NOBLE JOHNSON

Noble Johnson was an African-American actor and producer. At the very beginning of his screen career, in 1916, he was a supporting actor. That same year, he created his own studio, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, which lasted until 1921. Lincoln was an all-Black company and the first to produce film depicting Blacks as real people, with real lives. The first film produced at Lincoln was The Realization of a Negro's Ambition 1916. While Johnson was president, he pulled double duty appearing in dozens of films for the major Hollywood studios. He managed to keep everything together due to his extraordinary commitment to the art of filmmaking. Of his silent films, several still exist. Some of them are The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1921; The Ten Commandments, 1923; and The Thief of Bagdad, 1924 and more. Some of Johnson's sound era films include Moby Dick, 1930 (shown); King Kong, 1933; Lost Horizon, 1937; The Ghost Breakers, 1940 and others. His last appearance was on the small screen in 1966, in Lost Island of Kioga. Noble Johnson was a grand performer and lived to the grand age of 96. He died in 1978.

ETHEL WATERS

Ethel Waters was an African American entertainer, vocalist and actress. Due to her slender appearance, she was billed as Sweet Mama String-bean. In 1921, she cut two songs for Cardinal Records and became the first artist to release a blues record on the black-owned Black Swan label. Waters performed in a number of revues, including Africana, Paris Bound, and The Ethel Waters Broadway Revue. She appeared in Pinky in 1949, which won her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. On Broadway Ethel Waters appeared in Mamba's Daughters, though her greatest theatrical achievement was in 1950 when she played a cook in the play The "Member of the Wedding" and won the New York Drama Critics Award for best actress. She penned two autobiographies, His Eye Is on the Sparrow and To Me It's Wonderful. Ethel Waters also toured with evangelist Billy Graham until her death in 1977.

JAMES BASKETT

James Baskett was an African American actor. While visiting Chicago, he was lured to the stage and performed under the Salem Whitney and Homer Tutt Troupes before moving to New York to join Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's company. At this time, Baskett quickly established himself as one of the leading black performers in New York and appeared in several of Lew Leslie's annual Blackbird productions. In California, Baskett met comedian Freeman Gosden of the "Amos 'N' Andy" radio program and invited him to join the cast. Baskett's role as the fast-talking lawyer Gabby Gibson earned him a national reputation. In 1945, Baskett answered an ad to provide the voice of a talking butterfly in Walt Disney's Song of the South. Upon review of his voice, Walt Disney wanted to meet James personally. Not only did he get the part of the butterfly's voice, but also the voice of Brer Fox and as actor the part of Uncle Remus, becoming the first live actor to be hired by Walt Disney. He died in 1948.