Evelyn Preer - Stage Career

Stage Career

In 1920, Evelyn Preer joined The Lafayette Players in Chicago. The theatrical stock company was founded in 1915 by Anita Bush, a pioneering stage and film actress known as “The Little Mother of Black Drama.” Bush and her acting troupe toured the US to bring legitimate theatre to black audiences, at a time when theatres were racially segregated by law in the South, and often by custom in the North.

By the mid-1920s, Evelyn Preer began garnering much attention from the white press and she began to appear in "crossover" films and stage parts. In 1923, she acted in the Ethiopian Art Theatre's production of The Chip Woman's Fortune by Willis Richardson. This was the first dramatic play by an African-American playwright to be produced on Broadway in New York City.

In 1926, Preer had a successful stint on Broadway in David Belasco’s production of Lulu Belle. Preer supported and understudied the actress Lenore Ulric in the leading role of Edward Sheldon’s steamy drama of a Harlem prostitute.

She won acclaim in Sadie Thompson, in a West Coast revival of Somerset Maugham’s play about a fallen woman. Preer rejoined the Lafayette Players for that production in their first show in Los Angeles at the Lincoln Center. Under the leadership of Robert Levy, Preer and her colleagues performed in the first New York-style play featuring black players to be produced in California. That year she also appeared in Rain, a play adapted from Maugham's short story by the same name.

Preer had her talkie debut in the 1930 race musical, Georgia Rose. In 1931 she performed onscreen opposite the actress Sylvia Sidney in the film Ladies of the Big House. Her final film performance was the minor role of a prostitute named Lola in Josef von Sternberg's 1932 film Blonde Venus, playing opposite Cary Grant and Marlene Dietrich.

Preer was also an accomplished vocalist. She performed in cabaret and musical theater, where she was occasionally backed by such diverse musicians as Duke Ellington and Red Nichols early in their careers.

Evelyn Preer was regarded by many as the greatest actress of her time. Only her film by Micheaux and three shorts survive. She became successful within the constraints for minority actors of the time. Very fair, she was of mixed-race African and European ancestry and deemed "too light or too white looking" for Broadway and Hollywood roles as a black woman, for which directors tended to select darker-skinned actresses. She did not receive roles similar to those gained by contemporaries such as Ethel Waters, because of her fair skin, although she had similar versatile talents. Some colleagues advised her to pass for white for more opportunities, but she refused to do so. Preer often did vocal work and dubbing in Hollywood, but her best work was done in the race films of the time.