Trailblazers in Black History: Rex Ingram

Rex Ingram was an American stage, film and television actor.  

Ingram was born near Cairo, Illinois, on the Mississippi River; his father was a steamer fireman on the riverboat Robert E. Lee. Ingram graduated from the Northwestern University medical school in 1919 and was the first African-American man to receive a Phi Beta Kappa key from the university. He went to Hollywood as a young man where he was literally discovered on a street corner by the casting director for Tarzan of the Apes (1918), starring Elmo Lincoln. He made his (uncredited) screen debut in that film and had many other small roles, usually as a generic black native, such as in the Tarzan films.

In 1962, he became the first African-American actor to be hired for a contract role on a soap opera, when he appeared on The Brighter Day.

Click here for the full bio. 

Source: Wikipedia