Cinema: Boycott in Hollywood?

When Producer Sam Goldwyn decided to make a big cinemusical out of Porgy and Bess, the Negro folk opera (music by George Gershwin), the one trouble he did not foresee was a shortage of candidates for the leading roles. Since its first performance in 1935. the tuneful story of sorrow and joy along Catfish Row has been one of the theater’s few durable meal tickets for Negro entertainers. It has enjoyed successful revivals on Broadway, innumerable road companies and a State Department-blessed international tour that included Russia and the satellites.

Last week Goldwyn finally admitted that he had come up against some baffling opposition: a quiet boycott of the movie by what Daily Variety called “top Negro entertainers.” Among Negro performers, shrugged Goldwyn, “I have found a certain fear that this play may not be good for their race.”

First, Singer Harry Belafonte turned down an offer of a part. Then Actor Sidney (Edge of the City) Poitier quit his co-starring role as Porgy, declared that the show was a “classic,” but “as a creative artist, I just do not have enough interest in the piece.” Goldwyn’s version of the incident: Poitier quit after his demand to approve the script had been refused. Said Goldwyn: “If Poitier had seen a script and the way we are treating Porgy and Bess, he would be excited to do it.” Goldwyn would name no names of other entertainers who had turned down roles, but called the boycott “an underground movement by radicals.”

While Goldwyn continued to look for Negro stars, Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, acknowledged that “among Negro Americans there is a division of opinion as to the value of this play.” But, said Wilkins, “the N.A.A.C.P. has taken no position on Porgy and Bess.”

At week’s end Goldwyn announced that he was “enthusiastic about getting a great cast,” said he still wanted to do the film because “this play has more poetry than almost anything I’ve ever produced, and it shows what great artists there are amongst the colored race.”