Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee

Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee by Mona Z. Smith Faber and Faber, Inc., August 2004 $26.00, ISBN 0-571-21142-9

Why was one of the greatest African American actors of his day relegated to little more than a footnote in Hollywood and black history in the years following his death? Biographer Mona Z. Smith, a former investigative reporter for The Miami Herald and an award-winning playwright, adeptly uncovers the answers. Intrigued by the absence of information on an actor by the name of Canada Lee, Smith set out to document this gifted Harlem Renaissance-era artist's life and work.

Canada Lee, born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata in 1907, was redlisted at a time when his Broadway--and Hollywood--career was just taking off. He had found fame and for tune on Broadway as the conflicted Bigger in Orson Welles's well-received 1941 stage production of Native Son. Afterward, Lee had parlayed his success, as he'd done all of his life, into broader and bigger opportunities, including a role in the 1943 Hitchcock movie Lifeboat. Before breaking into acting, Lee had found reasonable success as a musician, jockey, boxer, bandleader and restaurateur; but acting would be his final calling, if not his death wish. Celebrity gave him a voice, and he used it to light for the rights of his people, which gradually drew the attention of government watchdogs.

Lee's political activism in opposition to Jim Crow and other injustices is credited with ultimately cementing his placement on the McCarthy--era redlist, which eventually choked the life out of his career and his spirit. Smith, having been given access to Lee's personal files by his widow, mores a forgotten thespian from near obscurity to front and center on the American stage.

Regina Cash-Clurk

COPYRIGHT 2004 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group