1. Madame Sul-Te-Wan was the first African-American actress to sign a film contract and be a featured performer.
16 Facts About Madame Sul-Te-Wan
1. 2.
Madame Sul-Te-Wan was an American stage, film and television actress for more than 50 years.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan became known as a character actress, appeared in high-profile films such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, and easily navigated the transition to the sound films.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan's father left the family early in her life, and her mother became a laundress for Louisville stage actresses.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan formed her own theatrical companies and toured the East Coast.
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When Crawford began using the stage name "Madame Sul-Te-Wan" is unknown; its first appearance on a cast list is in 1931, as the character of Voodoo Sue in Heaven on Earth.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan appeared uncredited, most often in "Mammy" roles, alongside such popular actors of the silent film era as Tom Mix, Leatrice Joy, Matt Moore, Mildred Harris, Harry Carey, Robert Harron, and Mae Marsh.
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Mildred Harris Robert Harron Leatrice Joy Mae Marsh Gloria Swanson Buster Keaton Richard Barthelmess Claudette Colbert Barbara Stanwyck Melvyn Douglas Veronica Lake Lucille Ball Conrad Nagel Luise Rainer Jane Wyman Fay Wray Dorothy Dandridge Harry Belafonte Diahann Carroll Otto Preminger Pearl Bailey 8.
Madame Sul-Te-Wan appeared uncredited in the 1927 James W Horne-directed Buster Keaton comedy College, and, uncredited, in the 1929 Erich von Stroheim-directed drama Queen Kelly, starring Gloria Swanson.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan transitioned into the talkie era with relative ease and has appeared uncredited in high-profile films alongside such prominent film actors as Conrad Nagel, Barbara Stanwyck, Fay Wray, Richard Barthelmess, Jane Wyman, Luise Rainer, Melvyn Douglas, Lucille Ball, Veronica Lake and Claudette Colbert.
10.
In 1937, Madame Sul-Te-Wan was cast in the role of Tituba for the film Maid of Salem, a dramatic retelling of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.
11.
In 1954 Madame Sul-Te-Wan appeared uncredited in the Otto Preminger directed African-American themed musical drama Carmen Jones opposite Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, Diahann Carroll, and Pearl Bailey as Dandridge's grandmother.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan's pairing with Dandridge spawned the meritless misconception in some that Sul-Te-Wan was Dandridge's actual grandmother; the two women are unrelated.
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At age 77, Madame Sul-Te-Wan married for the second time, to German immigrant Anton Ebentheuer.
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On February 1,1959, Madame Sul-Te-Wan died after suffering a stroke at the age of 85 at the Motion Picture Actors' Home in Woodland Hills, California.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan was interred at the Pierce Brothers' Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California.
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Madame Sul-Te-Wan was inducted in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1986.