Cy Grant (8 November 1919 – 13 February 2010) was a
Guyanese actor, singer and writer who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on
British television. Following service in the
Royal Air Force during
World War II, he worked as an actor and singer, before setting up the Drum Arts Centre in the 1970s appointed director of Concord Multicultural Festivals in the early 1980s. A published poet and author of several books, including his 2007 memoir
Blackness and the Dreaming Soul, he was an
Honorary Fellow of
Roehampton University, a title awarded in 1997, and since 2001 a member of the Scientific and Medical Network. In 2008 he was instrumental in setting up an online archive to trace and commemorate Caribbean aircrew from World War II. A father of four children, Grant lived in
Highgate,
London, with his wife Dorith.
Early life
Grant was born in the village of
Beterverwagting,
Demerara,
British Guiana (modern-day
Guyana), one of seven children in a close-knit middle-class family. His father was a
Moravian minister and his mother a music teacher originally from
Antigua. At the age of 11, he moved with his family to
New Amsterdam,
Berbice. After leaving high school, Grant worked as a clerk in the office of a stipendiary magistrate but was unable to study law overseas because of lack of funds.
Career in the Royal Air Force
In 1941 he joined the
Royal Air Force, which had begun to admit non-white candidates following great losses in the
Battle of Britain the previous year. One of around 500 young men recruited from the
Caribbean for aircrews, he was commissioned as an officer after training in England as a navigator. He joined
103 Squadron based at
Elsham Wolds in
Lincolnshire, one of a seven-man crew of a
Lancaster Bomber. On his third mission,
Flight Lieutenant Grant was shot down over the
Netherlands during the 1943 RAF offensive,
Battle of the Ruhr. He parachuted to safety in a field but was captured by the Germans and was made a prisoner of war in
Stalag Luft III camp, 160 km east of
Berlin. He was finally liberated by
Allied Forces in 1945.
In 2007 Grant took part in filming for the documentary Into the Wind, directed by Steven Hatton. The film, a feature length documentary about the veterans of Bomber Command, features Cy talking about his wartime experiences as a Lancaster navigator.
Showbusiness career
After World War II, he decided to pursue his original ambition and study law, seeing it as a way to challenge racism and social injustice. He became a member of the
Middle Temple in London and qualified as a
barrister in 1950. Despite his distinguished war record and legal qualifications he was unable to find work at
the Bar and decided to take up acting. Apart from earning him a living, he saw acting as way to improve his diction for when he finally entered Chambers.
His first role was for a Moss Empire tour in which he starred in a play called 13 Death St., Harlem. He career received a boost after successfully auditioning for Laurence Olivier and his Festival of Britain Company, which led to appearances at the St. James Theatre in London and the Ziegfeld Theatre, New York.
But faced with limited roles for black actors, he decided to increase his earning potential by becoming a singer, having learnt to sing and play the guitar as a youngster in Guiana. This proved very successful and he was soon appearing in revues and top cabaret venues like Esmeralda's Barn, singing Caribbean and other folk songs, as well as on BBC radio (The Third Programme and the Overseas Service) and on his own Associated TeleVision series, For Members Only.
In 1956, he co-starred with Nadia Cattouse and Errol John in a BBC TV drama Man from the sun, about Caribbean migrants, and appeared in the World War II film Sea Wife, alongside Richard Burton and Joan Collins (1957).
In 1957, Grant was asked to take part in the BBC's daily topical show, Tonight, to sing the news in calypso. The journalist Bernard Levin provided the words and Grant strung them together. Tonight was hugely popular and turned Grant, the first black face to appear regularly on TV, into a household name. But he left after two and a half years, anxious not to become typecast. Between 1967 and 1968 he also voiced the role of Lieutenant Green in Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, becoming the first regular black male character in televised science fiction.
A brief return to the Bar in 1972 reflected Grant's disenchantment with show business as well as his growing politicisation. After spending six months at a Chambers in the Middle Temple, he decided he no longer had any passion for the law and resolved to challenge discrimination through the arts.
Cultural activism
In collaboration with
Zimbabwean John Mapondera, Grant set up the
Drum Arts Centrein London to provide a springboard for black artistic talent in 1974. Considered a landmark in the development of black theatre, among its highlights was a series of summer workshops in 1975 at
Morley College run by
Steve Carter of New York's
Negro Ensemble Theatre. This led to a production of
Bread by
Mustapha Matura at the
Young Vic and workshops with the
National Theatre for two consecutive years. In 1977
Ola Rotimi produced his Nigerian adaptation of Sophocles'
Oedipus Rex, titled
The Gods are not to Blame, at
Jackson's Lane Community Centre and
Greenwich Theatre; while
The Swamp Dwellers by
Wole Soyinka was produced at the
Commonwealth Institute theatre. Drum, which was based in London's
Covent Garden, also premiered
Sweet Talk by
Michael Abbensetts at the
ICA in 1975. Among the exhibitions it mounted was
Behind the Mask – Afro-Caribbean Poets and Playwrights in Words and Pictures at the Commonwealth Institute and the National Theatre in 1979.
Grant stood down as chair of Drum in 1978 following internal disagreements, leaving him room to concentrate on his one-man show of the epic prose poem by Aimé Césaire (Cahier d'un retour au pays Natal), an attack on colonialism and European values that Grant cites as a major influence on his thinking.
Caribbean aircrew archive
The website
Caribbean aircrew in the RAF during WW2 aims to provide a permanent archive of volunteers from the West Indies who flew for the RAF but whose contribution has been generally overlooked. It is the initiative of Cy Grant and Hans Klootwijk, author of
Lancaster W4827: Failed to Return, which recounts the fate of Grant and his fellow crew members after their plane was shot down over the Netherlands in 1943. The book is based on research carried out by Hans' father, Joost Klootwijk, who was 11 when the bomber crashed into a farmhouse in his village.
In May 2008 Grant went to Holland to visit Joost and Hans, and the idea for the website took root. It was launched on 17 October 2008, with the names of 70 West Indians who had flown for the RAF. But thanks to regular updates by surviving crew and relatives, as well as by historians in the field, it is now known they numbered around 440 and that at least 70 were commissioned and 103 were decorated.
Stage career, television and filmography
Member of the Lawrence Olivier Festival of Britain Company, London and New York, 1951
Man from the sun – BBC TV drama, 1956
Sea Wife – World War ll film co-starring Richard Burton and Joan Collins; "Number 4"; 1957
Home of the Brave – Granada TV drama by Arthur Laurents, 1956
Tonight – singing "topical calypsos", BBC TV, 1957–60
Calypso – film directed by Franco Rossi co-starring Sally Neal and Louise Bennett-Coverley, 1958
The Encylopaedist – drama by John Mortimer, BBC TV, 1961
Othello – Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, 1965
Cindy Ella – musical based on Cinderella; with Cleo Laine and Elizabeth Welch, and George Brown, Garrick Theatre, London, 1966. (Cindy Ella was also a BBC2 production in 1967 and issued as a LP)
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons – sci-fi puppet series as the voice of Lieutenant Green; ITV, 1967–68
The Persuaders! – one episode of TV series, with Tony Curtis, Roger Moore, Carmen Munroe; 1971
Shaft in Africa – action film co-starring Richard Roundtree; diplomat Emir Ramila; 1973
Freedom Road: Songs of Negro Protest – musical reconstruction of US Civil Rights struggle with Cleo Laine, Elizabeth Welch, Madeline Bell and Pearl Prescod; ATV/Elkan Allan, 1964
Softly, Softly – one episode of detective series; BBC TV, 1974,
The Iceman Cometh – by Eugene O'Neil; Royal Shakespeare Company, 1976
At the Earth's Core– sci fi film with Peter Cushing; Ra; 1976
Return to my Native Land – platform performance Lyttleton Theatre, National Theatre; one-man show, Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court Theatre; and national tour 1977-79
Night and Day – by Tom Stoppard, Derby Theatre, 1981
Blake's 7 – sci-fi series; Hal Mellanby; BBC TV, 1980
Metal Mickey – children's TV series; Mr Young; London Weekend TV, 1981–82
Maskarade – Jamaican Christmas musical directed by Yvonne Brewster for Talawa Theatre Company, Cochrane Theatre, London, 1994
References
online
External links
Cy Grant's Website
Cy Grant's Blog Spot
Cy Grant - Daily Telegraph obituary
Category:1919 births
Category:2010 deaths
Category:Calypsonians
Category:Guyanese activists
Category:Guyanese actors
Category:Guyanese immigrants to the United Kingdom
Category:Guyanese lawyers
Category:Guyanese writers
Category:People associated with Roehampton University
Category:Royal Air Force officers
Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Category:Steelpan musicians
Category:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
