Rose Mc Clendon

Rose Mc Clendon

Rose McClendon born Rose Virginia Scott McClendon, (August 27, 1884 – July 12, 1936) was a leading African American Broadway actress of the 1920s.

Rose McClendon, the "Negro first lady of the dramatic stage"(1) was born in Greenville, SC under the name of Rosalie Virginia Scott. Rose was born circa in 1885 in South Carolina and as a child relocated to New York City. She started acting in church plays as a child, but did not become a professional actress until she won a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Art, when she was in her thirties.

Her first claim to fame came in Deep River, a "native opera with jazz", in 1926. In addition to acting, she also directed several plays at the Harlem Experimental Theatre. Rose appeared in the 1927 Pulitzer Prize winning play In Abraham's Bosom by Paul Green. In 1931, she was in another Paul Green play on Broadway, The House of Connelly, which was the first production by The Group Theatre, directed by Lee Strasberg.

She was a contemporary of Paul Robeson, Ethel Barrymore, Lynne Fontanne and Langston Hughes. Hughes wrote a character for her, Cora Lewis, in his 1935 play, Mulatto. Her talent extended to directing as well as acting. In 1935, she co-founded with Dick Campbell, the Negro People's Theatre in Harlem. A year later McClendon died of pneumonia. Campbell and his wife, Murial Rahn, founded the Rose McClendon players.