People, Locations, Episodes

Carl Weathers, Actor born.

*Carl Weathers was born on this date in 1948.  He was a Black football player and actor. From New Orleans, LA., Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path, but he would reunite with his first love later in life. Weathers played college football […]

Phylicia Rashad, Actress born

Phylicia Rashad, an African American actress. was born on this date in 1948.

Nell Carter, Singer, and Actress born

*Nell Carter was born on this date in 1948. She was an African American singer and actress.

From Birmingham, Alabama while growing up, Carter listened to her mother’s recordings of Dinah Washington and B. B. King, and her brother’s Elvis Presley records. She liked Doris Day, the Andrews Sisters, Johnny Mathis, and admired the work of Cleo Laine and Barbra Streisand. Early in her career, she performed as a singer on the gospel circuit. She moved on to coffeehouses and nightclubs in her hometown, before going on to New York.

Samuel L. Jackson, Actor, and Producer born

*Samuel Jackson was born on this date in 1948.  He is a Black actor and film producer.   Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., the son of Elizabeth Harriett Montgomery and Roy Henry Jackson.  He grew up as an only child in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  His father lived away from the family in Kansas City, Missouri, and later died from alcoholism. Jackson met […]

Lynn Thigpen, Actress born.

Lynne Thigpen was born on this date in 1948. She was an African American actress.

Born in Joliet, IL, she was first seen on the New York stage in the 1975 “The Night That Made America Famous.” Unfortunately, it didn’t make her famous (not overnight, anyway), but she stuck with her craft, and not long thereafter, won a Theatre World Award for her performance in “Tintypes.” Thigpen was also in films, including “Warriors” (1979), “Godspell” (1981), “Tootsie” (1981), “Lean on Me” (1985) and “Impulse” (1988). Other films were “Bob Roberts,” “Random Hearts,” “Shaft,” and “The Insider.”

Teresa Graves, Television Actress born

*Teresa Graves, an African American singer and actress, was born on this date in 1949.

She was born in Houston. She started her career as a singer with the Doodletown Pipers. Later she turned to acting full time. Graves’ first big television appearance was on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In program in 1969 and 1970. Graves appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and on several Bob Hope television specials in 1970 and 1971; she had a feature role in “The Funny Side,” a television series in 1971 and 1972.

Sheila Johnson, Entrepreneur born

*Sheila Johnson was born on this date in 1949. She is a Black businesswoman and philanthropist.  Johnson was born Sheila Crump in Chicago, Illinois, a suburb of Maywood. Her father was a neurosurgeon. Johnson attended Irving School in Maywood and graduated from Proviso High School in 1966. Though she was a cheerleading squad member at […]

Ben Powers, Actor born

*Ben Powers born on this date in 1949. He was an African American actor.

Pam Grier, Actress born

Pam Grier was born on this date in 1949. She is an African American actress.

Pamela Suzette Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia Samuels, a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force. She has one sister and one brother. Because of her father’s military career, her family moved frequently during her childhood, to various places such as England, and eventually settled in Denver, Colorado, where she attended East High School.

Loretta Devine, Actress born

Loretta Devine was born on this date in 1949. She is an African American actress.

Born in Houston, TX, she earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston and a master’s degree from Brandeis University.

After moving to New York City, she landed her first professional role in “Coming Uptown.” She then appeared in Bob Fosse’s Broadway production “Big Deal.” But it was her portrayal and creation of Lorell in the Broadway hit “Dreamgirls” that won her the admiration of critics and audiences.

Whoopi Goldberg, Media Personality born

Whoopi Goldberg was born on this date in 1949. She is an African American actor, comedian, and television host.

Debbie Allen, Stage, and Film Artist born

Debbie Allen was born on this date in 1950. She is an African American actress, director, producer, and choreographer.

Born in Houston, TX, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors from Howard University. Allen began her career on Broadway in the 1970s in the chorus of “Purlie,” “A Raisin In the Sun,” “West Side Story,” and “Anita,” which earned her a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award. She is probabloy best known for her is probably best known for her role as Lydia Grant in the 1982 TV hit, Fame.

‘Beulah’ (Situation Comedy) Debuts on TV

*On this date in 1950, The Beulah Show was broadcast for the first time. This was the first American television situation comedy to star an African American.

Howard Rollins Jr., Actor born

Howard Rollins Jr. was born on this date in 1950. He was an African American actor.

Born in Baltimore, Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr., was the youngest of four children born to Howard E. Rollins, Sr., a steelworker, and Ruth R. Rollins, a domestic worker. After high school, he attended Towson State College, MD, where he studied theater. In his early years, Rollins vaguely considered becoming a teacher. At 17, a friend convinced him to attend a casting call at a local Baltimore theater, where he won a role in “Of Mice and Men.”

David Russell, Media Storyboard Artist born

David Russell was born on this date in 1950. He is an African American visual storyboard artist, educator, and painter.