1901-1950
Actor of stage and screen Monte Hawley was born Montrose Westin Hawley on this day in Chicago. He was of a legal mixed race marriage, very rare at the time and had at least one sibling. He was so light skinned as a child, he parents had him "pass" as a fully white child. He would become an extremely out-spoken voice on the plight of black actors of all skin tones; but reserved his most biting words on the plight of black actors of what he called "the beige side," rightly pointing out that for Hollywood they were still too black and for many black filmmakers they looked too white. Still despite this, he was a very prolific actor of his time, particularly on the stage. He was, from an early age, a talented member of the famous Harlem founded Lafayette Players. And, despite his young age, he appeared in early African American cinema, appearing in two films in the 1920's, both of them produced by ground breaking filmmaker Oscar Micheaux (and both feature extremely creepy, possibly haunted houses). His film debut came in Ghost of Tolston's Manor in 1923. He subsequently appeared in Micheaux's much better known A Son of Satan the following year. These remain his only two silent credits, though is quite possible--even probable--that his credits dating from the 1920's are very much incomplete. Throughout his career, Hawley was much more of theater actor and obviously didn't find silent acting to his taste; something not at all uncommon with stage actors at the time. He was not just a man of vaudeville stage either, by the mid 1920's he was tackling and conquering serious stage roles as well. He would not be appear in another film until 1938, when he took on the role of the district attorney in the crime drama Life Goes On. From 1938 through 1940, he made quite a career of film acting, playing everything from comedy cops, to straight shooting men of authority, to hard-boiled gangster types. A number of these also had music as a feature, and more than a few featured the great Mantan Moreland whom Hawley had also shared a live stage with. After 1940, his film roles got fewer and further apart. His last film appearance came in 1948 in Miracle in Harlem in which he played a police lieutenant. He died doing what he loved--acting on stage on the 30th of November in 1950. He was performing live when he collapsed in mid-performance in New York City with a massive brain hemorrhage. He was mourned with a large funeral featuring music from people that he had performed with both live and on film back in his home town of Chicago. Despite that there are a number of descriptions of his funeral, I can find no information at this time on his burial in the Chicago area. Hawley was a World War I veteran from the Navy and was an entertainer of troops during World War II.
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