“
The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortune.
— Bert Williams
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BW
Bert Williams
actor, screenwriter, stage actor, film director, blackface minstrel performer, film actor, singer, lyricist, comedian
1874 – 1922
Bert Williams was a Bahamian-born American entertainer, one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. While some sources have credited him as being the first Black man to have a leading role in a film with Darktown Jubilee in 1914, other sources have credited actor Sam Lucas with this same distinction for a different 1914 film, the World Film Company's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ebony stated that "Darktown Follies was the first attempt of an independent film company to star a black actor in a movie", and credited the work as beginning a period in independent American cinema that explored "black themes" within works made for African-American audiences by independent producers.