Breaking Barriers II

An April 4 letter (“Edwards Broke Barriers First”) alleged that the teaming of James Edwards and Lloyd Bridges in “Home of the Brave” (1949) was the first time a black actor shared equal billing with a white star and, furthermore, that it was “the first time a black actor played a role (in a motion picture) other than that of a servant.”

Sixteen years before “Home of the Brave,” Paul Robeson played the title role in the motion-picture adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Emperor Jones,” and, as the title suggests, he did not play a servant. It is also important to note that Robeson, a world-heavyweight artist and intellectual, was not allowed to eat in the studio commissary during production of this film. As for billing: Not only did Robeson receive star billing for “The Emperor Jones,” but he shared equal billing with such white contemporaries as Henry Fonda, Ginger Rogers and Charles Boyer in “Tales of Manhattan” (1942), as well as with Cedric Hardwicke, Roland Young and Anne Lee in “King Solomon’s Mines” (Great Britain, 1937).

DAVID LESLIE CONHAIM

Los Angeles