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Madame Sul-Te-Wan (born Nellie Crawford; March 7, 1873 – February 1, 1959) was an American stage, film and television actress. The daughter of freed slaves, she began her career in entertainment touring the East Coast with various theatrical companies and moved to California to become a member of the fledgling film community. She became known as a character actress, appeared in high profile films such as ''Birth of a Nation'' (1915) and ''Intolerance'' (1916), and easily navigated the transition to the "talkies." Her career spanned over five decades, and, in 1986, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Sul-Te-Wan was the first African American actor, male or female, to sign a film contract and be a featured performer.〔Lowe, Denise. ''An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films'', Haworth Press, p. 504, (2005) - ISBN 0-7890-1843-8〕 ==Early life== Nellie Crawford〔(Madame Sul-Te-Wan at Legacy.com )〕 was born in Louisville, Kentucky, USA to freed slaves Cleon De Londa and Silas Crawford. Her father left the family early in her life, and her mother became a laundress who found employment working for Louisville stage actresses. Young Nellie became enchanted by watching the young actresses rehearse when she delivered laundry for her mother. When she was older she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, joined a theatrical company called Three Black Cloaks, and began billing herself as Creole Nell. She also formed her own theatrical companies and toured the East Coast. After moving to California, Madame Sul-Te-Wan began her acting career in uncredited roles in director D. W. Griffith's controversial 1915 drama ''Birth of a Nation'' and the colossal 1916 epic ''Intolerance''. Sul-Te-Wan had allegedly written Griffith a letter of introduction after hearing that Griffith was shooting a film in her Kentucky hometown. In 1910, Sul-Te-Wan married Robert Reed Conley. They had three sons, but Conley abandoned his family when the third one was only three weeks old. 〔Bogle 2006 pp. 7–8〕 Two of her sons, Odel and Onest Conley, would become actors and appear in several films during their careers, occasionally in films featuring their mother. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Madame Sul-Te-Wan」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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