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Canada Lee (1907-1952) |
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- Robert Ryan, The Set Up, 1948. Not many boxing films are based on a poem and director Robert Wise wanted to be faithful to the work by having his boxer being black. He suggested Lee, an ex-pugilist (1926-1933) and seen in another boxing drama, Body and Soul, 1946. (And Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, 1943). But no, it had to be Ryan (a boxer in college) because… (a) there were no leading black men at the time; (b) RKO had no black actors under contract; and (c) the real truth: A black guy in a leading role - never!!” And yet James Edwards was in the cast and he was one of the two leads of Home of the Brave made that same year… and hardly in secret!
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