Charles Sidney Gilpin
Encyclopedia
Charles Sidney Gilpin (November 20, 1878 - May 6, 1930) became one of the most highly regarded actors of the 1920s. He played in critical debuts in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

: in the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln and played the lead role of Brutus Jones in the 1920 premier of Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

's The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor...

, also touring with the play. In 1920 he was the first black American to receive the Drama League of New York's annual award, as one of the ten people who had done the most that year for American theater.

Early life and education

Gilpin was born in Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

. He started work as an apprentice in the Richmond Planet print shop before finding his career in theater. He first performed on stage as a singer at the age of twelve.
Gilpin worked as a teacher in 1920

Career

In 1896 at age 18, Gilpin joined a minstrel show
Minstrel show
The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

, leaving Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 and beginning a life on the road that lasted for many years. When between performances on stage, like many performers he worked odd jobs to earn money: as a printer
Printer (publisher)
In publishing, printers are both companies providing printing services and individuals who directly operate printing presses. With the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450, printing—and printers—proliferated throughout Europe.Today, printers are found...

, barber
Barber
A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....

, boxing trainer, and railroad porter
Porter (railroad)
A porter is a railway employee assigned to assist passengers aboard a passenger train or to handle their baggage; it may be used particularly to refer to employees assigned to assisting passengers in the sleeping cars....

. In 1903, Gilpin joined Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

's Canadian Jubilee Singers.

In 1905 he started performing with traveling musical troupes of the Red Cross and the Candy Shop of America. He also played his first dramatic roles and honed his character acting in Chicago. He performed with Robert Mott’s Pekin Theater in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 for four years until 1911. Soon after, he toured the United States with the Pan-American Octetts. Gilpin worked with Rogers and Creamer’s Old Man’s Boy Company in New York. In 1915, Gilpin joined the Anita Bush Players
Anita Bush
Anita Bush was an American stage actress and playwright. She founded the Anita Bush All-Colored Dramatic Stock Company in 1915, a pioneering black repertory theatre company that helped launch the careers of Charles Gilpin, Dooley Wilson, Evelyn Preer and others.-Biography:Bush was born on August...

 as it moved from the Lincoln Theater in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

 to the Lafayette Theater. As New York theater was expanding, this was a time when the theatrical careers of many famous black actors were launched.

In 1916, Gilpin made a memorable appearance in whiteface as Jacob McCloskey, a slave owner and villain of Dion Boucicault's
Dion Boucicault
Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot , commonly known as Dion Boucicault, was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the...

 The Octoroon. Though he left Bush’s Company over a salary dispute, his reputation there allowed him to get the role of Rev. William Curtis in the 1919 premier of John Drinkwater’s Abraham Lincoln.

Gilpin's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 debut gained him casting in the premier of Eugene O’Neill’s
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

 The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 play by American dramatist Eugene O'Neill which tells the tale of Brutus Jones, an African-American man who kills a man, goes to prison, escapes to a Caribbean island, and sets himself up as emperor...

. He played the lead role of Brutus Jones to great critical acclaim, including an O'Neill-lauded review by writer Hubert Harrison
Hubert Harrison
Hubert Henry Harrison was a West Indian-American writer, orator, educator, critic, and radical socialist political activist based in Harlem, New York. He was described by activist A. Philip Randolph as “the father of Harlem radicalism” and by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as “the foremost...

 in Negro World. Gilpin's achievement resulted in the Drama League of New York
Drama League of New York
The Drama League of New York originated as a national organization begun in Chicago in 1910. The organization had two primary objectives: to influence the professional production of the best plays by alerting members to performances that warranted their support; and to ensure the continuity of...

's naming him as one of the ten people in 1920 who had done the most for American theater. He was the first Black American so honored.

When the League invited Gilpin to their presentation dinner, some people found it controversial. Following the Drama League’s refusal to rescind the invitation and Gilpin’s refusal to decline it, he was given a standing ovation of unusual length when he accepted his award.

In 1921 Gilpin was awarded the NAACPs Spingarn Medal
Spingarn Medal
The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for outstanding achievement by an African American....

. He was also honored at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 by president Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...

. A year later, the Dumas Dramatic Club (now the Karamu Players
Karamu House
Karamu House in the Fairfax neighborhood on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio, is the oldest African-American theater in the United States. Many of Langston Hughes's plays were developed and premièred at the theater.-History:...

) of Cleveland renamed itself the Gilpin Players in his honor.

Although Gilpin continued to perform the role of Brutus Jones in the U.S. tour that followed the Broadway closing of the play, he had a falling out with O'Neill. Gilpin wanted O'Neill to remove the word "nigger", which occurred frequently in the play. The playwright felt its use was consistent with his dramatic intentions. When they could not come to a reconciliation, O'Neill replaced Gilpin with Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

 as Brutus Jones in the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 production.

After the extended controversy and the disappointment of losing his signature role, Gilpin started drinking heavily. He never again performed on Broadway. He died in 1930 in Eldridge Park, New Jersey, his career in shambles. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Woodlawn Cemetery, his funeral arranged by friends shortly after his death.
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