Evelyn Ellis

{{multiple image

| align = right

| direction = vertical

| width = 220

| image1 = Porgy-Verwayne-Wilson-Ellis.jpg

| alt1 =

| caption1 = Evelyn Ellis (right) as Bess, with Percy Verwayne (Sporting Life) and Frank Wilson (Porgy) in the original Broadway production of Porgy (1927)

| image2 =Native-Son-1941-1.jpg

| alt2 =

| caption2 = Canada Lee (Bigger Thomas), Eileen Burns (Miss Emmett) and Evelyn Ellis (Hannah Thomas) in the original Broadway production of Native Son (1941)

}}

Evelyn Ellis was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 2, 1894. Not much is known about her early life and introduction to acting, but she became a prominent actor within the black community starting in 1919 until 1955. Ellis made her theatrical debut at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem in a production of Othello in 1919. She then moved to Broadway, making her debut in the production of Roseanne by Nan Bagby Stephens. Her next big Broadway show was Porgy in 1927, in which she is known for creating the character of Bess, and appeared with Rose McClendon and Frank H. Wilson. That same year, she played a lead role in Ernest Howard Culberston’s production of Goat Alley which dealt with black life in the slums of Washington, D.C. She played the character of Lucy Bell Dorsey and was praised by the New York Times Theatre Review for “her telling portrayal".{{Cite book|title = Notable Black American Women|last = Hodges|first = Carolyn|publisher = Gale Research Inc.|year = 1992|location = Detroit}} She was inactive a few years due to the stock market crash of 1929 that led to the Great Depression, but she came right back and even started directing.

Ellis played in various other theatrical plays, such as Arnaud d'Usseau and James Gow's Deep Are the Roots on Broadway in 1945, in which she played Bella Charles, the mother of the returned African-American war veteran,{{cite news |last1=Chapman |first1=John |title='Deep Are The Roots' Discusses Race Prejudice - But at Length |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/443919401/?terms=%22Deep%2BAre%2Bthe%2BRoots%22%2Bmother |access-date=3 August 2019 |work=Daily News |date=27 September 1945 |location=New York, New York |page=37}}{{cite news |last1=French |first1=Betty |title='Race Problem' Plays Compared |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/146256363/?terms=%22Deep%2BAre%2Bthe%2BRoots%22%2Bmother |access-date=3 August 2019 |work=The Akron Beacon Journal |date=27 December 1945 |location=Akron, Ohio |page=23}} and The Royal Family in 1952. Her next big role, however, was in Orson Welles's original Broadway production of Native Son, in which she played Hannah Thomas, the mother of Bigger Thomas, who was played by actor Canada Lee. She also played the same role a year later in a successful revival of the play. The Afro American Baltimore states her role was "so realistic that she had already earned the praised of Broadway critics".{{Cite news|title = The Afro American Baltimore|date = 27 May 1947|work = Evelyn Ellis Playing with "Native Son"}} Ellis continued to play various lead roles through her year working with the Dunbar Players of Philadelphia. During this year, she also started a drama school in Long Island for youth.

Ellis directed Horse Play in 1937 and then put on the play Little Woman in 1938 with the junior department at the Negro Little Theatre.{{Cite news|url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2211&dat=19381022&id=-tYmAAAAIBAJ&pg=1150,5475688&hl=en|title = The Afro American Baltimore|date = 22 October 1938|work = "Little Women" at St. James Tonight}} Her most notable work as a director as well as an actress is in the all-black production of Tobacco Road in 1950. She played the role of a starving mother which the New York Times singled out as “truthful elements that left a lasting impression”. Through her directing of a youth play and her creation of the drama school, Ellis was active in getting younger kids interested in the art of drama.

• Blue Holiday (1945),
• Supper for the Dead (1954).
• Easy Money (1921)
• A Son of Satan (1924) {{Cite book|title = Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era|last = Smith|first = Jessie|publisher = Rowman & Littlefield|year = 2014|location = Maryland|pages = 74}}

Ellis made her last Broadway appearance in 1953Great Actors and Actresses on the American Stage in Historic Photographs p.69, c.1983 by Stanley Appelbaum and ended her acting career in 1955 with the film Interrupted Melody. Two years later, she died from a heart ailment on June 5, 1958, at the age of 64. She was hospitalized from December 1957 until her death at the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital in Saranac Lake, New York.Truitt, Evelyn Mack, Who Was Who On Screen 2nd Edition. p. 141, c.1977.

• Abbie Mitchell
• Florence Mills
• Rose McClendon

{{Reflist}}

{{Commons category|Evelyn Ellis}}

• {{IBDB name}}
• {{IMDb name|0254833}}
• [https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/search/index?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=evelyn+ellis Evelyn Ellis portraits] (NY Public Library, Billy Rose Division)
• [https://www.flickr.com/photos/vieilles_annonces/4889789918 1925 portrait]
• [http://www.kinotv.com/page/bio.php?namecode=125229&q=0&l=en Evelyn Ellis](Kinotv)
• [http://collections.mcny.org/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UP1GK72QBU&SMLS=1&RW=898&RH=480 portraits](City Museum/New York)

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ellis, Evelyn}}

Category:1894 births

Category:1958 deaths

Category:Actresses from Boston

Category:American stage actresses

Category:20th-century American actresses

Category:20th-century African-American actresses