The Many Beautiful Black Extras Overlooked

I know everyone watches this movie for the many major, legendary stars like Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, and Bill Robinson, but I'm just as interested in the many beautiful women in the background in the cabaret scenes and dance scenes. For this film many beautiful black women were gotten from Harlem, some of these dancers danced at the Cotton Club and the Apollo, and other dancers were gotten from around L.A. to be dancers in this film. They danced their hearts out and showed their beauty was just as much up to par as the white women in Hollywood. Unfortunately they weren't credited, they should have been, the many beautiful women in the background were in many black musicals done in Hollywood movies. The same women in Stormy Weather were in Cabin In The Sky, and other musical numbers like "Thank Your Lucky Stars - Ice Cold Katy" "Star Spangled Rhythm - Sharp As A Tack" "Irene - Sweet Alice Blue Gown," they also were in black numbers featured in "I Dood It," "The Heat's On," "Artists and Models," "Happy Go Lucky," "Broadway Rhythm - Brazilian Boogie," "New Faces of 1937 - Peckin," "Vogues of 1937 - Turn on that Red Hot Heat," "Carolina Blues - Mr. Beebe," "The Singing Kid," and many other black musical numbers. Some of the women's names were Louise Franklin, Mildred Boyd, Avanelle Harris, Millie Monroe, Rita Christiani, Louise Clark, Rosalie Lincoln, Daisy Bufford, Artie Young, Tommie Moore, Florence O'Brien, Maggie Hathaway, Suzette Harbin, Juanita Moore, Lucille Battle, Vivian Dandridge, Juliette Ball, Lena Torrence, Marie Bryant, Myrtle Fortune, Kathleen Hartsfield, Doris Ake, and many others. I say shame on Hollywood, not giving the extras their due, because the cabaret scene was one of the best scenes in the movie, and without them it wouldn't have been as great. These many black women contributed to Hollywood just as much as Horne and Dandridge, and they should be acknowledged. If you ever research, you'll find many of these women had successes on stage and off and received notoriety in the black newspapers and Jet and Ebony.

As far as I know the only surviving women of this movie is Avanelle Harris, Lucille Battle, and Juanita Moore, of Imitation of Life fame. It's ashame no one ever thought to interview these women over the years to get their stories, now most of them deceased. I hope that the children or grandchildren of the women that appeared in this film will post one day to share their relatives expriences and stories.

Some of the musical numbers I mentioned above, you can see on YouTube.