Nina Mae McKinney

About Nina Mae McKinney

Nina Mae McKinney is known as the seductress "Chick" from Hallelujah (1929), the first all-black, all-sound musical. Even though she was acknowledged as a great actress, singer and dancer by audiences in the U.S. and Europe, today she is mostly forgotten.

She certainly had the looks, enthusiasm, and acting talent to succeed. But as she and other black women of her time learned, there wasn't much work for a black woman other than as a maid, "mammy" figure, or prostitute.

Hollywood was scared to take a chance on an attractive black woman, to make her into a glamorous sex symbol as they would with an attractive white actress.

There would be no true glamorous black female sex symbol until Lena Horne's arrival in 1942. Nina learned, as did other black actresses, that there was little success to be had after an initial big splash.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0571904/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm