Canada Lee
About
Biography
Filmography
Notes
"All my life, I've been on the verge of being something. I'm almost becoming a concert violinist and I run away to the races. I'm almost a good jockey and I go overweight. I'm, almost a champion prize fighter and my eyes go bad."--Canada Lee (quoted in Stefan Kanfer's "A Journal of the Plague Years", 1973)
"There was a sense of the driven aristocrat about him, as if to relax was to sink below one's natural level. When he turned actor, almost because there seemed nothing else to do, he was variously judged a natural, a consummate professional and incredibly lucky."--Stefan Kanfer ("A Journal of the Plague Years", 1973)
Biography
One of the premier black stage actors of the late 1930s and 40s. A former jockey, violinist, orchestra leader and boxer before settling down to acting in 1936, Lee made his debut with the WPA's Federal Theater Project in Harlem, winning acclaim for his performance as Banquo in Orson Welles' all-black "Macbeth" in 1936. He took Broadway by storm with his explosive performance as Bigger Thomas in the legendary stage adaptation of Richard Wright's "Native Son" in 1944. In his Hollywood debut, Alfred Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" (1944), Lee won notice for the quiet authority and intelligence of his heroic ship's steward.
Further acclaimed work on Broadway included "Haiti," "Stevedore," "Mamba's Daughters," "The Tempest" and Orson Welles' 1946 production of "The Duchess of Malfi" (in which Lee starred in white-face). On film, Lee was unforgettable as a broken-down boxer, hired as a trainer to ruthless, up-and-coming champ John Garfield in Robert Rossen's "Body and Soul" (1947). With his soft, round, gentle face and air of quiet dignity, he represented the conscience of the film.
Two years later, like almost everyone else connected with "Body and Soul," Lee was blacklisted for his alleged Communist sympathies. Forced into penury after being banned from film, radio and TV, the destitute Lee was eventually pressured into delivering an attack upon Paul Robeson. He almost immediately found work, starring as a priest trying to save his son from a murder sentence in the Korda brothers' adaptation of Alan Paton's anti-apartheid novel, "Cry the Beloved Country" (1951). Soon after speaking at a rally in Westchester protesting the murder of two black men by an ex-police officer, Lee died at age 45, as much a victim of the blacklist as of his chronic high blood pressure.
Life Events
1936
Joined the WPA's Federal Theater Project in Harlem
1936
First stage performance as Banquo in Orson Welles's all-black "Macbeth"
1941
Starred on Broadway in Orson Welles' production of Richard Wright's "Native Son"
1941
Charged with larceny for alledgedly trying to sell an automobile that he had not made a payment on just as he was about to embark on national tour of "Native Son"; Welles's lawyer Arnold Weissberger kept him from prison after a protracted court battle
1944
Film debut in "Lifeboat"
1946
Starred in white-face on Broadway in "The Duchess of Malfi"
1947
Signed with Enterprise films
1950
Sole TV appearance on "Tele Theatre"'s "The Final Bell"
1952
Underwent a sympathectomy (surgical interruption of sympathetic nerve pathways) to relieve high blood pressure
Photo Collections
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Movie Clip
Family
Bibliography
Notes
"All my life, I've been on the verge of being something. I'm almost becoming a concert violinist and I run away to the races. I'm almost a good jockey and I go overweight. I'm, almost a champion prize fighter and my eyes go bad."--Canada Lee (quoted in Stefan Kanfer's "A Journal of the Plague Years", 1973)
"There was a sense of the driven aristocrat about him, as if to relax was to sink below one's natural level. When he turned actor, almost because there seemed nothing else to do, he was variously judged a natural, a consummate professional and incredibly lucky."--Stefan Kanfer ("A Journal of the Plague Years", 1973)
