Stepin Fetchit

Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, born May 30, 1902, in Key West, Florida, was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and film actor who performed under the stage name Stepin Fetchit. Of Jamaican and Bahamian descent, Perry was the son of Joseph Perry, a cigar maker from Jamaica, and Dora Monroe, a seamstress from Nassau, The Bahamas, both of whom emigrated to the United States in the 1890s. By 1910, the family had relocated to Tampa, Florida. Perry was later adopted at age 11 and taken to Montgomery, Alabama, where his adoptive guardian was a quack dentist for whom he blacked boots before running away at age 12 to join a carnival. He spent his early years earning a living as a singer and tap dancer.

In his teenage years, Perry transitioned into comic character acting, and by age 20 he had established himself as a vaudeville artist and the manager of a traveling carnival show. His stage name derived from a contraction of the phrase "step and fetch it." Perry's own account of the name's origin held that he and a vaudeville partner won money betting on a racehorse called "Step and Fetch It" and divided the name between their act; when Perry went solo, he combined both halves into a single professional identity.

Perry's film career began in earnest with In Old Kentucky in 1927, following which he signed a five-year studio contract. That film was notable for including a romantic subplot between Perry and actress Carolynne Snowden, an unusual element for a black actor appearing in a white production of that era. He went on to appear in Hearts in Dixie in 1929, one of the first studio productions to feature a predominantly black cast. That same year, Jules Bledsoe provided Perry's singing voice for his role as Joe in the 1929 version of Show Boat, in which Perry sang "The Lonesome Road." In 1930, Hal Roach signed Perry to appear in nine Our Gang episodes, though his only appearance in the series was in A Tough Winter before his contract was canceled for undisclosed reasons.

Throughout the 1930s, Perry built a close professional and personal friendship with comedian Will Rogers, and the two appeared together in David Harum, Judge Priest, Steamboat 'Round the Bend, and The County Chairman, all released between 1934 and 1935. Perry's screen persona, billed as the "Laziest Man in the World," anchored comic-relief roles across 44 films between 1927 and 1939. He became the first Black actor to earn $1 million and the first to receive featured screen credit in a film. Away from the screen, Perry was highly literate and maintained a concurrent career writing for The Chicago Defender.

In 1940, Perry stepped away from film work after an unsuccessful effort to secure equal pay and billing with his white costars. That same year, he appeared on Broadway in the musical Walk With Music. He returned to film in 1945 out of financial necessity, though he appeared in only eight films between 1945 and 1953. He declared bankruptcy in 1947, listing assets of $146. During this period he also returned to vaudeville, appearing at the Anderson Free Fair in 1949 alongside Singer's Midgets.

After 1953, Perry's screen appearances were limited to cameos, including the made-for-television film Cutter in 1972 and the feature films Amazing Grace in 1974 and Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood in 1976. In the 1960s, he became a friend of heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali and allegedly converted to the Nation of Islam around that time, though other sources describe him as a lifelong Catholic. In late November 1963, Perry collaborated with Motown Records founder Berry Gordy Jr. and Esther Gordy Edwards to compose "May What He Lived for Live," a tribute to President John F. Kennedy written in the days following his assassination. Perry was credited on the composition under the pseudonym W.A. Bisson. The song was recorded in December 1963 by Liz Lands, who performed it at the funeral of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Perry's Stepin Fetchit persona drew sustained criticism from civil rights leaders throughout his career. In 1968, the CBS documentary Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed, written by Andy Rooney and narrated by Bill Cosby, singled out Perry's screen character for criticism. Perry subsequently sued CBS and the documentary's producers for defamation of character, but the suit was unsuccessful. In 2005, African-American critic Mel Watkins offered a reappraisal in the book Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry, arguing that the character was not genuinely lazy but rather a deliberate trickster who manipulated white employers into doing his work for him, a practice rooted in the tradition of "putting on old massa" that developed during American slavery. Despite the controversy surrounding his persona, the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP awarded Perry a special NAACP Image Award in 1976, and two years later he was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. He also holds a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Perry suffered a stroke in 1976, which ended his acting career, and he subsequently moved into the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital. He died on November 19, 1985, from pneumonia and heart failure at the age of 83, and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in East Los Angeles following a Catholic funeral Mass.