison governor Faye Boswell in the TV series Within These Walls in the 1970s and continued to feature in films.
Sun Weishi was the first female director of modern spoken drama (Huaju) in China. Sun was a rival of Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, with an enmity between the two that lasted throughout Sun’s life until her ultimate death at Jiang’s hands.
Mercedes de Acosta was an American poet, playwright, and novelist who wrote almost a dozen plays, only four of which were produced, and she published a novel and three volumes of poetry. She was professionally unsuccessful but is known for her social connections, including her many lesbian relationships with famous Broadway and Hollywood personalities and many friendships with prominent artists of the period.