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Liana Liberato is an actress born in Galveston, Texas. She's been working professionally since she was 9 years old, and is most notably known for her roles in Trust, Best of Me, If I Stay, and To the Bone. At 14 she won the Silver Hugo Award Best Actress at the Chicago International Film Festival for her role in Trust. She also received performance praise from Roget Ebert in the film. Liberato was named one of the best actors under the age of 20 by IndieWire.

Valerie Ritchie Perrine is an American actress and model. For her role as Honey Bruce in the 1974 film Lenny, she won the BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles, the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film appearances include Superman (1978), The Electric Horseman (1979), and Superman II (1980).

Katherine Marie Helmond was born on July 5, 1929, in Galveston, Texas. After her parents divorced, she was raised by her mother, Thelma (nee Malone) Helmond, and her maternal grandmother, both of Irish Catholic descent. She attended Catholic school, and appeared in numerous school plays and pageants. She took a job at a local theater while still in high school, hammering and sawing the scenery, cleaning the bathrooms and pulling the curtain.

After her stage debut in "As You Like It", she worked in New York theatres during the 1950s and 1960s. She operated a summer theatre in the Catskills for three seasons and also taught acting in university theatre programs. She made her TV debut in 1962 but had to wait another 10 years until her breakthrough came in the 1970s. She stayed busy on TV as well as on stage and earned a Tony nomination for "The Great God Brown" (1973) on Broadway. She honed her acting abilities with Alfred Hitchcock in Family Plot (1976) and in numerous TV series, notably in ABC's cult sitcom Soap (1977), for which she had four Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe. On the big screen she starred in Brazil (1985) as Jonathan Pryce's mother who is addicted to plastic surgery and snooping in her son's messed-up life.

In 1983 she studied at the Directing Workshop of the American Film Institute and then directed four episodes of the series Benson (1979) as well as episodes of Who's the Boss? (1984). She also picked up Emmy nominations for her role as Mona Robinson, a liberated grandmother in "Who's the Boss?", and as Lois in Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). Although Helmond was a bona-fide TV star since her "Soap" days, she continued working on stage in the 2000s and was acclaimed for her performances in "The Vagina Monologues".

Katherine Helmond was married twice. She had no children. She turned to Buddhism in later years. She shared her time between her home in Los Angeles and homes in New York and London.

Tracy Dawn Scoggins was born and raised in Dickinson, Texas. At age 16, she enrolled in Southwest Texas State, where she studied speech communications and physical education. After leaving college, she was hired by the Elite Modeling Agency and sent to New York City. After one year, she continued her modeling career with assignments in Italy, France and Germany. Later, she decided to return to the United States to study acting. She attended the Wynn Handman Studio and the Herbert Berghof Studio -- both well-known acting schools. After completing her training, she moved to Hollywood where she has become internationally known as a television and movie star. Today, she resides in Los Angeles, California and spends her free time developing workout videos, cycle riding, swimming and jogging.

John Stockwell is an American actor, director, producer and writer who is probably best known - as an actor - for his roles in the Tom Cruise vehicles Losin' It (1982) and Top Gun (1986), and the Stephen King - John Carpenter film Christine (1983).

John has since moved from acting into the director's chair. His directing credits include Blue Crush (2002), Into the Blue (2005), and Turistas (2006).

John was a close friend of Andy Warhol and is mentioned frequently in the latter's 'Warhol Diaries'.

King Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter of Hungarian descent. He was born in Galveston, Texas to lumberman Charles Shelton Vidor and his wife Kate Wallis. King's paternal grandfather Károly (Charles) Vidor had fled Hungary as a refugee following the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848 (1849-1849). The Kingdom of Hungary had attempted to gain independence from the Austrian Empire, but the revolutionary troops failed against the allied armies of the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire. After the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under brutal martial law. Karoly fled the country and settled in Galveston, Texas by the early 1850s.

During his childhood, King Vidor was a witness of the 1900 Galveston hurricane, the deadliest natural disaster in United States history. The hurricane caused between 6,000 and 12,000 fatalities in the United States, based on varying estimates. Most of these deaths occurred in the vicinity of Galveston. Every house in the city sustained damage, about 3600 houses were completely destroyed, and an estimated 10,000 people were left homeless, out of a population of about 38,000. King Vidor would later give a somewhat fictionalized account of his hurricane experience in a 1935 interview.

By the early 1910s, Vidor was working as a freelance newsreel cameraman and cinema projectionist. In 1913, he directed the short film "The Grand Military Parade", his directing debut. In 1915, Vidor moved to Hollywood, California and was hired as a screenwriter and short-film director by Judge Willis Brown (1881-1931), owner of the Boy City Film Company in Culver City. Brown had gained fame as a judge of the Utah Juvenile Court and a progressive expert on boys' reformation, but had been kicked out of service when it was discovered that he did not actually have a law degree. Brown had established himself as a film producer in order to produce films depicting his main concerns about American society: juvenile delinquency and racial discrimination. Vidor served as a screenwriter and director of at least 10 films with these topics, while working for Brown.

In 1919, Vidor directed his first feature film: "The Turn in the Road". It was a silent drama film, depicting a businessman who loses his faith in God and any interest in industry, when his beloved wife dies in childbirth. Vidor's first major hit was the feature "Peg o' My Heart" (1922), an adaptation of a popular Broadway theatrical play. Following this success, Vidor was signed to a long-term contract for the studio Goldwyn Pictures. The studio was under the administration of Polish-American producer Samuel Goldwyn (1879-1974). In 1924, Goldwyn Pictures merged with Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures into a new company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Vidor remained on contract with this new company.

In the 1920s, Vidor's most famous silent feature films were the war film "The Big Parade" (1925), the Academy-Award nominated drama "The Crowd" (1928), the comedy "Show People"" (1928), and the comedy-drama "The Patsy" (1928). His first sound film was the drama "Hallelujah" (1929), about the life of sharecroppers. It was one of the first Hollywood films with a cast consisting fully of African-Americans. Vidor expressed an interest in "showing the Southern Negro as he is" and attempted to depict African-American life beyond the popular stereotypes of the era.

Vidor faced no problem in transitioning from silent film to sound film, and continued regularly working on feature films until the late 1950s. His last major film was the Biblical-romance "Solomon and Sheba" (1959), featuring love, court intrigues, and military invasions during the reign of legendary Solomon, King of Israel (estimated to the 10th century BC). Afterwards he worked on short films and documentaries, his last film being the documentary "The Metaphor" (1980). The 86-year-old Vidor chose to retire from filmmaking in 1980.

In 1982, at the age of 88, Vidor died at his ranch in Paso Robles, California from an unspecified heart disease. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in his ranch.

Vidor was nominated 5 times for the Academy Award for Best Director, without ever winning. He was nominated for the feature films "The Crowd" (1928), "Hallelujah" (1929), "The Champ" (1931), "The Citadel" (1938), and "War and Peace" (1956). He won an Academy Honorary Award in 1979. Part of his modern fame rests on an uncredited part as an assistant director. Vidor directed the scenes set in Kansas for the novel adaptation "The Wizard of Oz" (1939).

Bill Engvall was born on July 27, 1957 in Galveston, Texas, USA as William Ray Engvall Jr. He is an actor and writer, known for Delta Farce (2007), Catching Faith (2015) and Last Man Standing (2011). He has been married to Mary Gail Watson since December 18, 1982. They have two children, Emily and Travis Engvall, and one granddaughter, Autumn.

Ron Taylor was born on 16 October 1952 in Galveston, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Trading Places (1983), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and Matlock (1986). He was married to Deborah Sharpe-Taylor. He died on 16 January 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Tina Knowles was born on 4 January 1954 in Galveston, Texas, USA. She is a producer and actress, known for The Pink Panther (2006), Black Terror and Black Is King (2020). She was previously married to Richard Lawson and Mathew Knowles.

Barry White first made his mark in the music business in the 1960s as a session musician, even serving for a spell as an A&R man for a small, independent Los Angeles record label. He first hit it big in 1973 with a series of albums and singles emphasizing lush orchestrations and elaborate production values, over which he laid down his big bass voice. In 1973 and 1974 alone, he sold US$16 million worth of records--not only on his own but also as the conductor and composer of instrumental records (as The Love Unlimited Orchestra) and as the primary producer and songwriter of the female vocal trio Love Unlimited (one of whom, Glodean White, became his second wife). 1974 was a prolific year for White, during which he composed the score of Together Brothers (1974) and acted in Coonskin (1974).

After a particularly pronounced fallow period in the 1980s, he rebounded in the 1990s with a series of critically and commercially acclaimed records and he beefed up his presence on TV somewhat with a famous guest appearance on The Simpsons (1989), a recurring role on Ally McBeal (1997), and a series of commercials in which he parodied his image and persona.

Sara Haden was the daughter of silent screen star Charlotte Walker who was also a celebrated beauty in her day. Alas, Sara did not inherit her mother's good looks. She was actually born Catherine Haden in Center Point, Texas, on November 17 1898. There was nothing particularly outstanding about her childhood, except that her mother did not encourage her to become an actress. At least not to begin with. She was educated at the Dominican Convent in Galveston, then began acting in repertory with the James Hayden Players in Galveston and Dallas. She reputedly worked in early radio "as a dog impersonator for her own stories" but in 1921 debuted on Broadway in a rather more serious vein as Macduff's son (!) in "Macbeth". For the next eight years, she alternated between comedy and melodrama, scoring leads in such plays as "Trigger", "Lawful Larceny", "The Wrecker" and "Hot Water". Sara began her screen career in 1934, playing Etta Dawson in Spitfire (1934), thereby reprising her original Broadway performance in "Trigger". However, with her schoolmarmish looks she was quickly typecast as austere spinsters, eccentric aunts and crotchety dowagers. She had a certain knack for playing nasty (especially towards children), but beneath her villainous celluloid reputation lurked a great sense of humour. She was once quoted as saying (about her screen personae) "I'm always mean but there is no monotony about my meanness. I am mean in a great variety of fashions" and "I am glad my dog doesn't go the the movies. Maybe he wouldn't think as much of me if he did". As an MGM contract player from 1938 to 1946, Sara became best known as the starchy, but gentle Aunt Milly Forrest in the popular Andy Hardy series. Ironically, her best scenery-chewing moments came in Universal's cheaply made She-Wolf of London (1946), a typically sinister role for which Sara was paid a princely $2167 per week and (according to her lesser paid co-star June Lockhart) had a turn reminiscent of the Miss Danvers character (Judith Anderson) in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940). Sara remained much in demand as a television actress until her retirement from acting in 1965. She died as Catherine Haden Vandenburg in Woodland Hills, California, in September 1981 at the age of 82.

EMMY nominated Vannessa Vasquez is a Mexican-American actress, producer, and writer who has made her theatrical return in "Say a Little Prayer" (November 2024) alongside internationally acclaimed singer Luis Fonsi. The film follows three girlfriends from San Antonio, TX, who recite an ancient prayer to find lost husbands, unleashing chaos on their relationships.

Vannessa was born in Galveston, Texas. She graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Psychology and Theatre. After graduating, Vannessa had the opportunity to pursue her dream by studying acting at Stella Adler Acting Conservatory in Los Angeles on a full scholarship.

Vannessa starred as the lead actress in Hulu's Hit Original Teen Drama Series "East Los High." Vannessa received an Emmy Nomination in 2015 for her role as 'Camila'. She has also received a nomination for an Imagen Award for her portrayal of 'Magdelena Cruz' in the feature film "Sins of a Call Girl." Some of her other credits include "Walker" (CW), and "Macgyver" (CBS), "The Fix" (CBS), "The Brave" (NBC), "National Treasure" (Disney), and "Divorce Bait" (Goldwyn). In 2015, she won the Bilingual Artist of the Year award at ALEGRIA Awards.

As a writer and producer, Vannessa produced her feature film, "Sorrow", in 2014, which she also starred as the lead and was later released on HULU. In 2016, she wrote, produced, and starred in the short film "La Sangre Llama" (Blood Calls), inspired by her real life and premiered at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival. On the last seasons of "East Los High," Vannessa came on as a producer of the multiple Emmy-nominated series to help carry it to the next level.

Angela Beyince was born on 25 October 1976 in Galveston, Texas, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for The Pink Panther (2006), Dreamgirls (2006) and Sistas (2019).

Scott Prendergast was born on 4 March 1970 in Galveston, Texas, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for Kabluey (2007), So Help Me Todd (2022) and The Hottie & the Nottie (2008).

Alex McLeod is best known as the original host of home design hit "Trading Spaces," for which she received a daytime Emmy nomination for her work in the first season. Trading Spaces fans and real estate enthusiasts have tuned in recently to see Alex appear on real estate and wealth shows such as Open House NYC (NBC) and Secret Lifestyles of The Super Rich (CNBC). Since moving to Los Angeles, McLeod performed in situation comedies and national commercials, as well as hosted a variety of reality based programs such as Trading Spaces (TLC), Joe Millionaire 1 (FOX) and Best of Both Worlds (A&E). Prior to reality based TV, Alex was an entertainment correspondent for the irreverent movie review series, "Moviewatch," (Channel Four, UK) and she interviewed celebrities on and off the red carpet for Hollywood 411 (TV Guide Network) and Starz Movie News (Starz-Encore channels). McLeod has guest-hosted on popular morning news/talk shows such as The View (ABC) and Good Day Live (20th Television) and has been profiled in many publications such as Newsweek and Entertainment Weekly. Alex graduated from the University of Texas, with a degree in Speech Communications, and Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. In addition to being an internationally recognized television personality, Alex is a trained chef, has consulted for leading food companies and even enjoys food competitions on occasion. McLeod is based in Los Angeles and is a member of SAG-AFTRA.

Lovely and shapely blonde knockout Marcy Hanson was born on December 22, 1952 in Galveston, Texas. Marcy was the Playmate of the Month in the October, 1978 issue of "Playboy." Hanson not only has small parts in the theatrical motion pictures "Blue Sunshine," "10," and "Roadie," but also made guest appearances on episodes of the TV shows "Charlie's Angels," "Welcome Back, Kotter," "Family," "The Fall Guy," "The Jeffersons," and "Santa Barbara." Moreover, Marcy had a lead role on the short-lived sitcom "The Roller Girls" and was featured as one of the Mighty Carson Art Players on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson. Marcy Hanson continues to model and runs a bed and breakfast establishment in her hometown of Galveston, Texas.

Ryanne Duzich was born on 1 November 1983 in Galveston, Texas, USA. She is an actress, known for Friday Night Lights (2004) and Kill Theory (2009). She has been married to Thomas L. Culberson since 13 December 2014.

Texan-born actress Charlotte Walker was the daughter of a wealthy cotton broker, who died when she was eleven. With her siblings she went on to live at a ranch owned by her mother's even more affluent family. In her mid-teens, Charlotte studied drama at Fort Edwards Collegiate Institute. She performed on the Broadway stage from 1901 and in silent pictures with the Lasky Organisation from 1915, subsequently working for Thanhouser from 1917 to 1919. Charlotte was considered a versatile actress, skilled in both comedy and dramatic parts. She was also exquisitely beautiful, and, though already well into middle age, able to command leading roles in several high profile productions. Her second marriage (1910-1930) was to the prolific Broadway playwright Eugene Walter and one of her biggest successes was a starring role in his 1913 stage dramatisation and subsequent cinematic version of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916), produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Her status began to decline with the advent of sound pictures. Indifferent reviews included a performance in Three Faces East (1930), described as overly 'theatrical' by the New York Times. Relegated to small supporting roles in several forgettable B-grade pictures, Charlotte retired from acting in 1941. She died in 1958 in her home state at the age of 81.

Diamond Lyons was born on 11 May 2005 in Galveston, Texas, USA. He is an actor, known for The Upshaws (2021), Colin in Black & White (2021) and All Screwed Up.

Richard Kennedy was a chubby, lively, and dependable character actor who essayed a nice array of often colorful supporting roles in a bunch of enjoyably down'n'dirty 1970s drive-in exploitation pictures. Kennedy was born on February 14, 1929 and hailed from Galveston, Texas. He served in the army and was stationed in Germany during his tour of duty. Richard began acting in movies in the early 1970's. He appears in the first two notoriously nasty "Ilsa" films: He's a slimy Nazi general in "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" and the bumbling Henry Kissingeresque American diplomat Kaiser in "Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks." Moreover, Kennedy was in several features for director Matt Cimber; he's especially memorable as a corrupt vice cop in "The Candy Tangerine Man" and was excellent as a homicide detective in the disturbing "The Witch Who Came from the Sea." Other noteworthy roles include a flunky for villain Ralph Meeker in the brutal revenge opus "Johnny Firecloud;" hilarious as a drunken Texan in the delightful "Sixpack Annie," an obnoxious newspaper reporter in "C.B. Hustlers," a preacher who delivers a vehement anti-rock sermon in "The Buddy Holly Story;" deliciously hammy as evil businessman Mr. Olsen in "The Capture of Bigfoot," and J. Edgar Hoover in "Down on Us." Richard also did guest spots on such TV shows as "Little House on the Prairie," "Happy Days," "The Rockford Files," "Charlie's Angels," "Far Out Space Nuts," and "Petrocelli." Richard Kennedy died at age 56 on October 1, 1985 in Los Angeles, California.

Edward Sedgwick was born on 7 November 1892 in Galveston, Texas, USA. He was a director and actor, known for Murder in the Fleet (1935), Chasing the Moon (1922) and The Flaming Frontier (1926). He was married to Ebba Havez and Rose L. Elgueta. He died on 7 March 1953 in North Hollywood, California, USA.

Rosie Vela was born on 18 December 1952 in Galveston, Texas, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Heaven's Gate (1980), The Two Jakes (1990) and Inside Edge (1992).

Elliott Dexter was born on 21 December 1879 in Galveston, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Witching Hour (1921), Woman and Wife (1918) and Daphne and the Pirate (1916). He was married to Mrs. Nina Chisholm Untermyer (socialite) and Marie Doro. He died on 23 June 1941 in Amityville, New York, USA.

Jack Johnson, one of the greatest professional boxers in history and the first African American to wear the world's heavyweight championship belt, is one of the seminal figures in sports and American social history as he was both a mirror on and lightning rod for racism. Many white Americans could not accept the fact that an African American occupied the cat bird's seat in the world sports hierarchy as the world's heavyweight championship then, as it was throughout most of the 20th Century, was the ultimate athletic accomplishment. In his prime, Johnson was as tough and indomitable in the ring as the young Mike Tyson (the last great true undisputed champ before the title fragmented into a kaleidescope of competing titles) and as controversial as Muhammad Ali, the Black Muslim convert who won the title under his birth name Cassius Clay and was stripped of his title after refusing to be inducted into the U.S. military. It took a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to keep Ali out of jail while many states enacted laws to prevent the recognition of mixed-race marriages due to Jack Johnson, who married three white women, violating one of the ultimate taboos in America.

Born on March 31, 1878 in Galveston, Texas, Jack was the son of former slaves. He dropped out of school after only five or six years to take a job as a stevedore. Johnson supposedly learned to box from the white boxer Joe Choynski after the two were incarcerated after a fight; at the time, prize fighting was illegal in Texas. Choyinski had fought some of the top heavyweights of his era, including future champs "Gentleman Jim (1942)" Corbett and James J. Jeffries. Jeffries would later come out of retirement to try to retake the heavyweight title from Johnson in a July 4th, 1910 title match that was dubbed "The Fight of the Century".

Eighteen months earlier, on Boxing Day 1908, Johnson had wrested the heavyweight title from Tommy Burns when he was awarded a TKO in the 14th round. The victory came five years after Johnson had won the World Colored Heavyweight Championship. Jeffries had refused to meet Johnson in a title match at the time, keeping the color bar in tact even though it already had been broken at a lower weight class. Joe Gans had become the first African American to win a title belt when he became lightweight champion in 1902, but Johnson becoming the heavyweight champ was different. Racist white Americans were outraged and the hunt for "The Great White Hope" was on.

Uninterested in assuming "The Great white Hope" mantle, Jeffries was not an avowed racist and really did not want to fight any more. However, the undefeated former champion was goaded into coming out of retirement to face Johnson by such people as the writer Jack London. Sources say he was offered an unprecedented $120,000 (approximately $2.8 million in 2012 dollars) to fight Johnson. The former champ was out-of-shape and had to burn off 100 lbs. to get down to fighting trim. In their match up on the Fourth of July in Reno, Nevada, Johnson knocked him to the canvas twice, something that had never before happened in his illustrious his career. Jeffries' corner threw in the towel at the start of the 15th round to prevent the former champ from the humiliation of being knocked out.

Johnson won a $65,000 purse (approximately $1.5 million in 2012 dollars) in his title defense. News of his victory touched off celebrations among black folk across the country and sparked race riots in 50 cities in 25 states. ("Race riot" at the time meant a white-on-black conflict, "riots" that were initiated by lynching-minded whites.) Twenty-three African Americans and two whites perished in the riots, and hundreds more injured.

A movie made of the match, "Jeffries-Johnson World's Championship Boxing Contest, Held at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910 (1910)", received wide distribution, but many local politicians stepped in to ban the movie from being shown in their bailiwicks, lest there be more violence. Even former President Theodore Roosevelt, a sports enthusiast, came out against the distribution of the movie in particular and boxing movies in general. (T.R. was friendly to the aspirations of colored people; at the time, the Republican Party -- the Party of Abraham Lincoln -- was the political home of African Americans.)

The political action taken against the Fight of the Century movie was a harbinger of things to come. For Jack Johnson was an unapologetic and boastful black man who did not hide the fact that he was a lover of white women. He violated what was, in most parts of the country, the ultimate taboo. Miscegenation and intermarriage was outlawed by many states (and would be until the Supreme Court struck down such laws in 1967) and many states had on their books the "one drop of blood" rule to determine a person's racial classification. Under the "one drop of blood" rule, if a person had one African American ancestor, even unto the fifth or sixth generation (or beyond), meaning they were only 1/32nd or 1/64th "black", they were classified as black and treated as third-class citizens, denied fundamental rights such as the franchise.

Jack Johnson married three white women and consorted with others. Six months after the Jeffries fight, he married Etta Terry Duryea, a Brooklyn socialite whom he physically abused and who killed herself in a fit of depression in September 1912. This was intolerable to bigots, and they moved against Johnson. They arrested him that October for violating the Mann Act, an anti-prostitution edict that forbade the interstate transportation of women for immoral purposes, for his relationship Lucille Cameron, a white woman who became his second wife in December. That a white woman would have a relationship with a black man equated in the bigot's eye with a harlot and Lucille was characterized as a prostitute. Her refusal to cooperate with the authorities led to the collapse of their case, but they tried again.

He was soon arrested after his second marriage, charged with violating the Mann Act yet again. This time, they had the right "witness", Belle Schreiber, an alleged prostitute whom he had allegedly had an affair with in 1909-10 who was cooperating with the feds. His relationship with Schreiber actually predated the passage of the Mann Act in 1910, but despite the Constitution forbidding ex post facto laws, an all-white jury convicted him in June 1913. One of the ironies of the trial was that the judge was himself to become a major figure in professional sports and a seminal figure himself in American racism. For the federal judge who oversaw Jack Johnson's trial was none other than the famed bigot Kenesaw M. Landis, a native Georgian who would, as the first Commissioner of Major League Baseball, keep African Americans out of the sport by enforcing the color bar.

Before being sentenced to a year and day in federal prison, Johnson skipped bail and fled the country with Lucille. In April 1915, in Havana, Cuba, he defended his title against the white 'giant' Jess Willard, a 33-year-old Kansas farmer who stood nearly 6'7" tall. Willard was six inches taller than Johnson, almost four years younger, and a counter-puncher of enormous power who in 1913 had killed Jack "Bull" Young with a blow to the head. Since Willard was a counter-puncher, Johnson was forced to do all the leading in the fight, and he tired in the heat of Havana after 20 rounds. Willard knocked him out in the 26th round and the reign of the first black champion was over.

There would not be another African American heavyweight champion until Joe Louis beat Jimmy Braddock (the Cinderella Man (2005) in 1937. Louis was careful to comport himself with what his handlers considered "dignity" (not being a rowdy, boastful stud like Jack Johnson, who verbally and physically abused white and black men alike and was fabled for his sexual prowess) so as not to incur the wrath of white bigots. (Though popular with whites, Louis was frequented caricatured on sports pages as an ape or monkey, common racist visual tropes employed in the mass media of his time.) And there would not be another transgressive black champ until Sonny Liston, the Mafia-owned heavyweight champ of the early '60s, who was bested in his transgressions by Muhammad Ali, the man who took his title belt away from him.

By the time Ali (then called Cassius Clay) beat Liston in 1964, Jack Johnson had been dead for 18 years. He died in a car crash in North Carolina on June 10, 1946, after allegedly leaving a restaurant in a huff after it refused to serve him for being a Negro. In the 31 years between the loss of his title and his death, Johnson had returned from his exile to the United States and served his prison sentence. He kept boxing far past his prime, into his 60s, in exhibition bouts, sanctioned fights, and unsanctioned smokers. During World War II, he used to fight exhibitions as part of the War Bond drives. (He had divorced Lucille in 1924 and married his third wife Irene Pineau in 1925. She told a reporter at his funeral, "I loved him because of his courage. He faced the world unafraid. There wasn't anybody or anything he feared.")

By Muhammad Ali's time, Jack Johnson was a symbol of black pride and black power to African Americans like Ali and Miles Davis, who put out an album in 1971, "A Tribute to Jack Johnson", inspired by his spirit. That the same year James Earl Jones was nominated for an Oscar playing a watered-down, white-washed version of Johnson in the film version of Howard Sackler's Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Great White Hope (1970), which was criticized by many, including critic Pauline Kael as trucking in white liberal clichés. Comedian Redd Foxx, who had been befriended by the elderly Jack Johnson, turned down a role in the film as its caricature of the great fighter bore little resemblance to the man he had known. Even in death, Johnson remained controversial, seemingly robbed again of his legacy by the white establishment.

Christine Kellogg was born in Galveston, Texas, USA. She is an actress, known for The Beastmaster (1982), Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (1989) and So Fine (1981).