- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJuanita Long
- Juanita Hall was an American actress from New Jersey. She is primarily remembered for her roles in two Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musicals ("South Pacific" and "Flower Drum Song") and in their respective film adaptations. In 1950, Hall became the first African American actress to win a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1901, Hall was born in Keyport, New Jersey to an interracial couple. Her father was African-American and her mother was Irish-American. Hall was orphaned at an early age, but she and her siblings were raised by her maternal grandparents. She received her secondary education at the Keyport High School, a public high school. She then received classical training at the Juilliard School, a private performing arts conservatory located in New York City.
By the early 1930s, Hall served as the assistant director for the Hall Johnson Choir. She went on to become both a leading Broadway performer. and a regular performer in the clubs of Greenwich Village. Her signature role was that of the Vietnamese trader Bloody Mary in "South Pacific". She portrayed the character in 1,925 Broadway performances at the Majestic Theatre.
In 1958. Hall recorded the music album "Juanita Hall Sings the Blues", backed by experienced jazz musicians. That same year, Hall returned to the role of Bloody Mary in the film adaptation of "South Pacific". Due to doubts on whether the aging actress could perform the role's key songs, the opera singer Muriel Smith (1923-1985) was hired as the character's singing voice.
Hall continued her performing career until 1962, when she was forced to leave a road show tour due to poor health. Hall was suffering from diabetes for the last decade of her life, and she lost her eyesight due to complications from diabetes. She retired to the Lillian Booth Actors Home, an assisted-living facility located in Englewood, New Jersey. The Actors Fund of America financed her medical treatments until her death in 1968. Hall died at the age of 66, from complications of diabetes.
- IMDb mini biography by: Dimos I
- SpouseClement Oliver Hall(July 9, 1921 - 1930) (divorced)
- Although a light-skinned Afro-American, her two most famous roles saw her cast as a Pacific Islander ("South Pacific") and an Asian-American ("Flower Drum Song"), respectively. She reprised her roles in both productions in the movie versions.
- Married a young actor, Clement Hall, while in her teens. He died in the 1920s. They had no children and she never remarried.
- A leading black Broadway performer in her heyday, she was personally chosen by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to perform the roles she played in South Pacific and Flower Drum Song.
- Trained classically at Juilliard.
- The role of Bloody Mary is based on the only true-life person whom James A. Michener met in Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides, in the South Pacific. She was Tonkinese. Tonkin, at the time, was in China, and after the French left Vietnam, that area became part of North Vietnam. She arrived in the South Pacific to work on a French plantation owner's farm.
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