Appearing in over sixty movies throughout her career, Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. In addition to her roles in silent films, television, and stage, Wong landed a role in one of the first movies made in Technicolor. Internationally recognized, her legacy continues to influence entertainers around the world.
On February 23, 1914, Lilian St. Cyr, performing under the name “Princess Red Wing,” became the first Native American actress to appear in a silent film. During her 15-year acting career, she performed in more than 70 films—both shorts and Hollywood features. She was also a fiercely independent woman who spent most of her life promoting Native American culture through art, lectures, and advocacy.
As one of the first motion picture stars, Florence Lawrence was known as “The Biograph Girl.” Throughout her career she appeared in almost 300 films and became one of the first women to lead a US film studio. She was also an inventor and was credited as the inventor of the turn signal and the brake signal for automobiles.
Jazz pianist and singer Hazel Scott was not only the first African-American woman to host her own television show, but she also bravely stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood studio machine. The gifted and popular performer dazzled audiences in the U.S. and abroad with her jazzy renditions of classical works.
Badia Masabni was an entertainer and businesswoman best known for establishing a series of influential clubs in Cairo in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. She is considered to be the mother of modern belly dance and is credited with launching the careers of many Egyptian artists, particularly belly dancers Samia Gamal and Taheyya Kariokka.
Writer, performer and journalist Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is best known for her 1944 novella Gigi.
Model, author, actor and activist Waris Dirie worked for the United Nations from 1997 to 2003 as a Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation. She had written several books on the subject, and in 2002 launched her own non-profit, the Desert Flower Foundation, which raises money to increase awareness about FGM and to help those affected.
Hanna Maron was a German-born Israeli actor, comedian and theater personality who held the world record for the longest career in theater.
Dorothy Green was an American silent film actress who had film roles in Forest Rivals (1919), The Lesson (1917), The Wonderful Adventure (1915), A Parisian Romance, Her Mother’s Secret, The American Way Souls Aflame, The Devils at His Elbow, The Good Bad Wife, the serial Patria, The Praise Agent with Arthur Ashley, and The Grouch. She also performed on stage with the New Shakespeare Company. She was best known for playing “vamp” roles, in cluding in Patria, The Devils at His Elbow, and A Parisian Romance. Green retired from acting in 1930.
Jazz singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist Anna Marie Wooldridge, known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, made a career of performing both beloved standards and her own original material. Her lyrics often referenced aspects of the American Civil Rights Movement and, later in her career, more philosophical themes.
Her 1957 debut album, Abbey Lincoln’s Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love, was followed by a trio of albums for Riverside Records (1957-1959). In 1960 she sang on the landmark civil rights-focused recording, We Insist! After a tour of Africa in the mid-1970s, she adopted the name Aminata Moseka.
Although she only released a few records during the 1980s, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records from the 1990s until her death in 2010, releasing some of her most highly regarded work in her 60s and 70s. In 2003, Lincoln received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.
She was also an actor who appeared in television shows and movies such as The Girl Can’t Help It and Gentleman Prefer Blondes. She co-starred in the independent film Nothing But a Man (1964), an independent film written and directed by Michael Roemer. She recieved a Golden Globe nomination for her her co-starring role in For Love of Ivy (1968). Her television work included appearing in Alice Childress’s Wine in the Wilderness, one of 10 episodes of individual dramas written, produced and performed by African-Americans, “On Being Black” produced in 1969 for WGBH-TV Boston.