We know what she means? Meryl Streep is speaking out on behalf of diversity in Hollywood at The Oscars. According to Meryl we all came from Africa originally.But even if we did all start from the same place does that mean we were all given the same evolutionary tenure?
Definitely a loaded question. Let’s look at the black stars of Hollywood who have been acknowledged for their amazing contributions.
They are but a handful but oh what amazing talent. Bo Jangles, Hattie Macdaniel and the incredible Lena Horne. All typecast of course with Hattie generally playing the tough talking house maid with the heart of gold and Bo Jangles the dancing butler. Hattie actually won an oscar and was the first black actress to do so. Lena Horne was at least given solo numbers but was not given main roles despite the fact that she looked a million bucks and could sing up a storm as well as any white studio star.
As was the case with Therese Harris who did manage to co star with Barbara Stanwyck in ‘Baby Face.’
Then there was the gorgeous Dorothy Daindridge and Harry Belefonte who even starred together in ‘Carmen Jones’
There was Sammy Davis Junior and Sydney Poitier both trail bazers for very different reasons. The former being skilled in all the performing arts bar none and the latter being devastatingly handsome and so very real on the screen that the audience hung on his every move and every word. Now there are so many more who are deserving of the accolades but who are still being overlooked. C’mon Hollywood it’s all there in black and white really.
Ava played the vixen who had been hard done by and often had an axe to grind in many of her films. In film noir she was the mysterious tough cookie who just wanted to be loved. Her first big break was in ‘The Killers’ with Burt Lanchaster. She was also very good at playing exotic types who didn’t belong but wanted to be accepted into the social elite. 
Because of her looks Ava was often chosen to play half castes. Notably in Bhowani Junction’ in which she plays a half caste Indian and in ‘Showboat’ where she is supposed to be black passing for white. She was perhaps to her best advantage when playing a Spaniard as in ‘The Barefoot Contessa’ as there is a strong possibility that this was her actual heritage even though her family background could only be traced to England. Ava married Micky Rooney ( A very odd couple ) and Artie Shaw ( who seemed to marry everybody ) before Sinatra. 
After Sinatra she never married again but did have a long running affair with Howard Hughes and with Ernest Hemingway who cast her in ‘The Sun Also Rises’. To Ava no -one could measure up to Frank with whom she enjoyed an extremely volatile relationship. She smoked like a chimney and died of pneumonia at the age of 67 in 1990.
Yes I have written a novel. What is it about? Well it is, of course, set in another era. The glamorous era of the 1930s to be exact. 
Dinner parties, glamorous gowns and glamorous locations.
A beautiful setting for two beautiful people from different cultural backgrounds to fall in love. The couple married on the grounds of the bride’s stately home in Cumbria England and are in the third week of their honeymoon in a distant land. The land where the groom was born. Istanbul Turkey.
It is here that the story begins to twist and turn as the reader is taken back to 1908 into the days of concubines and favourites in the last days of the Ottoman Empire and then involved in a scurrilous love affair between a gypsy and handsome soldier who looks remarkably like the groom who is still on a tour of Topkapi Palace.
While he is trying to find his wife she is trying to find out why the gypsy has lured her back in time and why her husband does not recognise her. This is actually only the first half and if you would like to find out what happens you can purchase the novel from ‘Blurb Books’. Just google the title and you’ll find it.
Apart from being a romance my novel is also a mystery. I have tried to evoke a film noir style of writing. Happy Reading.
Bourgeoise Bloomers 