Nina Mae McKinney

[CaptainWaggett]

Today's Life of the Day in the Oxford DNB. I've seen a couple of her US films - had no idea she had a brief, yet interesting, career in Britain

McKinney, Nina Mae (1912–1967), singer and actress
by Stephen Bourne

© Oxford University Press 2004–11 All rights reserved
McKinney, Nina Mae (1912–1967), singer and actress, was born Nannie Mayme McKinney on 16 June 1912 in Lancaster, South Carolina, USA, the daughter of Hal and Georgia McKinney. She was brought up by a great-aunt, Carrie Sanders, in Lancaster and joined her parents in New York when she was about thirteen. Stage struck from an early age, she taught herself to dance and (having adopted the stage name Nina Mae McKinney) joined the chorus of the hit Broadway show Blackbirds of 1928, starring Adelaide Hall. McKinney was just sixteen when she was plucked from the chorus by King Vidor, one of Hollywood's leading directors, and offered the lead in his film Hallelujah (1929). Critics heaped praise upon the young star, and Vidor described her as ‘beautiful and talented and glowing with personality’ (Vidor, 119). However, McKinney soon realized that there was no place in Hollywood at that time for a black leading lady. Following in the footsteps of Josephine Baker, she left the United States for Europe.

In February 1933 McKinney arrived in London with her accompanist, the pianist Garland Wilson, to star in Chocolate and Cream, a revue at the Leicester Square Theatre. McKinney also participated in one of John Logie Baird's experimental television programmes, transmitted live from his studio at 16 Portland Place on 17 February 1933; she became the first black artist to be seen on British television. Cabaret engagements followed and, in May 1933, a Pathe newsreel captured her on stage at the Trocadero restaurant in Charles B. Cochran's revue Revels in Rhythm.

McKinney's career in British cinema continued with a low-budget comedy, Kentucky Minstrels (1934), starring Harry Scott and Eddie Whaley, the African-American stars of the British variety stage and radio. McKinney made a guest appearance with Debroy Somers and his band. Film Weekly's reviewer noted ‘As the star of the final spectacular revue, [she] is the best thing in the picture’ (Film Weekly, 24 May 1934). The following year, in a cast that also included H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, she sang the jazz classic ‘Dinah’ during the broadcast of a radio show called Music Hall in BBC: the Voice of Britain, John Grierson and the GPO film unit's ‘official’ documentary about the BBC. In Sanders of the River (1935), produced by Alexander Korda, she co-starred with Paul Robeson. Angry and embarrassed that the film had been re-edited without his knowledge to glorify the British empire and colonialism, Robeson disowned the film. As Robeson's African ‘native’ wife, McKinney was suitably exotic and decorative, but Film Weekly (12 April 1935) noted that she was miscast: ‘as much at home in the jungle as, say, a Harlem night-club entertainer’.

McKinney's appeal to the British public broadened as she undertook several lengthy and successful variety tours. Known by now as ‘the black Garbo’, from 1933 to 1937 she topped the bill in many of the country's popular music halls in variety shows with such artists as George Formby, Will Hay, Max Miller, and Vic Oliver. In London she was seen at the Holborn Empire, Hackney Empire, New Cross Empire, Palladium, Finsbury Park Empire, and Brixton Empress; outside London she was seen in Glasgow, Manchester, Blackpool, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bournemouth, and Portsmouth. At the Belfast Ritz in 1936 she was featured on the bill with Ken ‘Snakehips’ Johnson and his Jamaican Emperors of Jazz. Reviews in The Stage newspaper from this period confirm her popularity. When she accepted a return engagement at the Hackney Empire, The Stage (4 June 1936) noted that McKinney,

who is no stranger here, adds to her many friends each time she appears. Her vivid personality is prominent in her act, and she gives apt expression to Shootin' High, Black and Blue, Solitude, and We've Got to Have Something Now, and she is not allowed to go till she has made a graceful little speech of thanks.

Shortly after the BBC launched its regular high-definition television service from Alexandra Palace on 2 November 1936 McKinney was contracted to star in her own variety shows, Ebony and Dark Laughter (both 1937). She also appeared on the BBC's Television Demonstration Film (1937), a survey of BBC television during its first six months of operation (and one of the few surviving records of pre-war television).

In her private life McKinney led a troubled, self-destructive existence. In 1936 an opportunity to star opposite Paul Robeson in another film, Song of Freedom, fell through. The actress who replaced her was another African-American expatriate, Elisabeth Welch, who said: ‘Nina thought that being a star meant that you must be temperamental. She made herself unpopular and ruined her career’ (Slide, 482).

On returning to the United States in 1938 McKinney tried to resurrect her film career, but the only roles that were available to her in Hollywood were stereotypical maids to stars like Irene Dunne, Merle Oberon, and Hedy Lamarr. Some sources state that in 1940 she married the jazz musician Jimmy Monroe, with whom she subsequently toured the USA in cabaret. In the 1950s she lived in Athens, where she performed in cabaret, but about 1960 she returned to New York. Her death of a heart attack on 3 May 1967 at the Metropolitan Hospital, New York, passed virtually unnoticed. On her death certificate she was described as a widow (though other sources suggest she had divorced Monroe); her occupation was recorded as ‘domestic for private families’. There was no mention that she had been an actress and singer. In 1978 her contribution to cinema was recognized with a posthumous award from America's Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Her appearance in the BBC's Television Demonstration Film assured her a place in British television history. Most documentaries on the pre-war days of the BBC's television service, including The Birth of Television (BBC, 1977), Magic Rays of Light (BBC, 1981), and The A to Z of Television (Channel 4, 1990), have included the footage of the radiant and charismatic McKinney.

STEPHEN BOURNE
Sources

The Stage (1933–7), digital archive, 1880–2007 · K. Vidor, A tree is a tree (1953) · F. E. Williams, ‘The black Garbo’, Cinema [women and film issue], 35 (1976), 18–19 · A. Slide, ‘Elisabeth Welch’, Films in Review, 38/10 (Oct 1987), 480–83 · S. Bourne, ‘Nina Mae McKinney’, Films in Review, 42/1–2 (Jan–Feb 1991), 24–8 · C. Regester, ‘Nina Mae McKinney: early success and tumultuous career’, African American actresses: the struggle for visibility, 1900–1960 (2010), 40–71 · www.imdb.com, accessed on 25 Nov 2010

Archives

FILM

BFI NFTVA, documentary and performace footage
SOUND

BL NSA, performance recordings

Likenesses

photograph, 1929, Rex Features, London · photograph, 1935, priv. coll. [see illus.] · photographs, priv. coll.

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© Oxford University Press 2004–11 All rights reserved
Stephen Bourne, ‘McKinney, Nina Mae (1912–1967)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2011 [Nina McKinney, accessed 10 Oct 2011] Nina Mae McKinney (1912–1967): doi:10.1093/ref odnb/101370

[cornershop15]

Publicity photo for 'Pinky' (1949):


Sorry to learn of her early death.

[lizzie12]

I'm not too happy with the entire version of my Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODN of Nina Mae McKinney being published in this Brit Movie thread. Also, you may have infringed the Oxford University Press's copyright. However, I appreciate the acknowledgement, so thank you for that, but I would have preferred a few edited highlights which would hopefully encourage readers to access the full version for themselves via the ODNB website, and discover the other biographies I have written about black stars of early British cinema including Ernest Trimmingham and Elisabeth Welch.

FYI my full-length biography NINA MAE MCKINNEY - THE BLACK GARBO has just been published by BearManor Media in the USA. Some of the chapters cover her British film, television and stage career (1933-38), illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photos from the author's collection. For further information see www.bearmanormedia.com and for information about Stephen Bourne's books see www.stephenbourne.co.uk