Canada Lee facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Canada Lee
Lee in 1948
Born	Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata (1907-03-03)March 3, 1907 Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Died	May 9, 1952(1952-05-09) (aged 45) Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Other names	Lionel Canegata
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1926–1952
Spouse(s)	Juanita Waller (1925–42) Frances Pollack (1951–52)
Children	2, including Carl Lee

Canada Lee (born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata; March 3, 1907 – May 9, 1952) was an American professional boxer and a talented actor. He was a pioneer, meaning he was one of the first African American actors to play important roles in plays and movies.

Before becoming an actor, Canada Lee was a jockey (someone who rides horses in races), a boxer, and a musician. He became famous for his acting roles, especially in plays like Macbeth (1936) and Native Son (1941). He was also a strong supporter of civil rights for African Americans. Because of his activism, he was put on a "blacklist" in Hollywood, which made it very hard for him to find work. He passed away shortly before he was supposed to speak to a government committee. Canada Lee helped pave the way for other African American actors, much like Paul Robeson. He was also the father of actor Carl Lee.

Biography

Early life

Canada Lee was born Leonard Lionel Cornelius Canegata on March 3, 1907, in a neighborhood called San Juan Hill in Manhattan, New York City. His father, James Canegata, came from the Caribbean island of St. Croix. His mother was Lydia Gadsen.

Lee grew up in Harlem, a famous neighborhood in New York. He was very good at music from a young age. When he was seven, he started learning to play the violin and piano. By age 11, he even performed a concert at a place called Aeolian Hall! But after seven years of music, he suddenly stopped and ran away from home.

In 1921, when he was 14, Lee went to Saratoga Springs, New York. For two years, he worked as a jockey, riding horses in races.

Lee returned to Harlem in 1923, unsure what to do next. He thought about going back to music, but a friend suggested he try boxing. During one amateur fight, the announcer saw his name as "Canagata, Lee" on the card. He decided to announce him as "Canada Lee" instead. Lee liked the name and kept it! In amateur boxing, he won 90 out of 100 fights and even won a national lightweight title.

Professional boxer

Canada Lee became a professional boxer at 19, in October 1926. He quickly became a favorite with the crowds. He was about 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed around 144 pounds, fighting as a welterweight (a boxing weight class).

His boxing records are a bit unclear because record-keeping wasn't perfect back then. Some reports say he had about 60 fights between 1927 and 1931. The New York Times reported that he had around 200 professional matches and only lost about 25.

During a fight in December 1929 at Madison Square Garden, Lee was hit hard over his right ear. This injury caused his retina (part of his eye) to detach. He could have saved his vision with treatment, but he was afraid of losing his successful boxing career. So, he hid his injury. Over time, he completely lost sight in his right eye. He stopped professional boxing in 1933.

Even though he earned a lot of money during his boxing career (around $90,000, which would be like over $2 million today!), Lee ended up with no money. He later said he "just threw it away." Because of this, Lee later worked to get better insurance, health care, and retirement homes for boxers. He believed that many boxers didn't have much education and needed help if they ended up broke.

As his boxing career ended, he started a small dance band that played in clubs. A sportswriter friend, Ed Sullivan, wrote about his band, and they started getting better jobs. His band was most popular in 1933 when they played at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. The next year, he opened his own small club called The Jitterbug, which he ran for six months. When it closed, he had no plans, and his mother encouraged him to find a steady job.

Acting

All my life I've been on the verge of something. I'm almost becoming a concert violinist and I run away to the races. I'm almost a good jockey and I go overweight. I'm almost a champion prizefighter and my eyes go bad. Now I've got it, now I've got what I'm going to be.

– Canada Lee

Canada Lee found a love for Broadway plays during his boxing years. He remembered Show Boat as the first play he ever saw. He said, "A big, tough fighter, all muscle, just sobbing," remembering how emotional he felt watching it.

His acting career started by chance in 1934. He went to a YMCA to apply for a job as a laborer. While there, he accidentally walked into an audition and was recognized by a playwright named Augustus Smith. Lee was invited to try out and won a small role in a play called Brother Mose. This play was supported by the government and toured around New York City, playing in community centers and parks. In October 1934, Lee got his first professional role, taking over for another actor in a play called Stevedore. This play toured to cities like Chicago and Detroit.

Lee as Banquo in the Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth (1936)

Lee (center left) as Banquo in Act I, Scene 2, of Macbeth

Lee then got his first big role as Banquo in the famous Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth (1936). This version of the play was directed by Orson Welles.

Lee later said, "I never would have amounted to anything in the theatre if it hadn't been for Orson Welles." He explained that Welles rehearsed them for six months, and when the play finally opened, it felt "right." This experience made acting very important to him.

Macbeth was incredibly popular, selling out for ten weeks at the Lafayette Theatre. It then moved to Broadway and toured across the country.

Canada Lee as Bigger Thomas in the Mercury Theatre production of Native Son (1941)

J. Flashe Riley (Jack), Canada Lee (Bigger Thomas) and Wardell Saunders (Gus Mitchell) in Native Son

After five months in a supporting role, Lee took over the lead part in the play Haiti (1938). He played Henri Christophe, a Haitian slave who became an emperor. Haiti was one of the most popular plays of the Federal Theatre Project, seen by about 90,000 people.

In 1939, after the Federal Theatre Project ended, Lee got a role in Mamba's Daughters, a successful Broadway play that toured North America. During a break from the tour, he made his first movie, Keep Punching (1939), which was about boxing. He also started narrating a weekly CBS jazz series called Flow Gently, Sweet Rhythm (1940–41). After that, he opened his own restaurant, Canada Lee's Chicken Coop, which served South Carolina food and featured jazz and blues music.

Lee became a big star overnight with his role in Native Son (1941). This play was based on Richard Wright's famous novel and was also directed by Orson Welles. The show was a huge hit for both Welles and Lee. Lee starred in the first New York run, a 19-month national tour, and a second run on Broadway. Critics praised his performance, with one calling him "certainly the best Negro actor of his time." However, the play, which showed a black man driven to violence by racism, received criticism from some groups, leading to its closure.

During World War II, Lee continued to act in plays and films. In 1944, he played Joe Spencer, a ship's steward, in Alfred Hitchcock's movie Lifeboat. In the film, Joe is one of eight people who survive a ship sinking.

The cast of Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), including Canada Lee (second from right).

Some people criticized the script for making Joe's character too stereotypical. Canada Lee worked to make the character more real by changing some of his lines, like removing many "yessir" and "nossir" phrases that sounded too submissive. The NAACP also criticized the role but praised Lee's acting. Historians note that Joe was shown as a kind, reliable, and brave character. He was the only one who didn't join in when the other characters wanted to harm the German survivor.

Lee's successful radio career continued with New World A-Comin', which started in 1944. He narrated the first two seasons of this important radio series that taught mainstream American audiences about African American history and culture.

In 1945, he made history by becoming the first African American to play Caliban in a Broadway production of Shakespeare's The Tempest. Lee loved Shakespeare and was even planning to play Othello in a movie before he passed away.

In 1946, Lee played a main role in On Whitman Avenue, a play about racial prejudice. Lee also produced this play, making him the first African American producer on Broadway. The play talked about the need for integrated housing (where people of different races could live together) after World War II. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt praised the play and encouraged people to see it.

In 1946, Canada Lee made American theater history again. He played the villain Daniel de Bosola in a play called The Duchess of Malfi. This was the first time a black actor had played a white role on stage. Lee wore a special white paste on his skin for the part. He also had a supporting role in the boxing movie Body and Soul (1947).

In 1948, Lee played his last stage role as a loyal slave in Set My People Free, a play based on a slave revolt led by Denmark Vesey in 1822.

In 1949, he had a supporting role in Lost Boundaries, a movie based on a true story about a family who were black but lived as if they were white in New England.

Lee's last film role was the main character, minister Stephen Kumalo, in Cry, the Beloved Country (1951).

Civil rights activism

As an actor, Canada Lee met many important people who worked for social change. For example, Langston Hughes wrote two short plays for Lee. These plays criticized racism in America, but they were considered too controversial to be performed. Lee often spoke at schools and supported humanitarian events. He also spoke out against segregation (separation of races) in America's armed forces, while still supporting the need to win World War II. He appeared at many USO events and received awards for helping to sell war bonds. These beliefs stayed with him throughout his life.

Lee had a big influence on H. Jack Geiger, who later became a doctor and human rights activist. They met in 1940 when Geiger was a 14-year-old runaway. Lee let Geiger stay with him for over a year. Lee became like a father figure to Geiger, introducing him to important figures like Langston Hughes and Adam Clayton Powell. Geiger later became a journalist and then a doctor. He helped start the first community health center in the United States and became a founder of groups like Physicians for Social Responsibility and Physicians for Human Rights. Geiger said his time with Canada Lee deeply shaped his life.

By the late 1940s, there was a growing fear of communism in America. Many of Lee's earlier contacts were seen as politically dangerous. In 1949, a magazine reported that Lee was not to be used in a TV show because he was "too controversial."

The FBI even offered to clear Lee's name if he would publicly say that Paul Robeson (another famous African American actor and activist) was a communist. Lee refused, saying, "All you’re trying to do is split my race."

During the height of the Hollywood blacklist (when people suspected of being communists were prevented from working), Lee still managed to find work in 1950. He starred in the British film Cry, The Beloved Country. To film this movie, both he and Sidney Poitier had to be secretly brought into South Africa as "indentured servants" (a type of worker) to play their roles as African ministers. While filming, Lee had his first heart attack, and he never fully recovered. The movie's message of people from different backgrounds coming together was Lee's final work towards this goal.

Being on the Hollywood blacklist stopped him from getting more work. He was supposed to go to Italy to film Othello, but his passport was repeatedly held "under review." He was also supposed to play Bigger Thomas in an Argentine movie version of Native Son, but he had to drop out and was replaced by the novel's author, Richard Wright.

Family life

In December 1925, Canada Lee married Juanita Eugenia Waller. They had a son, Carl Vincent Canegata, on November 22, 1926. Their son later became the actor Carl Lee. Canada and Juanita separated when their son was young and divorced in 1942.

In 1934, Lee began a close friendship with publisher and peace activist Caresse Crosby. Their friendship continued into the mid-1940s.

Lee's grave at Woodlawn Cemetery

In March 1951, Lee married Frances Pollack. They were together until he passed away just over a year later.

Death

Canada Lee died at age 45 on May 9, 1952, in Manhattan. It was reported that he died of a heart attack. However, his widow, Frances Pollack, later shared that he had been diagnosed with uremia (a serious kidney condition) and died from kidney disease. He slipped into a coma and passed away 10 days after his diagnosis. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.

Theatre credits

Poster for Macbeth (1936)

Canada Lee appeared in two of the four one-act plays comprising Eugene O'Neill's S.S. Glencairn cycle (1937)

Driscoll (Lionel Monagas) comforts the dying Yank (Canada Lee) in the Federal Theatre Project revival of Eugene O'Neill's Bound East for Cardiff, comprised in the production One-Act Plays of the Sea (1937)

Poster for Haiti (1938)

Canada Lee (upper row left) as Bertram in Haiti (1938)

Canada Lee (Bigger Thomas), Eileen Burns (Miss Emmet) and Evelyn Ellis (Hannah Thomas) in Native Son (1941)

Film and television credits

Lobby card for Lost Boundaries (1949)

Radio credits