Vaudeville, Broadway and Ziegfeld Folly comedian Bert Williams was the first black American to sign with a major studio, Biograph Company, to write, direct and act in a movie. His July 1916 "A Natural Born Gambler" is the earliest complete existing movie to contain a mostly black cast.
Biograph Studio's contract called for Williams to produce two movies, "Gambler" and later on "Fish." The studio, which was floudering at the time from losing its top director, D. W. Griffith, realized the box office appeal of Williams, one of the most popular comedians on the stage. The Bahamian-born performer's career spanned three decades, beginning in 1893 when he joined a West Coast minstrel show. Williams was a monumental figure in black entertainment: he was the first Black American to secure a lead on the Broadway stage, was the best-selling Black recording artist before 1920, and was the first Black to get a lead in a completed film, the now-lost 1914 "Darktown Jubilee."
"A Natural Born Gambler" is based on skits Williams had performed previously on the stage. The plot centers on the efforts to raise funds for a fraternal organization by conducting gambling matches at a local saloon. Things spiral out of control from there, where all participants end up in court.
Biography was involved in an earlier effort to produce an all African American cast film in 1913 called the "Lime Kiln Field Day," with Bert Williams. Directed by T. Hayes Hunter, the intended movie contained one hour of raw footage scheduled to be edited and some scenes reshot before the producers Klaw and Erlanger pulled the plug on the project. The Museum of Modern Art stored all the film's scenes and outtakes for decades before it fully restored, edited and showed its version in 2014. The footage is the oldest surviving film that features an all Black cast. The images capture rare scenes of African Americans at play and leisure, unuaual for cinema during this era. Many outtakes show cast and a mainly white film crew working and enjoying themselves together in unguarded moments. As the Library of Congress wrote about the images, "Even in fragments of footage, Williams proves himself among the most gifted of screen comedians."
Williams developed pneumonia during a run of 1921's "Under the Bamboo Tree," and collapsed during a performance in Detroit. The audience thought the fall was part of Williams' act, and applauded as he was lifted off the stage to his dressing room. "That's a nice way to die. They was laughing when I made my last exit," he said in his room. Williams died a week later in his New York City residence at 47 years old.
