Everyday Black History ~ Godfrey Cambridge

Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge was born February 26, 1933 in New York City to British Guiana émigré parents. Young Godfrey lived in Nova Scotia with his grandparents where he attended grammar school. GodfreyCambridge made his Broadway debut in Nature’sWay in 1956. He also appeared in both stage and screen versions of the Ossie Davis-penned Purlie Victorious, released in 1963 as Gone Are the Days!  For his work in The Blacks, Cambridge won an Obie in 1961 for Most Distinguished Off-Broadway Performance.

Godfrey Cambridge also lent his considerable talent to Hollywood’s silver screen starring as Harlem-based Detective Gravedigger Jones opposite Raymond St. Jacques as Detective Coffin Ed Smith in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and its sequel Come Back Charleston Blue (1972). 

Although he was a very competent dramatic actor, Godfrey Cambridge was better known for his work as a stand-up comedian. His material was often drawn from racial conditions in contemporary America. In 1970, Cambridge starred in Watermelon Man, playing a man who is white when he goes to sleep one night, and black when he wakes up the next morning amidst the furor created by war, rapid social change and a racially-divided America. While filming Victory at Entebbe, a 1976 movie for television in which he was portraying Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, the actor died on set. Godfrey Cambridge was 43 years old.