Nina Mae McKinney
With her starring role in MGM’s all-Black musical Hallelujah (1929), Nina Mae McKinney became Hollywood’s first major, Black leading lady and set the tone for future tempestuous, romantic leads. Due to restrictions against depicting interracial relationships on screen through the 1960s, Black actresses could only be paired romantically with Black actors. The few leading ladies that emerged over this era shared similar characteristics; like McKinney, most were young, slender, and light-skinned, reflecting Hollywood’s racist beauty standards.
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Nina Mae McKinney
With her starring role in MGM’s all-Black musical Hallelujah (1929), Nina Mae McKinney became Hollywood’s first major, Black leading lady and set the tone for future tempestuous, romantic leads. Due to restrictions against depicting interracial relationships on screen through the 1960s, Black actresses could only be paired romantically with Black actors. The few leading ladies that emerged over this era shared similar characteristics; like McKinney, most were young, slender, and light-skinned, reflecting Hollywood’s racist beauty standards.
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Abbey Lincoln
1930-2010Singer
Paired with Ivan Dixon in Nothing But a Man (1964) and with Sidney Poitier in For Love of Ivy (1968).
Diahann Carroll
1935-2019Actor
Paired with Sidney Poitier in Paris Blues (1964) and with James Earl Jones in Claudine (1974).
Dorothy Dandridge
1922-1965Actor
Paired twice with Harry Belafonte, in Bright Road (1953) and Carmen Jones (1954) and with Sidney Poitier in Porgy and Bess (1959).
Eartha Kitt
1927-2008Actor
Paired with Sammy Davis Jr. in Anna Lucasta (1958).
Ethel Waters
1896-1977Singer
Ethel Waters would be claimed as a queer icon by later generations and lived openly with her partner, dancer Ethel Williams in the 1920s. (The two were known as “The Two Ethels.” On-screen, she would be paired with Sammy Davis Jr. in Rufus Jones for President (1933) and would be part of a love triangle in Cabin in the Sky (1943) with Lena Horne and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson.
Lena Horne
1917-2010Actor
Paired with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson in Stormy Weather (1943), and found herself in a love triangle with Ethel Waters and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson in Cabin in the Sky (1943).
Ruby Dee
1922-2014Actor
Paired with Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950) and with Sidney Poitier in Buck and the Preacher (1972).