1. Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata, known professionally as Canada Lee, was an American professional boxer and actor who pioneered roles for African Americans.
43 Facts About Canada Lee
1. 2.
Canada Lee was born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata on March 3,1907, in the San Juan Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.
3.
Canada Lee's father, James Cornelius Lionel Canegata, was born on the Caribbean island of St Croix, and as a youth had migrated to New York, where he married Lydia Whaley Gadsen.
4.
Canada Lee made his concert debut at age 11, performing a student recital at Aeolian Hall.
5.
In 1921, aged 14, Canada Lee went to Saratoga Springs, New York, and began a two-year career as a jockey.
6.
Canada Lee returned to his parents' home in Harlem in 1923 with no idea what he was going to do next.
7.
Canada Lee considered returning to music, but an old school friend suggested that he try boxing.
8.
Canada Lee turned pro at age 19, in October 1926, and became a favorite with audiences.
9.
The New York Times reported that Canada Lee had some 200 professional matches and lost only about 25.
10.
Canada Lee eventually lobbied for insurance, health care, financial consultation and retirement homes for fighters.
11.
Canada Lee discovered a love for Broadway theatre during his years as a prizefighter.
12.
Canada Lee remembered Show Boat as the first stage production he ever saw: "A big, tough fighter, all muscle, just sobbing," he recalled.
13.
In October 1934, Canada Lee succeeded Rex Ingram in the Theatre Union's revival of Stevedore, which toured to Chicago, Detroit and other US cities after its run on Broadway.
14.
Canada Lee then was cast in his first major role, Banquo, in the legendary Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth, adapted and directed by Orson Welles.
15.
Canada Lee was putting on a Federal Theatre production of Macbeth with Negro players and, somehow, I won the part of Banquo.
16.
In January 1939, with the end of the Federal Theatre Project, Canada Lee gained a role in Mamba's Daughters, a Broadway success that toured North America and returned to Broadway for another brief run in 1940.
17.
Canada Lee took a break from the road tour to make his motion picture debut in Keep Punching, a film about boxing.
18.
Canada Lee made his radio debut as narrator of the weekly CBS jazz series Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm.
19.
Canada Lee played the lead role in the 1940 revival of Theodore Ward's Big White Fog.
20.
Canada Lee became a star overnight in his ultimate stage success, Native Son, an adaptation of Richard Wright's novel staged on Broadway by Orson Welles.
21.
Canada Lee testified that he attempted to round out the character by revising dialogue, primarily eliminating repeated "yessir"s and "nossir"s that sounded subservient, and cutting some actions.
22.
Canada Lee is the only one who resists the impulse of mob fury that leads the other characters to kill the German.
23.
Canada Lee is the only character who steps forward to disarm the wounded German sailor rescued at the end of the film.
24.
Canada Lee narrated the first two seasons of the groundbreaking WMCA radio series that presented Negro history and culture to mainstream American audiences.
25.
Canada Lee became the first African American to play Caliban, in Margaret Webster's 1945 Broadway production of The Tempest.
26.
Canada Lee had admired Shakespeare since his turn in Macbeth; indeed, at the time of his death he was preparing to play Othello on film.
27.
In 1946, Canada Lee played a principal role in On Whitman Avenue, a drama by Maxine Wood about racial prejudice directed by Margo Jones.
28.
Canada Lee produced the play, making him the first African-American producer on Broadway.
29.
Canada Lee wore a special white paste that had been used medically, to cover burns and marks, but had never before been used in the theatre.
30.
Canada Lee had a supporting role in Robert Rossen's Body and Soul, another boxing picture.
31.
In 1948, Canada Lee played his last stage role, that of a devoted slave in Set My People Free, Dorothy Heyward's drama based on the aborted 1822 slave revolt led by Denmark Vesey.
32.
Langston Hughes, for instance, wrote two brief plays for Canada Lee; these were submitted to the Theater Project, but their criticism of racism in America was deemed too controversial, and neither was staged.
33.
Canada Lee spoke to schools, sponsored various humanitarian events, and began speaking directly against the existing segregation in America's armed forces, while simultaneously acknowledging the need to win World War II.
34.
Canada Lee agreed to take Geiger in when he showed up at his door in Harlem asking for a place to stay.
35.
Canada Lee took on the role of surrogate father and introduced Geiger to Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, Richard Wright, and Adam Clayton Powell.
36.
Canada Lee became a founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Human Rights, and established community health centers in Mississippi and South Africa.
37.
In 1949, the trade journal Variety stated that under no circumstance was Canada Lee to be used in American Tobacco's televised production of a radio play he had recently starred in because he was "too controversial".
38.
At the height of the Hollywood blacklist, Canada Lee managed to find work in 1950 as the star of a British film Cry, The Beloved Country, for which both he and Sidney Poitier were smuggled into South Africa as indentured servants in order to play their roles as African ministers.
39.
Canada Lee was reportedly to star as Bigger Thomas in the Argentine version of Native Son but was replaced in the role by Richard Wright, author of the novel, when Canada Lee had to withdraw.
40.
In 1934, Canada Lee began a love affair with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby, despite the threat of miscegenation laws.
41.
When Canada Lee was performing in Washington, DC, during the 1940s, the only restaurant in the city where they could eat together was an African restaurant named the Bugazi.
42.
Canada Lee died of a reported heart attack at the age of 45 on May 9,1952, in Manhattan.
43.
Canada Lee was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.