- Scatman Crothers, Porgy and Bess, 1958. Producer Samuel Goldwyn couldn’t convince Harry Belafonte to be Porgy – “a black man on his knees… that was not where my head was at.” And when director-ogre Otto Preminger replaced Rouben Mamoulian as director, Whipper quit as the Crab Man (which he created on-stage for Mamoulian in 1927), because Preminger “had no respect for my people.” The founder of the Negro Actors Guild sure got that wrong. It was foot-in-the-mouth producer Sam Goldwyn, for example, who described Sammy David Jr as a monkey.
Birth year: 1876Death year: 1975Other name: Casting Calls: 1