Barrington Guy

Biography

Handsome and charming, Barrington Guy was in his time a versatile talent, a brilliant moving baritone, actor, and ballet dancer who had the talent to become a great of stage and screen. Barrington Guy was born to entertain on January 20, 1905 in Washington, D.C. His father was an instructor in drama and considered one of the greatest Black Shakespearian actors of his day. Barrington's father was the only Black in those parts to give a Shakespeare drama each year. One could say Barrington was a child prodigy, he began singing at the age of five at local venues in Washington, D.C. and a talent scout saw him perform and gave him an audition at Shubert's Garrick theater in Washington. He won first prize in the talent show was featured as the amateur find of the year, becoming a headliner on the Keith circuit at the age of five. Meanwhile, to add to his talents, Barrington's parents sent him to the interpretive dancing classes of Cora B. Shreeves where he excelled as a dancer and was leading man in her juvenile carnival. He also gave joint recitals with his father in which he sang and closed in a joint recitation of Shakespeare's "Brutus and Cassius" from Julius Cesar. While still in his childhood and teen years he became a regular and appeared on the Keith circuit, with Ann Sutton, a Keith Headliner; Catherine Lyons, winner of the prize as "Miss America" at Atlantic City who was his ex-dancing partner; Vivian Maronelli; and Genevieve Pyles, first cousin of Mary Pickford. For ten years he was a popular child star and becoming a name value in Vaudeville until one day at the age of fifteen years old, the Keith circuit office received letters that stated that he was "colored." The theater owners and audience objected to a Black kissing, dancing, and associating with white women on and off the stage no matter how "white" Barrington looked and he was fired. After that incident, Barrington started studying for the Washington Grand Opera Company, under the celebrated voice teacher, Edward Albian but his operatic aspirations were shunned. After the heartbreak and humiliation of trying to crossover and make people judge him by his talent not his race and color, Barrington tried his luck of making it in black entertainment. He was featured in black shows on the Vaudeville stage before cracking the Broadway stage. His first break was in Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1928 and he had a juvenile lead in the show. Songwriter/Bandleader/Producer Donald Heywood, a friend of his, wrote several hit songs for him to introduce in the show. Throughout the 1930s, Barrington was also featured in Black Broadway shows like "Make Me Know It," "Brain Sweat," "Aficana," and "Black Rhythm" where he gave competent performances but failed to create an interest that would uplift him to prominence on stage and make a name for himself. In 1931, he co-starred in Oscar Micheaux's "Veiled Aristocrats," the Black Cinema race film about a brother who passed for white and reunites again with his family just to force his sister to pass as white and marry a white man. The 1930s was a bleak era for Barrington because his complexion drew prejudice from both blacks and whites and his talent never fully appreciated. At the beginning of Barrington's career he was on his way to the top but by the end of the 1930s, he was reduced to working at cabarets and nightclubs doing petty sketches and numbers in Harlem which he detested but it was his only choice and he had to eat and pay the bills.