Stepin Fetchit Bio

Stepin Fetchit, born Lincoln Perry on May 30, 1902 in Key West, Florida, was one of the first African-American actors to have a long-term studio contract, and the first to receive star billing in a film. He started out performing in vaudeville, and in 1927 began acting in silent films. He signed with Fox Studios in 1929, and lived in the lap of luxury. Many audiences and critics praised his skill as a comedian, but Fetchit received intense criticism from the NAACP and other civil rights groups for playing a character that fulfilled white people’s negative stereotypes of black people. The perception of his slow, lazy, grinning character is still so controversial that his movies are rarely shown anymore. This debate, and his reputation for being difficult to work with, hurt his film career, which deteriorated in the 1940s, and in 1947 he declared bankruptcy. In the 1960s, he resurfaced briefly as a member of Muhammad Ali’s entourage. Fetchit later sued CBS for defamation of character for his portrayal in their 1968 documentary Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed, and although he lost the case, his re-emergence compelled historians to reconsider his default character as subversively passive-aggressive. He received a Special Image Award by the Hollywood chapter of the NAACP, and was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. He made two final movie appearances in the 1970s before suffering a stroke. He died in Los Angeles in 1985.