Vivienne Baber

Vivienne Baber was an American actress born in 1911 in Brooklyn, New York, to Henry and Ethel Baber. Her father worked as a bank clerk, and she had a younger sister named Muriel. The family's race was recorded as Creole in the 1925 New York state census. Before pursuing stage work, Baber sang in a cabaret chorus and danced at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. By 1930 she had adopted the spelling "Vivian" for her name, though she was also credited professionally as Vivianne at various points in her career.

Baber began her stage career in 1929 at age 18, taking on the role of Cordelia Williams in Harlem. That same year she appeared in Make Me Know It at Wallack's Theatre in New York City, where she played Mona Bannon; the production had previewed for three days in New Rochelle before its New York run. She also appeared in Ginger Snaps and You Know Me at Wallack's Theatre during that same year. In 1930 she played Delia in Sweet Chariot, a performance that drew praise from at least one reviewer who noted she surpassed the rest of the cast, while another described her work as strong even as the play fell short of being considered important. Also in 1930, she was part of the supporting cast of Confidence alongside Frank H. Wilson. In 1932 she played Star in Savage Rhythm and took the starring role in the film The Black King, in which she portrayed Mary Lou Lawton. She also appeared in the 1929 Vitaphone short They Know Their Groceries. Between 1932 and 1933, Baber served as a principal actor in Shuffle Along of 1933, a revival of the musical comedy Shuffle Along by Flournoy Miller, in which she played Alice Walker.

In a 1932 interview, Baber described herself as having Indian and English ancestry and characterized herself as three-quarters white and one-quarter colored. Dissatisfied with the roles she was being typecast in, she left acting for seven years. During that period she worked for the Afro-American Newspapers and established a children's theater organization in Washington, D.C. She returned to the stage around 1946, playing Wini Bennett in On Whitman Avenue in New York City. Baber married Peter Douglas Johnson, born in 1906, in Brooklyn on February 28, 1937; the two divorced before May 1946. Johnson died in 1958. Baber's date of death is unknown.