Charles Gilpin

Charles Gilpin was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1878. He quit school when he was 12 years old and later traveled with the Williams and Walker Vaudeville Company. He was a part of the Canadian Jubilee singers and was one of the original members of the Pekin Stock Company in Chicago. In 1914, Mr. Gilpin appeared in the leading role in The Girl at the Fort with the Anita Bush Company. Anita Bush, who was a pioneer in the development of African-American theater, moved the company to the Lafayette Theatre in Manhattan. She sold the company due to financial difficulties, at which time the name changed to the Lafayette Players Stock Company. Mr. Gilpin stayed on with the newly formed company and helped organize the Lafayette Players, which became the first stock company in Harlem. Except for Ira Aldridge, who lived and performed mostly in Europe before the Civil War, Gilpin was the first African-American to be widely lauded as a serious actor on America's mainstream stage. Mr. Gilpin worked as an elevator operator in Macy's department store to earn his living until, in 1920, he was solicited for the leading role in Eugene O'Neill's play The Emperor Jones at the Provincetown Theatre in Greenwich Village. His performance was to be the first dramatic production in an all-white theater to star an African-American actor. His title role in The Emperor Jones launched Mr. Gilpin's career making him one of the greatest artists of the American stage. He was received at the White House and was awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal for his notable performance in The Emperor Jones. He went on to appear in several other plays and contributed money to the famous Karamu Playhouse in Cleveland, Ohio, which later changed its name to the Gilpin Players. He also starred in the role of Custis in the Broadway production of Abraham Lincoln in 1919.

 

 

 

In 1926, he starred in the film version of Ten Nights in the Barroom, produced in Philadelphia by the Colored Players Film Corporation. Mr. Gilpin's career in film started with his appearance in 1927 in the first "talkie" film The Jazz Singer but but his short career ended when he lost his voice the next year. He died at the young age of 52 in 1930.