Evelyn Preer, born Evelyn Jarvis (July 16, 1896 – November 27, 1932), was a pioneering African-American stage and screen actress and blues singer of the 1910s through the early 1930s. Evelyn was known within the black community as "The First Lady of the Screen."She was the first black actress to earn celebrity and popularity. She appeared in ground-breaking films and stage productions, such as the first play by a black playwright to be produced on Broadway, and the first New York-style production with a black cast in California in 1928, in a revival of a play adapted from Somerset Maugham's short story, Rain.
Her daughter, Edeve, took the veil, joined the Sisters of Saint Francis, a Roman Catholic order of nuns and became Sister M. Francesca Thompson, O.S.F.; she was Associate Professor of theater and speech at Marian College in Indianapolis and is a noted historian of African-American cinema.
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In April 1932, she gave birth to her only child, Edeve Thompson, after which she developed post-parturition complications, dying of double pneumonia on November 27, 1932 in Los Angeles, aged 36.
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Her husband, Edward Thompson, remained in films throughout the 1930s and 1940s and died in 1960.
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Became a successful stage performer after leaving Hollywood, where her light complexion did not fit the industry's standards for its African American performers, who usually had darker skin.
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Nearly drowned while filming a river-crossing scene for an Oscar Micheaux production.