I Passed for White
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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I Passed for White is a 1960 film directed and adapted for the screen by Fred M. Wilcox from a novel of the same name by Reba Lee "as told to" Mary Hastings Bradley. The film stars Sonya Wilde, James Franciscus, Patricia Michon, and Isabel Cooley. The film was released by Televista on March 18, 1960.
Plot
Benice Lee, a young woman of mixed African and European American ancestry, living in Chicago with her family travels to New York and starts a new life passing as a white woman. The film begins with her being mistaken for a "purely" white woman by a white man who tries to hit on her repeatedly. Her brother, more obviously of mixed heritage in appearance, fights off this man. Bernice's grandmother consoles her when she confides her troubles. Later in the film, after a failed attempted at looking for employment as an African American, she decides to leave town, use the name Lila Brownell and live as a white woman. On the plane to New York she meets and eventually marries the man of her dreams-Rick Leyton-only she hasn't told him she is part African American. He and his rich family and friends are white. Her white friend Sally, and African American maid Bertha both advise her not to tell him. She becomes pregnant, and fears the child will have African American features or coloring - and gets a book to read about this unlikely possibility, which she hides, but Rick eventually discovers it, although their maid claims the book belongs to her. Bernice/Lila goes into premature labor and has a stillborn child, but cries out after she awakens from anesthesia -"Is the baby black?". This leads Rick to suspect that his wife has been unfaithful. Eventually, she and her husband divorce-without ever revealing her true name or past. She then returns to her family in Chicago and her original identity.
See also
- Imitation of Life-1934
- Imitation of Life-1959
- Pinky
- Shadows
- Lost Boundaries
- The Human Stain (film)
- God's Stepchildren
- Kings Go Forth
- Anatole Broyard
