A STAR WITHOUT A STAR: Championing The Oscar-Nominated Juanita Moore

A Star Without a Star comes off as the epitome of a labor of love many years in the making. What it lacks in pristine production values, it makes up for with the sheer intimacy established with its subject matter.

Its subject, of course, is Juanita Moore, and if you’re like me, you’ll know her best for her Oscar-nominated supporting role in Douglas Sirk‘s luscious melodrama Imitation of Life (1959). Otherwise, she was mostly relegated to near-blink-and-you-miss-them cameos all throughout the Classic Hollywood movie landscape.

She passed away in 2013 after nearly a century on this earth with a multifaceted career relatively glossed over by the Hollywood establishment. For whatever reason, her application for the Hollywood Walk of Fame was also never approved. It doesn’t help that out of the approximately 3,000 stars, only 5% belong to black talent. What’s more, Juanita Moore feels more than worthy of all the plaudits sent her way.

The Beginnings

Among the documentary’s esteemed talking heads is his eminence, Sidney Poitier, who provides some context for the era he and Juanita came up in. Although he was younger than Juanita, they were coming up together in early pictures like Band of Angels and Something of Value. Poitier admits they were different times and as a young actor, he was just happy to be working in the industry — an industry nevertheless dominated by discriminatory practices.

Moore was relegated to playing mostly native girls. Blackface and racial stereotypes abounded going back generations, and independent talents like Oscar Micheaux were obscured by the more dominant cultural narratives. The reality is African-Americans, who mostly played domestics, weren’t even credited in most movies. They were treated as little more than scenery, and Moore was subjected to this, though it’s apparent even to the most casual observer, she brought steely resolve and quiet dignity to each role.

Moore acknowledged, “I didn’t want to carry the trays anymore, and I knew that was the only kind of job I was going to get, but I didn’t want to do that.” Her early career took her across the dance floors of the Cotton Club in Harlem, which catered to a totally white audience, and then overseas to the London Palladium and Moulin Rouge where he followed in the footsteps of the legendary Josephine Baker.

As a young performer, Moore loved Paris because she felt light she belonged. People were kind and the onus of prejudice was not felt in the same way abroad. Still, she could not totally shrug off her American roots, and she returned to appear in “soundies,” a precursor to music videos, starring the likes of Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers.

In the post-war years, Moore got involved with the Actor’s Lab, an integrated and liberal theater group training up a new generation of actors. The McCarthy investigations play like a bit of a footnote in her life, even as Pinky, featuring her first speaking part, was marked as Communist propaganda. Perhaps just as interesting is how one of her best customers when she was waitressing, was a young Marlon Brando, who was doing A Streetcar Named Desire at the time. They were friendly and he gave her encouragement to keep on working on her craft.

Imitation of Life

It’s necessary to bring particular attention to Moore’s most visible performance in Imitation of Life. Because even in her most high-profile role, she was listed 7th in the credits, below her white costars, and was not invited to the film’s premiere. Unphased, she channeled her own sister into the congenial characterization of Annie Johnson.

At the same time, Lana Turner was going through one of Hollywood’s most traumatic personal crises of the 1950s, and Moore was ever-present with a listening ear for the struggling star. They supported one another with the black actress being equally scared to death by the responsibility of her part since she had never been trusted with something so substantial before.

The producers wanted a bigger name like Ethel Waters, Pearl Bailey, or even Mahalia Jackson who performed in the movie’s showstopping finale. It was producer Ross Hunter, who fought for Juanita and, ultimately, won out. His decision was more than vindicated as Moore playing opposite her onscreen daughter, Susan Kohner, is still one of the most piercing elements of the movie all these years later.

The Struggle to Tell Her Own Stories

Louise Fletcher was not a black actress, still, she probably understood what it was to be typecast(in her case as Nurse Ratched) and to fall out of favor with the prevailing tastemakers behind the industry. You can see the empathy radiate out of her as she speaks to the camera. As the industry evolved, Juanita Moore found herself in the emerging Blaxploitation movement (ie. Uptight and The Mack) with its own array of depictions and stereotypes.

It feels a lot more gratifying to focus on her reemergence on the stage, which has always been a space for marginalized performers to get more complex and challenging roles. She toured with A Raisin in The Sun in London and starred in adaptations of James Baldwin‘s Amen Corner.

Under the guidance of Edmund Cambridge, she was an integral member of the Cambridge Players, who looked to bring more compelling depictions of black lives to the stage. In a broader industry enamored with marketability, profit, and accolades, these stories will never draw as much attention, but it feels like this stage in Moore’s career was probably the most rewarding. It placed her opposite some marvelous talents like Helen Martin and Esther Rolle in stories they truly believed in.

Conclusion: A Star With a Star

Juanita Moore‘s grandson Kirk Kelleykahn wanted her legacy remembered and so he went on a journey. A Star Without a Star is a testament to his success. It shows how imperative it is for younger generations to champion unsung pioneers of the past, especially when those pioneers are as worthy of being acknowledged as Juanita Moore.

In 2023 she will finally receive her star…10 years after her passing. 110 years after her birth. It’s never too late. We should never live under the lie that says otherwise.

Juanita Moore had such a meaningful career, and she carried herself with such good humor later in life, it hardly needed a star to validate it. However, perhaps some interested pedestrians will pass by on a street corner and be introduced to one of Hollywood’s resilient trailblazers for the very first time. She shined very bright indeed. It’s time for more people to see it.

Were you already familiar with Juanita Moore’s career in Hollywood? Let us know in the comments below!

Watch A Star Without a Star