Canada Lee

At 45 years old, Canada Lee has this physical status:

Kanel (born Leonard Lionel Canegata, 1907-1907 – May 9, 1952) was an American actor who pioneered African American roles.

He became an actor in the Federal Theatre Project after his stint as a jockey, boxer, and singer, most notably in Orson Welles' 1936 production of Macbeth.

Lee appeared in Welles' original Broadway production of Native Son (1941).

Lee was blacklisted and died shortly before being scheduled to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee as a defender of civil rights in the 1930s and 1940s.

He enriched the African-American tradition in theatre pioneered by such actors as Paul Robeson.

Lee was the father of actor Carl Lee.

Early life

In 1907, Leonard Lionel Canegata was born in New York City's San Juan Hill neighborhood. 0–4 His father, James Cornelius Canegata, was born on the Caribbean island of St. Croix and as a youth, he and his mother, Lydia Whaley Gadsen, immigrated to New York. 8 Lee was raised by his parents in Harlem, New York, and at age seven, he started studying violin and piano with J. Rosamond Johnson at the Music School Settlement for Colored People. He made his concert debut at age 11 at Aeolian Hall, where he performed a student recital. However, after seven years of music studies, without explanation, he took away his violin and walked away from home. 11–13 Lee, 14, moved to Saratoga Springs, New York, where he began as a jockey, aged 14 and began a two-year career.

: 14

Lee returned to his parents' house in Harlem in 1923 with no idea what he was going to do next. He considered returning to music, but an old school buddy suggested that he try boxing. 24 On one amateur match, fight announcer Joe Humphries discovered the word "Canagata, Lee" on the card he was using. He discarded the card and instead announced "Canada Lee"—a word Lee adored and adopted. He won 90 out of 100 bouts and the national amateur lightweight championship.

Lee turned pro at the age of 19, 1926, a 26-year-old male, and became a hit with audiences. 30 – He fought as a welterweight at 5 feet (9 inches) and 144 pounds (65 kg). His boxing figures are inconsistent due to poor coverage and record-keeping for the 1920s and 1930s. Lee was in fact 60 bouts 1927–31, the bulk of which took place in 1927–28, according to boxing historian Donald R. Koss. 375–375 The New York Times announced that Lee had played 200 professional matches and lost only about 25 percent.

Lee was dealt a blow by his right ear that detached his retina during his victorious 10-round match with Andy Divodi at Madison Square Garden on December 12, 1929. Lee's vision may have been enhanced with surgery, but he was afraid of losing his lucrative career and deceived his injuries. He lost all vision in his right eye in time. 1934-36 He began working as a boxer in 1933.

Lee was broke after he made an estimated $90,000 during his boxing career (roughly equivalent to $1.8 million today). Lee later wrote, "Just threw it away." Lee later advocated for health-care, financial planning, and retirement homes for fighters. In 1946, he said, "The average boxer has no education." "If he goes broke, he has no trade, no education, and no one to turn to."

": 40

Lee's playing career came to an end, he formed a small dance band that performed at unknown clubs. Lee and his company began receiving more visits after an old friend, sportswriter Ed Sullivan, was plugged into his new entertainment column. When his group appeared at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem in 1933, his career as a bandleader hit its high point. He formed The Jitterbug, a little club that continued to operate for six months the following year. He had no prospects when it came to an end, and his mother advised him to get a job.

: 43–44

During his time as a prizefighter, Lee discovered a passion for Broadway theatre. "A big, tough fighter, all muscle, just sobbing," he recalled about Show Boat, the first stage performance he ever saw.

: 32

In 1934, he began acting by chance. Lee stumbled upon an audition in progress and was recognized by playwright Augustus Smith while working at a YMCA as a labourer. Lee was encouraged to try out and received a supporting role in Brother Mose, directed by Frank H. Wilson. The show, which was supported by the New York Civil Works Administration, toured the boroughs, playing at community centers and city parks through the fall of the year. 45-46 was born in October 1944. Lee succeeded Rex Ingram in the Theatre Union's revival of Stevedore, which took its first Broadway performance to Chicago, Detroit, and other U.S. cities. It was his first professional career.

: 47–48

Banquo, Lee's first major role in the legendary Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth (1936), which was adapted and directed by Orson Welles, was produced and directed by Orson Welles.

"I never would have done anything in the theatre if it hadn't been for Orson Welles," Lee recalls. "I loved acting, and it was certainly better than going hungry." However, I didn't have a serious interest in it until... I bumped into Orson Welles. I was putting on a Federal Theatre production of Macbeth with Negro actors and, strangely, I won the Banquo role. He rehearsed us for six months, but when the play finally opened before an audience, it was correct—and it was a magical thrill to know it was correct. For the first time, the theater became important to me. For what it could say, I had a remark on it. I had the aspire — I caught it from Orson Welles — to perform like mad and be a convincing actor."

Macbeth was on display at the Lafayette Theatre for ten weeks. 333 : 203 After an additional two weeks on Broadway, the company toured the country, with performances at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas.

: 64, 95

Lee took over Rex Ingram as the lead in the stage performance Haiti (1938), depicting Haitian slave turned emperor Henri Christophe. Haiti, one of the Federal Theatre Project's most popular performances, was seen by 90,000 people at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem and the Copley Theatre in Boston.

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Lee travelled to Broadway in 1939, after the completion of the Federal Theatre Project, in January 1939, a Broadway hit that toured North America and returned to Broadway for a brief period in 1940. In Keep Punching (1939), a boxing film, Lee took a break from the road to make his motion picture debut. 69-70 He made his radio debut as the narrator of the CBS jazz program Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm (1940–41). 256 As the regular series came to an end, he opened Chicken Coop on 102 West 136th Street, Canada Lee's Chicken Coop. Despite continuing financial challenges, Lee kept it going.

: 78–79

In the 1940 revival of Theodore Ward's Big White Fog, Lee was the principal protagonist. The play was revived by the newly formed Negro Playwrights Company, which was established in New York by Ward, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Theodore Browne, Richard Wright, and Alain Locke in 1938.

: 284

In his highest stage success, Native Son (1941), Orson Welles' adaptation of Richard Wright's book staged on Broadway, Lee became a celebrity overnight. Both Welles and Lee, who appeared in the initial New York run, a 19-month national tour, and a second run on Broadway with accessible ticket prices, were a huge success. "Mr. Lee's performance is superb," wrote Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times, who praised him as "not the best Negro actor of his time," as well as one of the country's finest actors." Wright praised the show, quoting Lee's affable demeanor and his intensity as Bigger Thomas. The sympathetic portrayal of a black man led to murder by racial hatred sparked much criticism, particularly from the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and the Legion of Decency, and the play came to an end.

Lee continued to perform in plays and films during World War II. Despite the generally critical reaction to these performances, he appeared in two comedies by William Saroyan in 1942 and received approving reviews. His name was above the marquee for South Pacific in 1943, a race-themed drama starring Lee Strasberg that was panned by critics but gained Lee critical esteem.

: 163–165

Perhaps Lee's best known film role was in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), in which he played ship's steward Joe Spencer, one of 8 men and women who were rescued from New York to London by a survivor of the ship's crew.

Lee was the first actor cast for the film, according to a Hollywood Reporter news story on June 22, 1943. Joe was chastised for being "too stereotypical" in the script. Lee testified that he attempted to round out the person by revising dialogue, primarily by deleting repeated "yessir"s and "nossir"s that sounded unconstitutional, as well as limiting certain activities. The role of Joe was criticized in an NAACP review, but Lee's role was lauded. The Baltimore Afro-American's review, although commenting on the character's flaws, lauded Lee's portrayal. While writing in 2009 that Joe's role in the wartime films Sahara and Bataan was more "tokenistic" than black roles, historian Rebecca Sklaroff said that Joe was depicted as compassionate, dependable, and heroic. He is the only one who withstands the temptation of crowd fury that leads to the deaths of the Germans. He is the only one who comes forward to disarm the wounded German sailor who was rescued at the end of the film.

Lee's radio career continued with New World A-Comin', which made its debut in March 1944. He narrated the first two seasons of the illustrious WMCA radio series that introduced Negro history and culture to mainstream American audiences.

: 170–171

In Margaret Webster's 1945 Broadway production of The Tempest, he became the first African American to appear in Caliban. Lee had admired Shakespeare since his appearance in Macbeth; indeed, he was planning to play Othello on film at the time of his death.

Lee appeared in On Whitman Avenue, a tale about racial mistrust starring Margo Jones, in 1946. Lee wrote the play, making him the first African-American producer on Broadway. Following World War II, the play brought forth the need for interracial housing and lauded former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote weekly columns urging readers to read it.

When Lee played Daniel de Bosola in John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in autumn 1946, he made American theater history. The performance, which was staged in Boston and on Broadway, was the first time a black actor had appeared on Broadway. Lee wore a white paste that had been used medically to cover burns and scratches, but had never been used in the theatre. In Robert Rossen's Body and Soul (1947), another boxing picture, he had a supporting role.

Lee played his last stage role in Set My People Free, Dorothy Heyward's story based on the failed 1822 slave rebellion led by Denmark Vesey, was played on a devoted slave.

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He appeared in Lost Boundaries, a drama based on William Lindsay White's book of the same name, a nonfiction biography of Dr. Albert C. Johnston and his family, who went for white while living in New England in the 1930s and 1940s.

Minister Stephen Kumalo starred in Cry, the Beloved Country (1951), Lee's last film appearance was in Cry, the Beloved Country (1951).

Lee came into contact with several of the country's most influential progressive figures. Langston Hughes, for example, wrote two short plays for Lee; these were submitted to the Theater Project, but their treatment of racism in America was rejected, and neither was staged. Lee spoke to schools, sponsored various charitable activities, and began speaking out against America's active segregation, while still acknowledging the need to win World War II. He appeared at several USO functions, and another from the Treasury Department for his assistance in selling war bonds. These sentiments would last throughout his life, culminating in his firsthand account of apartheid in South Africa.

Lee was a pioneer in the fields of medicine and human rights activist H. Jack Geiger. They met in 1940 when Geiger, a 14-year-old middle-class Jewish runaway, was backstage at a Broadway performance of Native Son. When he appeared at his door in Harlem asking for a place to remain, Lee agreed to take him in. Geiger stayed with Lee for more than a year with the permission of his parents. Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, Richard Wright, and Adam Clayton Powell all played the role of surrogate father and introduced Geiger to Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, Richard Wright, and Adam Clayton Powell. Geiger became a reporter and then a doctor who co-founded the first community health center in the United States, the Columbia Point Health Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was a founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Human Rights, as well as established community health centers in Mississippi and South Africa. If not for Geiger's encounters with Canada Lee, he would not have travelled so quickly in these worlds so quickly.

The rising tide of anti-communism had made several of Lee's early experiences politically threatening. Lee was not to be used in American Tobacco's televised production of a radio play in which he had recently appeared because he was "too controversial" in 1949, according to the trade journal Variety.

If Lee's name was released anonymously, the FBI promised to warn Paul Robeson of being a communist. "All you're trying to do is split my race," Lee said. Lee planned to come out and "publicly condemn Paul Robeson," according to newspaper columnist Walter Winchell. However, Robeson had no faith in Winchell's story until Lee's death, despite the fact that the two actors remained friends before his death.

Lee managed to find work in 1950 as the star of a British film Cry, The Beloved Country, for which Sidney Poitier and Sidney Poitier were evicted into South Africa in order to serve as African ministers. Lee had his first heart attack while filming, but he never fully recovered his health. As Lee's last film directed at this goal, the film's message of universal brotherhood stands out.

He was refused any more opportunities because he was on the Hollywood blacklist. He was asked repeatedly that his passport "remained under scrutiny" after arriving in Italy to begin filming on a filmed version of Othello. According to reports, Lee was supposed to appear as Bigger Thomas in the Argentina version of Native Son, but when Lee had to leave, Richard Wright, author of the story, was able to fill the role.

Lee married Juanita Eugenia Waller in December 1925. 26 On November 22, 1926, they had a son, Carl Vincent Canegata: 28 who became actor Carl Lee. The couple separated when their son was young: 33 years old, but in 1942, they were amicably divorced. 124

Despite the danger of miscegenation statutes, Lee began a love affair with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby in 1934. They often had lunch at the then-new restaurant "Franks," where they could continue their private friendship. During Lee's appearance in Washington, D.C., the only restaurant in the city where they could dine together was the Bugazi, an African restaurant. In the mid-1940s, Crosby and Lee's close friendship lasted well into the 1950s.

Lee married Frances Pollack in March 1951. They stayed together until he died just over a year later.

Lee died of a reported heart attack in Manhattan on May 9, 1952. He had been diagnosed with uremia and kidney disease, died of kidney disease, according to Frances Pollack's widow, who died in a coma and died ten days after his illness. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, 346–348.

Family life

Lee married Juanita Eugenia Waller in December 1925. 26 On November 22, 1926, they had a son, Carl Vincent Canegata, who became actor Carl Lee. The couple separated early in life: 33 years old, and divorced in 1942. 124 123.

Despite the threat of miscegenation legislation, Lee began a love affair with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby in 1934. They often had lunch at the then-new restaurant "Franks," where they could keep their private information. During Lee's appearance in Washington, D.C., the only restaurant in the city where they could dine together was the Bugazi, an African restaurant. During the mid-1940s, Crosby and Lee's close personal friendship lasted into the 1950s.

Lee married Frances Pollack in March 1951. They stayed together until he died just over a year later.

Lee died of a reported heart attack in Manhattan on May 9, 1952. Later, Frances Pollack, his widow, announced that he had been suffering from uremia and died of kidney disease, prompting his death and slipping into a coma and passing away ten days after his illness. 346–348 He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

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