Canada Lee

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Canada Lee in Lifeboat (1944)

Canada Lee, born Lionel Cornelius Canegata, (March 3, 1907—May 9, 1952) was an actor who pioneered roles for African-Americans. His playing of a white character in 1946 (wearing white face) was a first. In addition he was a strong champion in the civil rights movement.

When Canada Lee (1907-1952) walked out on stage in 1946, he shattered a barrier that had never been crossed before. Lee became the first African-American ever to play a white character on the American Stage, and he did it wearing white face. In fact, his landmark portrayal of De Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi was only one of the numerous achievements of this profound man. Nonetheless, most people today have never heard of Canada Lee.

More than just an actor, Lee sacrificed health and wealth fighting for racial equality. Although many who fought for civil rights suffered under the shroud of McCarthyism, persecuted as Communists or Fellow travellers, none suffered a fate quite like Canada Lee. Standing at the forefront of the fight for equality, Canada became a target of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. As a result, Canada Lee has been so thoroughly erased from history even an anthology as comprehensive as Black Firsts (Visible Ink Publications, 2005), which covers over 4,000 first-time accomplishments by African-Americans, does not even mention his name. Blacklist: Recovering the Life of Canada Lee seeks to rectify this historic omission, reintroducing Lee to the public stage through the eyes and memories of his widow, friends, and contemporaries.

1 Biography
2 External links
3 Further reading

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

Growing up, Lionel Cornelius Canegata tried his hand at many things. He was a concert violinist at the age of twelve. He ran away from home to become a professional jockey by the time he was fourteen, and after growing too large to ride, he decided to try his hand at boxing. It was in the ring that an announcer, stumbling over Lionel’s surname, christened him ‘Canada Lee.’ The name stuck, and Canada Lee quickly rose through the rank and file, positioning himself in line for the Welterweight title.

A glancing blow to his right eye detached his retina and ended his career as a boxer. Canada left the ring and began to conduct a fifteen-piece orchestra and ran a nightclub called The Jitterbug. In the midst of the Great Depression, neither the band nor the nightclub lasted very long and Canada found himself out of work, partially blind and impoverished.

[edit] Acting career

Deciding to apply as a laborer at the Harlem YMCA, fate would intervene for a second time in Canada’s life. While wandering the halls to pass the time, Lee stumbled upon an audition and was asked if he would care to give it a shot. Canada Lee graced the stage for the very first time. He was cast in Frank Wilson’s 1934 production of Brother Moses, which played to a crowd ten thousand strong in Central Park. Lee, the only standout mentioned, would continue to pursue a career in acting, attributing his comfort on the stage to his years of experience moving around the boxing ring.

Having worked together in Welles’s 1936 production of the controversial voodoo Macbeth (so named for its all black cast of over 200), Orson and Canada developed a rapport that came full circle in the casting of Native Son. Welles knew without a doubt that Lee was to play the groundbreaking role of Bigger Thomas. So successful were Canada’s triumphs on stage, it would appear to be the result of years dedicated to studying the craft of acting, not the result of a down-on-his-luck boxer who had nothing to lose.

When the curtain rose in 1941 and Canada stood in front of the sold out audience, as Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright’s Native Son, neither he nor his young director, Orson Welles, had any idea just how responsive the Broadway critics would be. The play was a smash hit, and Canada became an instant sensation. The New York Times called him “the greatest Negro actor of his era and one of the finest actors in this country.”

In 1943, Canada Lee became a champion for racial equality. He was the Jackie Robinson of Hollywood, destroying the prejudicial barriers that barred Negroes from presenting themselves with civility and dignity in the American entertainment industry. Alfred Hitchcock allowed him to rewrite his dialogue for the film Lifeboat, in order to avoid the stereotypical dialog originally scripted for him. By doing so, Canada became the first African-American to portray a non-stereotyped character on the Silver Screen. In reworking the derogatory dialect, typical of subservient black characters, Lee presented the world with its first alternative: an empowered and thoughtful human being, who need not be comical at his own expense. Lee would single-handedly open the door for generations of African-American actors to come and even perform alongside his most direct successor, Sidney Poitier. This achievement became possible because of a friendship established a few years earlier.

When Canada became the first African-American to play Caliban in Margaret Webster’s 1945 Broadway rendition of The Tempest, he would walk in the footsteps of legendary singer and actor, Paul Robeson. Just a few years earlier Robeson became the first African-American to ever play a Shakespearean role on Broadway when he tackled Othello. Lee admired Robeson greatly and the two remained close throughout their lives.

Silencing black and white critics alike, Canada’s choice to present a dignified interpretation of Caliban expanded the audience’s perception of this beleaguered character. Widely lauded for his performance, this was to be his most personally gratifying achievement. An avid lover of Shakespeare from the moment Welles cast him in Macbeth, Lee relished every opportunity to play in verse and was preparing a filmed version of Othello at the time of his death. Even Ed Sullivan praised him outright, stating that “it would be Canada Lee, not Paul Robeson, who would be the greatest actor among his race,” owing to Lee’s “greater natural perception.” Regardless of Sullivan’s divisive comments, Lee and Robeson, sharing similar ideals, would sponsor and headline many organizations and activities which promoted racial equality. Neither spoke in terms of superiority but understood their mutual roles as forerunners, fighting for universal brotherhood among all races, among all creeds.

What truly defined Canada in terms of those who knew him well was his quality of character, the vitality and charisma that came from something deep within, unique to men like Lee. Canada would go on to become the first African-American Producer on Broadway in 1946 with On Whitman Avenue, which spoke directly to the need for interracial housing following WWII and won the praise of former First-Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote weekly columns encouraging readers to see it.

Along with his varied and successful stage and screen careers, Lee became the first African-American DJ on a major radio station hosting The Canada Lee Show, and would continue a successful and lengthy radio career as both actor and narrator. His dedication to the groundbreaking series New World A-Commin’ (a radio show dedicated to presenting Negro history and culture to mainstream American audiences), remains an emblematic testament to Canada’s passion and desire to enact social change.

[edit] Fight against discrimination

Most poignantly, Frances Lee Pearson, Canada’s widow, recounts a decision Lee made immediately after skyrocketing to stardom, where he determined that no matter what, he would use his fame to fight against discrimination, to prevail upon the evils of a racist society that equality is the moral order among men. Perhaps it was this choice that made him a most visible target by those who would seek to stifle such a change. Immediately following this decision, along with hosting numerous social engagements, Canada spoke to schools, sponsored various humanitarian events, and began speaking directly against the existing segregation in America’s Armed Forces, while simultaneously acknowledging the need to win the Second World War. So passionate was he that along with appearing at a number of USO events, he won an award from the United States Recruiting Office and another from the Treasury Department for his help in selling war bonds. Lee was an avid supporter and upholder of Democracy by any standard, yet he could not stay silent in the face of outright segregation. These sentiments would carry on throughout his life leading to his early firsthand accounting of the horrors of apartheid in South Africa.

Needless to say, Canada found himself astonished when the trade journal Variety published an article in 1949 stating that under no circumstance was he to be used in American Tobacco’s televised production of the radio play he had recently starred in because he was “too controversial.” Already suffering woeful hardships, Canada would suffer ruinous loss as his health began rapidly deteriorating, due to the immense financial, political and personal pressure placed on him as he was hounded by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

So interested in stifling racial progress were the forces of injustice that in 1949 the FBI offered to clear Lee’s name if he would publicly call Paul Robeson a Communist, thus pitting America’s two most successful African-American actors against each other on the public stage. Canada Lee refused and responded by saying, “All you’re trying to do is split my race,” yet near the end of his life, rumors surfaced discrediting Lee. According to newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, Lee stated that he intended to come out and “publicly blast Paul Robeson.” The correspondence between Robeson and Lee and Canada’s ultimate faithfulness to Robeson, in the wake of Winchell’s accusation suggests otherwise. Remaining friends until the very end, both continued to suffer personally while seeking to provide the world with an alternative to a life of bigotry and persecution.

At the height of the Hollywood blacklist, Lee remarkably managed to find work in 1950 as the star of a British film production based on the novel Cry, The Beloved Country, for which both he and Sidney Poitier were smuggled into South Africa as indentured servants, in order play their roles as African ministers on location. The film’s overriding message of universal brotherhood stands as Canada’s final testament toward such an aim, as a McCarthy-led America saw fit never to let him work again.

Even Lee’s widow, Frances Lee Pearson, who witnessed McCarthyism beside Lee finds it difficult to believe that “such things back then were possible.” Nor could she and Canada believe that the government would go so far as to withhold his passport, but in 1952, at the time of Canada’s death, Lee had prevailed upon the NAACP and written the United States Passport Bureau several times requesting his due process. Scheduled to appear in Italy to begin production on a filmed version of Othello, he was repeatedly notified that his passport “remained under review.” Canada would never leave his native soil again, yet even to the day he died, so strong was his faith in the democratic system, states Frances, Canada held on to the belief that he would eventually receive his passport.

[edit] Death

Those who knew him well will cite the immense pressure working against him for his premature death. Medically, Lee’s chronic high blood pressure led to kidney failure and he died of an excruciating blood poisoning known as uremia. Following his death, rumors persisted that he did come out and call Robeson a Communist. Unable to defend himself, Lee’s name remained sullied and overlooked as history marched forward into the era of Civil Rights. If Canada had lived, he would have become an elder statesman during a time that saw profound change in this country.