BORN ON THIS DAY: JUANITA MOORE

 It was hard to make it big in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s if you did not fit the mode of what a Hollywood star was. Through in being a minority, and it was very hard to make it even more. Juanita Moore had a hard time in Hollywood. However, in the years after her death, Juanita is regarded as a wonderful actress, and she could have been an even bigger star if the Hollywood system did not hold her back. Juanita Moore was born on this day in 1914 in Greenwood, Mississippi, the daughter of Ella (née Dunn) and Harrison Moore. She had seven siblings (six sisters and one brother). Her family moved in the Great Migration to Los Angeles, where she was raised. Moore first performed as a dancer, part of a chorus line at the Cotton Club before becoming a film extra while working in theater.

Moore was the vice president of the Original Cambridge Players, who took a Los Angeles production of The Amen Corner to Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in April 1965. She was friends with Marlon Brando and James Baldwin. It was Moore who asked Brando to lend the funds ($75) to Baldwin to write the play.

After making her film debut in Double Deal (1939),  Moore had a number of bit parts and supporting roles in motion pictures through the late 1930s and 1950s. Moore's performance in the remake of Imitation of Life (1959) as black housekeeper Annie Johnson, whose daughter Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) passes for white, won her a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture for the role. When the two versions of Imitation of Life were released together on DVD (the earlier film was released in 1934), one of the bonus features was a new interview with Moore.

Juanita continued to make movies and television appearances through 2000. She remained an activist for racial equality as well as a supporter of local theatre. On the anniversary of her birthday today, let us remember Juanita Moore, and what she not only left behind on film but what she left behind for the world...