Meet the 1st Black millionaire actor who lost everything and became a 'nobody'
- The 1st African-American actor to become a millionaire was affectionately called Stepin Fetchit
- Stepin whose full name was Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry was popular for playing a racist character
- His career declined when racism was gravely attacked in the US and nobody wanted to work with him
- Stepin, who had won several great accolades in his career had to eventually declare bankruptcy
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Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry was a famous Black actor who appeared in scores of films in the 1920s and 1930s but suddenly vanished from the scenes and never came up again.
A news report by Face2FaceAfrica indicates that the gentleman who was born in Key West, Fla., in 1892, had many great achievements for his exploits at the peak of his career.
Perry received a Stepin Fetchit star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, got a Special Image Award from the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP in 1976, and was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1978.
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The journey to greatness for Perry started right from his teens when he started entertaining audiences as a comic character actor.
Not long after that, the young man became a vaudeville artist and the manager of a travelling carnival show before moving into film acting, eventually becoming America’s first black movie star.
Reports indicate that the Black superstar got his break in Hollywood in 1927 when he was cast in the silent film In Old Kentucky.
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Perry made so much money out of this character but by the late 1930s and early 1940s, he began going broke as Black leaders started piling pressure on Hollywood to put an end to the negative racial stereotypes that Perry was creating.
This was because the character that made him famous was now seen as a symbol of racism and nobody wanted to have anything to do with him.
By 1947, the first Black movie star stopped getting any movie roles, compelling him to declare bankruptcy. He subsequently started performing in nightclubs and later made a few movies but couldn’t come back as strong as before.
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From that moment, the all famous Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry's name died down and he disappeared from the scenes forever as he passed on November 19, 1985.
In other news, Rosemond Nkansah the 1st female police officer in Ghana has had a grand party to mark her 90th birthday.
Top-notch individuals in the police force, as well as retired colleagues of Rosemond, were there to grace the occasion
Rosemond was the lady who fought for women in the police force to be able to get married, as the law did not permit that previously.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
