Gertrude Jeannette was born in Urbana, Arkansas, where she grew up on a farm with her six siblings. During the Great Depression, the family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. She attended the segregated Dunbar High School and planned to enroll at Fisk University. On her prom night, she met Joe Jeannette, who was 35 years older than her, and just before her graduation, the couple eloped to NYC. There, Jeannette became involved in the civil rights movement.
Jeannette’s husband, a heavyweight boxer and the president of the Harlem Dusters motorcycle club taught her how to drive a motorcycle. In 1935, she became the first woman in NYC to have a motorcycle license. During WW2, the city had a shortage of taxi drivers, Jeannette took the call, and in 1942, at the age of 28, she passed the cab driver’s test and became the first woman in NYC to have a taxi driver license. With her new income, Jeannette wanted to further her education, and while attending bookkeeping classes, she took a speech class at the American Negro Theatre to correct her stammer. As part of the theater’s curriculum, Jeannette was obliged to take an acting class, which changed the course of her life.
At 31, Jeannette began her acting career, landing her first lead role in the play “Our Town,” and four years later, she performed in her first Broadway production – “Lost in the Stars.” Jeannette saw the lack of authentic black characters in the theater, so she started to write her plays. Her first production, “The Way Forward,” premiered in 1950. In this autobiographical play, Jeannette depicted the life of the sharecroppers in the South. As in her other plays, she presented strong African-American characters and dealt with topics such as racism, education, politics, and family issues. In the same year, Jeannette was featured in the TV Hour production of the “God’s Trombones,” adding another first to her list as the first African-American actress to appear on National Television. Jeannette continued to appear in various Broadway productions, films, and TV shows. Her credits include titles such as “Nothing but a Man,” “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” “Shaft,” and “Black Girl.”
In 1979, Jeannette founded the H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players (Harlem Artist’s Development League Especially for You), a theater company, which gave artists a place to develop their skills, enriching the cultural life in Harlem. Jeannette acted, directed, and wrote until her retirement at the age of 98. She died at her home in Harlem at the age of 103.
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