What About Me? Iris Hall (1892-1984)
- jacquelinehamilton6
- Apr 20, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: May 10, 2021
If you were to Google Iris Hall, What information would pop up? I find it disturbing when I searched for the life and story of actress Iris Hall; the only details I could find on her was her short biography on IMDb. Like many actresses on my blog about Hollywood's unknown, Iris Hall is a forgotten actress who found fame in Oscar Micheaux's 1919 film The Homesteader. She played Agnes Stewart, a biracial woman who falls in love with an African-American man named Jean Baptiste, played by Charles Lucas. Both Stewart and Baptiste are in love, but when race overpowers the view of love, both understand that they can not be together. Iris Hall was born on December 10, 1892, in Barbados, and according to her IMDb mini-bio, "Iris Hall was born on December 10, 1892, in Barbados. She was an actress known for The Symbol of the Unconquered (1920) and The Homesteader (1919). She was married to Richard J. Ryan and Julian Baird. She died on July 11, 1984 in East Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA." Why is this the only information that the public has about the life of Iris Hall? Iris Hall was a significant icon because she was a part of all African-American cast when it came to Oscar Micheaux's 1919 film The Homesteader. While doing some more digging on the life of Iris Hall, I was able to understand Iris Hall's contributions to early Hollywood and how this once rising star became forgotten. Cassandra Geraghty's Norman Studios blog titled "Iris Hall-Micheaux's Fair Lady" goes into depth about the career Hall and the lack of details about her life and importance in Hollywood. Geraghty's blog vocalized, "Born in Barbados in 1892, Iris and her family relocated to the United States when she was thirteen. She worked as a dancer, singer and beautician in Harlem, New York, which is where she most likely met Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux was a prolific African-American writer, producer and director credited with making some of the first and most highly-regarded "race films" during the silent film era. Harlem is said to have been where Micheaux discovered another one of his actresses, Evelyn Preer, in the same time frame. In 1919, Iris Hall starred in Micheaux's first film, "The Homesteader," alongside Preer and Charles D. Lucas. In the plot of this now-lost film, Iris' character's light complexion causes confusion with a love interest (Lucas, an African American) who believes she is a white woman, although she is actually biracial. Believing a union between the two to be illegal, Lucas meets a woman of his own race (Preer) and they marry, albeit ultimately unhappily. Lucas is eventually chased off by his wife and returns to Iris, only to discover the truth about her ethnicity. They live happily ever after. "Cassandra Geraghty's blog does not only help assist me with new information about Iris Hall's humble beginnings but her networking relationship with Oscar Micheaux. Micheaux saw something in Hall that helped establish her roles as one of his leading ladies in his first earliest films. Using the same source, "In her second film, 1920s "Symbol of the Unconquered," Iris plays Eve Mason, a character whose light complexion once again causes confusion with a gentleman (Hugh Van Allen played by Walker Thompson). Thinking she is white, and therefore not a plausible romantic partner, they have an amicable friendship. When she alerts him to an impending attack by the Klu Klux Klan, the townspeople are able to defeat the angry klansmen. At the end of the film, Van Allen learns that Eve is actually of the same race and the two embrace, happy that they can finally be together. Little is known about Iris Hall after her second film, although she does not seem to appear in any more of Oscar Micheaux's forty films. She married twice, in 1920 and 1927 and had two children. She also performed in two Broadway comedies, "Three Men on a Horse" in 1942 and "Try and Get It" in 1943. After that there is no information, except that she passed away in 1984 at 91. It's a shame that such a promising life can be summed up in only a few lines." Iris Hall is famously known for her "race films," these types of films were established storytelling to African-Americans through movies. The primary significance of these films was that they were either cast or were directed by African-Americans. I did not even know that Iris Hall was a Broadway star like Cassandra Geraghty addressed in her blog that Iris Hall's story is found on a few powerful platforms. So many starlets like Iris Hall do not get the recognition they deserve because they put their blood, sweat, and tears into their craft; Iris Hall was ahead of her time, but four sources pop up when you google her name, and those are even hard to find.
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