Evelyn Preer

A film director was asked what type of theatrical role best suited Evelyn Preer, then a blossoming starlet of the 1920s. The puzzled director thought for several moments before responding.

“Any type there is,” he finally said.

Known in the black community as the “First Lady of the Screen” and hailed by African-American newspapers as “The Race’s Premier Dramatic Actress,” Preer was as adept at playing an angel as she was at playing a prostitute. She was as skilled at portraying a sinister witch as she was in the role of a timid little sister.

From silent movies to 'talkies'

Preer was also as comfortable performing on Broadway as she was before movie cameras, and was one of the first black actresses to make the transition from silent movies to the Hollywood “talkies” in the late 1920s.

“Miss Preer could play any role assigned her,” said Oscar Micheaux, author and the first major African-American film maker. “And she always did so cheerfully and without argument.”

Born Evelyn Jarvis in Vicksburg, Miss., in 1896, she moved to Chicago with her mother and three siblings as a child. Upon graduation from high school, she dabbled in Vaudeville and “street preaching” to quick start her career.

At age 23, Preer landed a role in Micheaux’s debut film The Homesteader, which led to a string of personal appearances and national publicity tour – all of which triggered her to become one of the first African-American women to be hailed a star in the black community.

She appeared in the first play by a black playwright that was produced on Broadway and in 1928 was in Rain, the first New York-style production with a black cast in California. She was also an accomplished singer and performed with Duke Ellington early in his career.

Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Preer starred in dozens of movies, often appearing in two or three a year. Her beauty, grace and superior acting skills made her one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actresses.

Preer’s fair complexion and light skin afforded her roles in productions in which she portrayed characters of mixed race, although she preferred to play characters who were written into the script as being black.

Despite her light complexion, Preer was steadfast in her African-American identity. In the mid-1920s, she was contracted to perform in five movies, but broke the contract after three movies when she refused to wear black face make-up as the producers insisted.

Her life and career were cut short when she died of double pneumonia in 1932 at age 36, shortly after giving birth to her only child.