Dorothy Van Engle

Born Donessa Dorothy Van Engle in Harlem, New York, on August 14, 1910,[2] she grew up with her mother and stepfather, being influenced by the latter's band and show business activities. It was through these acquaintances that she first met Oscar Micheaux and began starring in his films. Before that point, she had been working as a model and it was through these jobs that she made money, as Micheaux's low budget films never had the money to properly pay the actors. But, in her own words, she stated that she acted for fun and enjoyed the "adventure" such roles gave her. Also working as a seamstress, she made her own costumes for her film roles.[1]

Cast as the main female lead in the 1935 film Murder in Harlem, Engle acted as a strong female character who actually solved the private eye's cases rather than the male lead.[1] The film's subject matter and original source events were criticized, however, along with Engle and the other actress's acting in the film, as if their lines were being delivered with an "air of artificiality".[3] In 1938's Swing!, she played the role of an assistant producer to the black male lead who played a producer character and it was her role that was responsible for making the critical show idea that allowed the male lead to be successful in the film. Ohio State University's professor of film studies, J. Ronald Green, described her as one of the few primary women actors cast by Micheaux and she frequently played intelligent and strong-minded characters that acted as a "proto-feminist role" for women at the time.[1] Green further stated that it was these race films that were the sole source of positive representation of black Americans in media during the early half of the 20th century.[1]