Classic Black Beauties

All your beautiful classic beauties from1800s, 1900s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s Retro women of that era..

[classicblkbeauties]

Ja’Net Dubois Dies at 74 From Natural Causes. 

This is her appreciation post, details of her life and maybe something you didn’t know about her. Enjoy! Rest in paradise Queen. 

Jeannette Dubois  known professionally as Ja'Net DuBois for her portrayal of Willona Woods, the neighborhood gossip maven and a friend of the Evans family on the sitcom Good Times, which originally aired from 1974 to 1979. DuBois additionally co–wrote and sang the theme song "Movin' on Up" for The Jeffersons, which originally aired from 1975 until 1985. Ja’Net also played the grandmother on the popular hit show The Wayans Bro. She also did voice over on The PJs as “Mrs. Florence Avery” and so many other shows and movies like “ I'm Gonna Git You Sucka ”. 

She won and image award for Good Times as well as two Primetime Emmys for voice over for The PJs.  Plus she was nominated for and NAACP Image Award for Touch By And Angel. In 1995, DuBois won a CableACE award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the Lifetime movie “Other Women's Children”. In 2000, DuBois served as Grand Marshal for the North Amityville Community Parade and Festival Day in Amityville, New York.

Ja’Net had 4 children one who passed in 1987 due to cancer, she also was married to Sajit Gupta. She was romantically linked with Actor Brock Peters famously known from the movie To Kill A Mockingbird. DuBois recorded a album Again, Ja'Net DuBois, on her Peanuts and Caviar label, in 1983. DuBois appeared in former Good Times co-star Janet Jackson's 1987 "Control" music video as her mother. In 1992, she co-starred with Clifton Davis in “And I Still Rise”, a play written and directed by Maya Angelou.  During the 1980s, DuBois operated the Ja'net DuBois Academy of Theater Arts and Sciences, a performing-arts school for teenagers in Long Island, New York. In 1992, DuBois, Danny Glover and Ayuko Babu co-founded the Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles. DuBois died on February 17, 2020, of natural causes at her Glendale, California, home. 

Our condolences goes out to her family, prayers for fans, friends and family she will truly be missed.

[classicblkbeauties]

Did You Know Dorothy Dandrige took a course at UCLA to find out what make people tick. She use the knowledge when she sang at night clubs to people.

[rayonthego-deactivated20230302]

[classicblkbeauties]

Rest Easy John Witherspoon... What an amazing and wonderful person. Will be missed deeply.

[classicblkbeauties]

Remember when I say Kelly Rowland should play Donna Summers in a BIO PIC... Well check her out for Halloween... I need her to see this all the way through. Check out my post of ------> Donna Summers 

[classicblkbeauties]

The beautiful talented exceptional #DiahannCarroll. 

[classicblkbeauties]

Beautiful woman, amazing actress she was so glamorous. You will be missed. Rest In Paradise Diahann Carroll ... #DiahannCarroll Appreciation Post.

[classicblkbeauties]

Some may be the late 80s and early to mid-90s... Jet Magazine Beauty of the week...

[legrandcirque]

Katherine Dunham, 6 February 1956.

Source: New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (Library of Congress).

[buzzfeed]

Aretha Franklin, The Queen Of Soul, Has Died At 76

The music icon was the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and won 18 Grammy Awards.

Aretha Franklin, the undisputed Queen of Soul and a music legend who enjoyed a career longer than many of her successors, died Thursday. She was 76.

Her publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn, confirmed her death to BuzzFeed News in a statement, saying she died at her home in Detroit at 9:50 a.m. local time. The cause of death was advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type.

“In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart,“ her family said in a statement. “We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family.”

The family also said they had been “deeply touched” by the outpouring of love and support they had received in recent days, after word first emerged the singer had fallen ill.

“We have felt your love for Aretha and it brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on,” they said.

No other vocalist has reached the heights Franklin did during her monumental career. She is the most charted female singer in Billboard history, the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the winner of 18 Grammy Awards, and the “greatest singer of all time,” according to Rolling Stone.

[mnlewis33]

R.I.P to the Queen of Soul

[classicladiesofcolor]

'Gone With the Wind' Star Hattie McDaniel Biopic in the Works

Alysia Allen and Aaron Magnani are producing the movie about the first African-American actress to win an Academy Award.

Producer Alysia Allen has obtained the film rights to Jill Watts’ biography “Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood” and will produce with Aaron Magnani. The producers are currently searching for the right screenwriter to adapt the book for the screen.

McDaniel — who was the youngest daughter of freed slaves — began her career as an acclaimed Vaudeville performer and one of the first black women on radio. She appeared in countless 1930s films but is best known for her performance as Mammy in Gone With the Wind, for which she won the Oscar for best supporting actress in 1940. After years of playing stereotypical characters and during a time of near-insurmountable obstacles for black actors, McDaniel is credited for opening Hollywood’s eyes to creating more multidimensional roles for African-Americans. The rest of the article here [x].

[classicblkbeauties]

#Christmas Black Beauty Edition. 

Carrie Miller | Esther Rolle | Pat Kimbrough | Janet Floyd all on Jet Magazine. 

[kingnothingg]

[collectorsweekly]

RIP Della Reese (1931 - 2017).

[classicladiesofcolor]

Some of us were introduced to her when she first burst onto the scene as a singer. Others when she ventured into television as a talk show host and later as a guest on numerous shows, including The Mod Squad and Sanford and Son. Some of us grew up watching “Vera” pull that razor blade out of her bra, while others grew up hearing “Whennnn you waaaaalk, dowwwn the roooooad…” every Sunday (later Saturday) night. 

Della Reese was a talent whose work touched so many and for so many generations. She will definitely be missed.

Della Reese July 6, 1931 - November 19, 2017

[classicblkbeauties]

Rest in paradise Ms. Della Reese

[detroitlib]

Gloria Foster (November 15, 1933 – September 29, 2001)

American actress, most known for her stage performances both on and off Broadway, including her acclaimed roles in plays In White America and Having Our Say, winning three Obie Awards during her career.

In films, she was perhaps best known as the Oracle in The Matrix (1999) and The Matrix Reloaded (2003), the latter film being her last. (Wikipedia)

Portrait of actress Gloria Foster. Handwritten on back: “Gloria Foster, actress.”

Courtesy of the E. Azalia Hackley Collection of African Americans in the Performing Arts, Detroit Public Library

[classicladiesofcolor]

The Soul Sisters — “Loop De Loop”, 1964

[swagintherain]

Althea Gibson, the first Black Wimbledon champion, was born on this date in 1927.