Elder, Lonne, III

Lonne Elder III

Raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, Lonne Elder III (1927-1996) commuted across the Hudson River to New York City to find his feet as an actor, playwright, and screenwriter.  He played the character of Bobo in the Broadway premiere of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), one of the FBI’s favorite dramas.  Elder’s first play of his own, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men (1969), was produced by the Negro Ensemble Company and won him a Drama Desk Award for the year’s Most Promising Playwright.  Still his best-regarded work, Ceremonies studied the self-sustaining rituals shared by two elderly black men in a struggling Harlem barbershop.  Elder’s screenplay for Sounder (1972), a hit film starring Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield, received an Academy Award nomination and was widely praised as a nuanced and responsible alternative to the then-thriving genre of “Blaxploitation” movies.  Taking a turn to humor, he co-wrote the Richard Pryor vehicle Bustin’ Loose (1981).  Elder briefly came under FBI suspicion in the nervous Cold War atmosphere of 1954.

Elder - All