Madame Sul-Te-Wan

Madame Sul-Te-Wan (born Nellie Crawford; March 7, 1873 – February 1, 1959) was the first African-American actress to sign a film contract and be a featured performer. She was an American stage, film and television actress for over 50 years. The daughter of former slaves, she began her career in entertainment touring the East Coast with various theatrical companies and moved to California to become a member of the fledgling film community. She became known as a character actress, appeared in high-profile films such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916), and easily navigated the transition to the sound films. In 1986, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Early life Nellie Crawford was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to former slaves Cleon De Londa and Silas Crawford. Her father left the family early in her life, and her mother became a laundress for Louisville stage actresses. Young Nellie became enchanted by watching the young actresses rehearse when she delivered laundry for her mother. When she was older she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, joined a theatrical company called Three Black Cloaks, and began billing herself as "Creole Nell." She also formed her own theatrical companies and toured the East Coast. After moving to California, Crawford began her film career in uncredited roles in director D. W. Griffith's controversial 1915 drama Birth of a Nation. Crawford had allegedly written Griffith a letter of introduction after hearing that Griffith was shooting a film in her Kentucky hometown. Griffith had intended that he would play a rich landowner who spits in the face of a woman who slights him. The scene was cut by the censors but Crawford was hired at $3 a day and this became the first contract for a black woman when she was hired at $25 a week. Sul-Te-Wan had managed to get the role by her extravagant dress which caught Griffith's attention. In the early 1900s, Crawford married Robert Reed Conley. They had three sons, but Conley abandoned his family when the third boy was only three weeks old. Two of her sons, Odel and Onest Conley, became actors and appeared in several films. Some of these film featured their mother.