November 26, 1934: Universal Pictures releases the 1st film version of Fannie Hurst's 1933 novel Imitation of Life, directed by John M. Stahl, starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers.
Born in 1889 outside Cincinnati, and growing up in St. Louis, Hurst was Jewish, and interested in the plight of the poor. She was one of the most-read female novelists of the 1920s and '30s, but was mostly forgotten after World War II. She died in 1968.
The film gives Beavers, usually featured in small roles as a maid, her best screen role, and features the largest supporting role played by a black person in a Hollywood film up until then. Its storyline partially revolves around a young mulatto girl, played by Fredi Washington, rejecting her mother, played by Beavers, and trying to "pass for white," the first Hollywood film to deal with this subject seriously. I'm amazed that it was released after the Hays Code got serious earlier in the year.
The film was remade in 1959, set in 1947, starring Lana Turner and Susan Kohner, who was the daughter of a Mexican woman rather than being half-black.
Louise Beavers appeared in many more films, including Bing Crosby's Holiday Inn in 1942, and lived until 1962. Fredericka "Fredi" Washington left Hollywood in 1937, only 33 years old, and threw herself into civil rights work. That year, along with W.C. Handy, Paul Robeson, Ethel Waters and Noble Sissie, she founded the Negro Actors Guild of America. She turned to stage and radio work, and was involved with the NAACP until her death in 1994, at the age of 90.
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November 26, 1934 was a Monday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL was in season, but no games were scheduled. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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