This past week we saw the 93rd Academy Awards give the Best Actress Award to Frances McDormand, again, for the 3rd time in her career. This is just one behind the record holder, Katherine Hepburn, who has 4 Oscars. But are these two the greatest of all time?
Well before you read my list below, let me explain how I judged it.
First, it is NOT by how many awards they won. So chill out, Kate Hepburn and Frances McDormand did NOT make my Top 10 but they did make the Top 20. If it was just Oscars, they would be 1 and 2. Instead, I judged these leading ladies by how consistently compelling they are when they appear on the silver screen. It did NOT matter how many movies they did. To me, it’s more of how they grab my attention when they act. In other words, when I see their name on the marquis do I immediately want to watch the movie just because of the top-billed actress.
Historic rendition of Jarena Lee, the first female preacher in the A.M.E. church
Dr. Rosalyn Brookins. Courtesy of Parks Chapel A.M.E. Church.
Parks Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 476 34
th Street Oakland, California is excited to announce that Rev. Dr. Rosalynn Brookins, senior pastor was awarded the auspicious Jarena Lee Award.
Jarena Lee (February 11, 1783 – February 3, 1864) was the first female authorized to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. History shows she was born into a free, Black family. Lee saw the immorality of slavery. At a time period of segregation and inequity, A.M.E. Church founder Richard Allen gave her the opportunity for her voice to be heard despite the fact that there were no provisions for a female to preach. Rev. Lee showed determination to let her voice be heard and to share the holy word, despite racial and gender issues. Further, Lee was the first African American woman to
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Cicely Tyson: A Shining Titan of Black Excellence
In an exceptional memoir, one of the greatest actresses in American film deconstructs her craft and bears witness to history.
John Palmer/MediaPunch/IPX
This article appears in the May/June 2021 issue of The American Prospect
HarperCollins
This week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrated Cicely Tyson during the Oscarsâ memorial tribute honoring the careers of film icons who had passed away since the last awards ceremony. It is fitting that Tyson died just two days after her memoir
Just as I Am was published in January. Perhaps even more fitting, within days the long-awaited story of her life surged to number one on best-seller lists and, ultimately, into multiple printings.Â
I Dreamt of Richard Pryor Last Night
Last night, I dreamt of Richard Pryor.
I don’t often remember my dreams but was awakened at 4:30AM by a weather alert on my cellphone for a storm that never transpired.
I knew Richard fairly well at one point. I worked with him from approximately 1979 for a couple of years on a film “Bustin’ Loose” that reached the theaters in 1981.
It was something of a long haul because this was during the time Pryor set himself ablaze from a crack pipe and shooting had to be interrupted.
It was, not surprisingly, a rather rocky road, even for Hollywood. I was hired three times and fired twice on the film, partly, I suspect, at the behest of the NAACP that was pressuring Universal Studios to have all major participants on the biggest black production of the year be black, including the screenwriter.