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Transcription: [00:11:05]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
I know this guy, Herb Jeffries-- have you ever met or talked to Herb Jeffries?

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
No, I knew of him, but I never met.
[00:11:13]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
He was telling me this story about how these Black cowboy films were made in the late thirties.
[00:11:18]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
"Harlem Rides the Range", "Bronze Buckaroo". They made about four all-Black cowboy films; Westerns.
[00:11:24]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
And he was telling me about how he became the star of them,
[00:11:31]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
and how, when he first asked the guy to, you know, when he first auditioned for it, they told him he was "too light".
[00:11:37]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
And he actually had to go darken down with what he I think he told me Egyptian number 4, or something like that.

[[Cross Talk]]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Yeah, I've done that.
[00:11:44]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
So you have?

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
In Lost Boundaries, I did.
[00:11:46]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Now was Lost Boundaries, was that a Hollywood film?

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Yeah.
[00:11:49]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Who was in that?
[00:11:51]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Oh, Jose Ferrer. It was really about a black family passing for white.

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Oh yeah?
[00:12:01]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Kids didn't know it, but finally the kids found out it was a black family. He was supposedly a white doctor.
[00:12:09]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Oh right, I've read about this. Now were you, were you his wife or something?
[00:12:12]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
No, I played the part of his daughter.
[00:12:14]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Oh, his daughter.

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
As a black person.
[00:12:18]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
The daughter was so distraught when she found out that she was black, and she imagined herself as a black person.
[00:12:25]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
And like a vision, I appeared, but I was too light for it to come through.
[00:12:34]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
And I had to-- I tried out for-- I'll tell you how I got this part.
[00:12:39]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
At the studio, I went out and got all different shades of makeup on my own at my expense because I wanted this part.
[00:12:49]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Mh-mh.
[00:12:49]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Till finally I got this makeup, the correct makeup, and put it on. They said, "You want this part so badly? Yes, you can have it, with that makeup."
[00:12:59]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Is there anything in those movies or movies like that that they use, that they dealt with lighting as far a skin color is concerned, or anything like that?
[00:13:06]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
The lights? You mean the--
[00:13:08]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Yeah. Nothing, no special techniques that you know of?
[00:13:12]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
But I still came out very fair.
[00:13:14]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Now in the movie were you a light-skinned daughter and then imagined yourself to be darker skin? Is that how it was?
[00:13:21]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Yeah.

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Oh I see, I see.
[00:13:23]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Yeah. The whole family looked quite white.

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
I see.
[00:13:27]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
So they all passed until they were exposed.
[00:13:31]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Okay, so you were in this movie about this particular concept.
[00:13:38]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Mh-hm.

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Now to me, now maybe it's because I get involved in these issues more or am tuned into them,
[00:13:47]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
but to me, that's a pretty heavy thing to be dealing with.
[00:13:50]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Mh-hm.

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Cause as I've told you before, Lorenzo Tucker would always tell me about how he felt prejudice from both sides.
[00:13:57]

{SPEAKER name="Francine Everett"}
Mh-hm.
[00:13:57]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
So basically what we are really talking about here is a whole film based upon race and oppression as passing.
[00:14:04]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
And, so their must have been some,
[00:14:11]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
some discussion about this thing on the set and what was going on, and--
[00:14:17]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Wasn't ther? I mean, wasn't-- How was that? What was going on there. I mean, I'm not,
[00:14:22]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
I'm not trying to get juicy stories or anything I just want get some sense of the feeling of what was going on there.
[00:14:29]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Because I would suppose we're talking maybe the 50s, 40s; 40s in this thing.
[00:14:34]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
But you know, this is almost a taboo subject we're talking about.
[00:14:38]

{SPEAKER name="Richard Grupenhoff"}
Were you concerned about that or the act--
[00:14:42]

Transcription Notes:
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