Rex Ingram

Rex Ingram October 20 1895 September 19 1969 was an American stage film and television actor Ingram graduated from the Northwestern University medical school in 1919 and was the first AfricanAmerican man to receive a Phi Beta Kappa key from there He went to Hollywood as a young man where he was literally discovered on a street corner by the casting director for Tarzan of the Apes 1918 starring Elmo Lincoln He made his uncredited screen debut in that film and had many other 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 The Green Pastures 1936 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the 1939 MGM version The Thief of Bagdad 1940perhaps his bestknown film appearanceas the genie The Talk of the Town 1942 and Sahara 1943 From 1929 he also appeared on stage making his debut on Broadway He appeared in more than a dozen Broadway productions with his final role coming in Kwamina in 1961 He was in the original cast of Haiti 1938 Cabin in the Sky 1940 and St Louis Woman 1946 He is one of the few actors to have played both God in The Green Pastures and the Devil in Cabin in the Sky In 1966 he played TeeTot in the movie Your Cheatin Heart Ingram was arrested for violating the Mann Act in 1948 Pleading guilty to the charge of transporting a teenage girl to New York for immoral purposes he was sentenced to eighteen months in jail He served just ten months of his sentence but the incident had a serious effect on his career for the next six years In 1962 he became the first AfricanAmerican actor to be hired for a contract role on a soap opera when he appeared on The Brighter Day He had other work in television in the 1950s and 1960s Rex Ingram died of a heart attack at the age of 73 biography excerpted from Wikipedia