Blackface!

Willie Best 
1913-1962
Sleep 'n' Eat

Willie Best came to Hollywood as a limo driver for a vacationing couple. He was discovered in a LA stage play by a talent scout and got into films.

Willie Best was one of the hard-working, unappreciated African-American actors of Hollywood's "Golden Era" who produced good work with what he was given. He starred alongside some of film's great comedians including the Marx Brothers, Bob Hope, Laurel and Hardy and three films with Shirley Temple. In addition to being a talented comedian and character actor, Best was also a musician/song writer. 

Willie Best, credited as "Sleep 'N' Eat"
in The Monster Walks (1932)

Studio press releases of the 1930s made outrageous claims that not only did Best enjoy humiliating himself in "darkie" roles, but that the only compensation he wanted for his screen work was three square meals a day and a warm place to sleep. Despite the demeaning nature of his roles, Best performed them with consummate skill and razor sharp comic timing. Bob Hope, who worked with Best in The Ghost Breakers (1940) and Nothing But the Truth (1941), once referred to Willie as "the finest actor I knew."

Best was never given the opportunity to fully flex his comedic muscle beyond the stereotyped porter and janitor roles that dominated his career. Sadly he was also a victim of backlash for these same roles during the Civil Rights movement. After a drug arrest ended his film career, he worked in television for a while before retiring to obscurity. He passed away at the Motion Picture Country Home and is buried in North Hollywood, California. Until recently his grave was unmarked but a new grave marker has been purchased by film buffs.

Works in Progress
Blackface Origins in Clowning
Blackface History Prior to Minstrel Shows
 Excerpts from Monarchs of Minstrelsy (1911)

Racial and Racist Stereotypes in Media