Nina Mae McKinney
MGM didn’t have parts for Nina Mae McKinney and a role she did land, in “Reckless” with William Powell and Jean Harlow, was basically left on the cutting room floor. It was especially difficult for Black American women in Hollywood to land roles that weren’t maids, mammies or prostitutes.
Like many Black American entertainers, McKinney had her fill of Hollywood racism and moved to Europe. She made film and stage appearances from Paris to Budapest to Dublin. Such was her beauty that she became known as the Black Garbo.
In England, she played opposite Paul Robeson in “Sanders of the River.” She was also the first Black American entertainer on British television, as part of the BBC’s experimental broadcasts in the 1930.
All together, McKinney appeared in more than two dozen films and shorts over two decades, but about half of those roles were uncredited.
One of her most acclaimed performances was as an undercover agent posing as a cabaret singer in “Gang Smashers” (1938), one of three low-budget features made for black audiences. Her last movie credit, in 1949, was for playing Rozelia in “Pinky,” director Elia Kazan’s drama about a fair-skinned Black woman passing for white.
After living the last decades of her life in Athens, Greece, McKinney returned to New York in 1967, where she died relatively unknown of a heart attack at age 54.
