As of today, 25,000 @Tumblr followers for @VintageBlkGlam - Thank you! In the photo, Sammy Davis Jr. is celebrating his new album on Frank Sinatra’s record label, Reprise, in London on September 5, 1961. Photo via Hulton-Deutsch/Corbis
Rosalind Cash. She was so determined to avoid stereotypical roles, she took jobs as a waitress, a salesgirl and even a nightclub singer in the early days of her career. Later generations would recognize her from “A Different World,” and “General Hospital,” but she was also a stellar theater actress and an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company. Her films included “Klute,” “The Omega Man,” ”Cornbread, Earl and Me,” “Uptown Saturday Night,” and many others. On television, she appeared in an adapation of James Baldwin’s “Go Tell It On The Mountain,” Melvin Van Peebles’ “Sophisticated Gents,” and Maya Angelou’s, “Sister, Sister” with Diahann Carroll and Irene Cara.
Donald Bogle said it best:
Seldom in Hollywood’s history was a black woman so repeatedly wasted, so thoroughly trashed by the industry. And the roles this gifted woman found herself playing often revealed Hollywood’s basic contempt for the talented, not-easily-typed black actress. In a way, though, the roles, coupled with Cash’s high-strung artistry, created a persona for her. As with Gloria Foster, perceptive audiences sat watching Rosalind Cash, using her as a symbol of their own broken promises and unfulfilled dreams.
Born in Atlantic City, NJ, Ms. Cash died of cancer at age 56 in 1995.
Have you ever seen Sammy dance with Eartha Kitt? Like to see it? Here it go! #AnnaLucasta
Eartha Kitt and Sammy Davis, Jr. dancing in the infamous mambo sequence from their controversial film, Anna Lucasta.
Kitt and Davis not only starred in the film, they had financial participation. Before Anna Lucasta’s world premiere in 1958, the MPAA Advertising Code Administration refused to approve several ads for the film claiming, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “that the ads blatantly portray the femme lead as a prostitute” and that the ‘art emphasizes her posterior.” Kitt and Davis also sent letters to hundreds of exhibitors in the south because many Southern theaters did not book the film on “racial grounds.”
http://55secretstreet.typepad.com/anovelista/2009/02/eartha-kitt-the-oscar-montage-omission-and-why-it-matters.html
(Source: vintageblackglamour)
Natalie Cole in a 1970s Fashion Fair cosmetics ad.
(Source: vintageblackglamour)
Diahann Carroll in a Fashion Fair Cosmetics ad from the 1970s.
(Source: vintageblackglamour)
Sister Sledge, 1979. This photo appeared on the back of their legendary album, We Are Family.
(Source: vintageblackglamour)
Janice-Marie Johnson (bass) and Hazel Payne (guitar) of “A Taste of Honey.”
(Source: vintageblackglamour)
The Three Degrees: Fayette Pinkney, Valerie Holiday, Sheila Ferguson.
(Source: vintageblackglamour)
Hilda Simms, a popular actress best known for her starring role in the first all-black production of Anna Lucasta on Broadway in 1944, on the January 1954 issue of Hue.
Happy Birthday Diana Ross! This 1979 photo was shot by the late great Francesco Scavullo for her 1980 album, “Diana.”
