Rex Ingram (actor)
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- This article is about the actor. See also Rex Ingram (director).
Rex Ingram (October 20, 1895 - September 19, 1969) was an African American film and stage actor. Born near Cairo, Illinois on the Mississippi River (his father was a steamer fireman on the riverboat Robert E. Lee), he claimed to have obtained a medical degree from Northwestern University in 1919 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, but this is not confirmed.
He went to Hollywood as a young man where he was literally discovered on a street corner by the casting director for a Tarzan movie, which starred Elmo Lincoln. He first appeared on film in Tarzan of the Apes (1918) and had many small roles, usually as a generic black native, such as in the Tarzan films. With the arrival of sound his presence and powerful voice became an asset and he went on to memorable roles in Green Pastures (1936), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (the 1939 MGM version, opposite Mickey Rooney), The Thief of Bagdad (1940), his best-known film appearance, and Sahara (1943).
From 1929 he also appeared on stage, making his debut on Broadway. He appeared in more than a dozen Broadway productions between his debut and his final role in Kwamina in 1961. He was in the original cast of Haiti (1938), Cabin in the Sky (1940), and St. Louis Woman (1946).[1] He also appeared in the film version of Cabin in the Sky.
Ingram was arrested for violating the Mann Act in 1949. Pleading guilty to the charge of transporting a teenage girl to New York for immoral purposes, he was sentenced to 18 months. He served just ten months of his sentence but the incident had a serious impact on his career for the next six years.
In 1962 he became the first African American actor to be hired for a contract role on a soap opera, when he appeared on The Brighter Day. He had other minor work in television in the sixties, appearing in an episode each of I Spy and The Bill Cosby Show, both of which starred Bill Cosby who used his influence to land him the roles.
On his passing in 1969, his body was interred in the Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.
