Edric Connor
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Edric Connor (2 August 1913 - 13 October 1968) was a pioneering calypso singer, folklorist and actor who was born in Mayaro, Trinidad in 1913. He migrated in 1944 to the United Kingdom, where he chiefly lived and worked until his death from a stroke in London, England, at the age of 55.
In 1951 Connor was responsible for bringing the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra - TASPO - to the Festival of Britain. In 1956, he recorded the first Manchester United Football Club song, "The Manchester United Calypso". That same year, he and his wife Pearl (1924-2005) set up the Edric Connor Agency, representing black actors, dancers, writers and musicians, which later, in the 1970s, she ran under the name of the Afro-Asian-Caribbean Agency.[1] In 1963 they set up the Negro Theatre Workshop, one of the UK's first black theatre groups.[2]
Connor appeared on stage in "Summer Song" at London's Princess Theatre in 1956. In 1958 he became the first black actor to perform for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, playing Gower in Pericles. Connor acted in a total of 18 films and was best noted for his role as Daggoo in Moby Dick (1956). He has a prestigious annual award named after him, "The Edric Connor Inspiration Award" is made annually in his honour. It was won in 2011 by Sir Trevor MacDonald OBE, other previous winners being Moira Stuart and Lenny Henry. Connor's name is also associated with the "Trailblazers Award", of which a notable winner in 2003 was Rudolph Walker who, coincidentally, in 1989, like Connor before him also played Gower in Shakespeare's Pericles.
In 1952, he and his band "Edric Connor and the Caribbeans" recorded the album Songs from Jamaica. This included the song "Day Dah Light", which portrayed the hard life of Caribbean field workers. The song was later recorded by Jamaican folk singer Louise Bennett in 1954, and was later rewritten by Irving Burgie and William Attaway in 1955. The version performed by legendary singer Harry Belafonte became popularly known as "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)", reaching number five on the Billboard charts in 1957, and was even featured in the popular film directed by Tim Burton, "Beetlejuice", in 1988.
His acting for television included roles in the espionage series Danger Man: as the character Thompson in "Deadline" (1962, the final episode of the first series, which unusually featured an almost all-black cast), and memorably as opposition leader Dr Manudu in the series 2 episode entitled "The Galloping Major" (first aired on 3 November 1964).
His daughter Geraldine Connor (1952-2011) - herself a singer and ethnomusicologist - was instrumental in bringing to light her father's autobiography, which was written in the mid-1960s and only finally published in 2006. In 2005, Geraldine accepted an award on behalf of the Connor family from the British Association of Steelbands, in celebration of her family’s contribution to the Promotion of Steelband Music, Caribbean Art, Culture and Heritage throughout the United Kingdom.[3] The Edric and Pearl Connor Papers, 1941-1978[4] were donated to the Alma Jordan Library at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago, and additional material on them is housed in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
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[edit] Selected filmography
- Cry, the Beloved Country (1951)
- West of Zanzibar (1954)
- Moby Dick (1956)
- Virgin Island (1958)
- The Vikings (1958)
- Roots of Heaven (1958)
[edit] Bibliography
- Horizons: the life and times of Edric Connor 1913-1968, an autobiography; with foreword by George Lamming and introduction by Bridget Brereton and Gordon Rohlehr (Kingston, Jamaica: Ian Randle Publishers, 2007).
