Carlton Moss
| Carlton Moss | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 14, 1909 Newark, New Jersey |
| Died |
August 10, 1997 (aged 88) Los Angeles, California |
| Alma mater | Morgan State University |
| Occupation | Screenwriter, film director |
Carlton Moss (February 14, 1909 in Newark, New Jersey – August 10, 1997) was an African-American screenwriter, actor and film director.[1] Moss directed the documentary Frederick Douglass: The House on Cedar Hill.
Biography
Moss was raised in both North Carolina and Newark. He attended Morgan State University, where he formed an acting troupe called "Toward a Black Theater". Later he wrote The Negro Soldier for Frank Capra, a propaganda film encouraging racial harmony among World War II soldiers and specifically encouraging African-American men to enlist. After this film he became an important figure in independent cinema of African Americans[2] In 1944 Moss went to Europe and made the film Teamwork, a documentary about the work of an African-American quartermaster unit known as "The Redball Express".[3] He had the chance to work with Elia Kazan on Pinky but left the project, as he felt it demeaning to blacks. He later taught as a guest lecturer at Fisk University in Nashville [4] and as a professor at the University of California at Irvine [1] in the Comparative Culture Program,[5] and made educational films about African-American history.[6]
Filmography
- The Negro Soldier (1943)
- Teamwork (1944)
- Frederick Douglass: The House on Cedar Hill (1953)
- George Washington Carver (1959)
- Black Genesis: The Art of Tribal Africa (1970)
- Portraits in Black: Paul Lawrence Dunbar: America's First Black Poet (1972)
- The Afro-American Artist (1976)
- Portraits in Black: Two Centuries of Black American Art (1976)
- Portraits in Black: The Gift of the Black Folk (1978)
- All the World's A Stage (1979)
- Drawings from Life: Charles White (1980)
- Forever Free (1983)