Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee

The Forgotten Trailblazer: Rediscovering Canada Lee, the Blacklisted Hollywood Pioneer

Imagine an actor as renowned as Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman, only to be virtually erased from public memory. This is the tragic story of Canada Lee, one of the most respected black actors of the 1940s and a tireless civil rights advocate, who fell victim to the ruthless McCarthy era blacklist.

Born in Harlem in 1907, Lee was a true Renaissance man. A musical prodigy at eleven, a successful jockey by thirteen, and a champion boxer in his twenties, he found his true calling in acting. Lee shot to stardom in Orson Welles's Broadway production of Native Son and later graced classic films like Lifeboat and Cry, the Beloved Country.

But his meteoric rise was followed by a devastating fall. Labeled a Communist by the FBI and HUAC as early as 1943, Lee was pilloried during the notorious Judith Coplon spy trial in 1949 and condemned in Ed Sullivan's column. He died penniless at forty-five in 1952, a heartbroken casualty of a dangerous era.

After nearly a decade of research, Mona Z. Smith revives the legacy of a pioneering African American actor and a tragic victim of the Hollywood blacklist in Becoming Something: The Story of Canada Lee.