The purpose of this blog is to highlight the presence of the people of the African Diaspora in period costume dramas. It is also to provide a historical context to the films featured.
Today, we have unfortunately learned that celebrity hairstylist Charles Gregory Ross has passed away of Coronavirus. Hollywood heavy hitters like Tyler Perry, Viola Davis, Ava DuVernay and Lee Daniels wrote heartfelt messages to their friend and colleague.
Charles Gregory Ross showed his amazing artistry on numerous films. So often the people behind the screen don't get the praise they deserve. They work that Ross did was crucial to the viewing experience. This is especially true for period films which Ross worked on often. I included trailers for the films and series that I could find so that you could see his art in motion.
A Timeline of Ross' Period Film Work
Miss Evers' Boys (1997)
Laurence Fishburne as Caleb Humphries and Alfre Woodard as Eunice Evers, R.N.
Mama Flora's Family (1998)
Passing Glory (1999)
Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1999)
Mykelti Williamson and Lonette McKee as Papa Delany and Mama Delany
Remember the Titans (2000)
Denzel Washington and Nicole Ari Parker as Coach Herman Boone and Carol Boone
Boycott (2001)
Jeffrey Wright and Carmen Ejogo as Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King
Lackawanna Blues (2005)
S. Epatha Merkerson as Rachel 'Nanny' Crosby and Marcus Carl Franklin as Ruben Santiago Jr.
Idlewild (2006)
Paula Patton as Angel Davenport
Pride (2007)
Black Dynamite (2009)
Michael Jai White and Salli Richardson-Whitfield as Black Dynamite and Gloria
The Trip to Bountiful (2014)
Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Charles Gregory Ross.
It was recently announced that Jeremy Pope and Laura Harrier will be in Ryan Murphy's upcoming Netflix series 'Hollywood'. Along with Pope and Harrier, actors Samara Weaving, David Corenswet, Patti LuPone, Holland Taylor, and Darren Criss have also joined the cast.
Jeremy Pope is playing a character named Archie, while Laura Harrier's character is named Camille.
Daveed Diggs will take on the role of legendary abolitionist, Frederick Douglass in Showtime's upcoming limited series. The Blumhouse Television series is based on the National Book Award-winning novel The Good Lord Bird by James McBride.
Character Description: "Diggs will play Frederick Douglass, the well-known orator and leader of the abolitionist movement and Union Civil War effort. Douglass works with Brown and encourages the raid on Harpers Ferry, but finds Brown's planning and leadership style questionable and his approach dangerous, bordering on suicidal." The series will be told from the point of view of Onion (Joshua Johnson-Lionel), "a fictional enslaved boy, who is part of Brown’s motley crew of abolitionist soldiers during the time of Bleeding Kansas, eventually participating in the famous 1859 raid on the Army depot at Harpers Ferry. Brown’s raid failed to initiate the slave revolt he intended, but was the instigating event that started the Civil …
Sanditon (1817) is an unfinished novel by the English writer Jane Austen. In January 1817, Austen began work on a new novel but only completed eleven chapters before stopping work in mid-March 1817. Her illness most likely prevented her from continuing.
In the unfinished novel, Georgiana Lambe is described as “a young West Indian of large fortune, in delicate health,” who is “about seventeen, half mulatto, chilly and tender.” In the series, Georgiana is far wealthier than many of the white English people she interacts with, and her relationship to polite society is a big part of the plot.
Miss Georgiana is not a "race-bent" character or a modern insert. The Jane Austen wrote her as a woman of African ancestry. A wealthy West-Indian character included in a novel from the early 1800s. Austen's works are considered the pinnacle, so Miss Lambe's inclusion is noteworthy.
I fully agree with actress Crystal Clarke's sentiments:
"What's great is Georgiana …
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