Jester Hairston

Jester Hairston

Born: July 9, 1901
Died: January 18, 2000
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jester Joseph Hairston (July 9, 1901 – January 18, 2000) was an American composer, songwriter, arranger, choral conductor, and actor. He was regarded as a leading expert on Negro spirituals and choral music. His notable compositions include "Amen," a gospel-tinged theme from the film Lilies of the Field and a 1963 hit for The Impressions, and the Christmas song "Mary's Boy Child".

He sang with the Hall Johnson Choir in Harlem for a time but was nearly fired from the all black choir because he had difficulty with the rural dialects that were used in some of the songs. He had to shed his Boston accent and relearn the country speech of his parents and grandparents. Johnson had told him, "We're singing ain't and cain't and you're singing shahn't and cahn't and they don't mix in a spiritual." The Hall Johnson Choir performed in many Broadway shows including The Green Pastures. In 1936, they were asked to go to Hollywood to sing for the film The Green Pastures. At that time, a Russian composer, Dimitri Tiomkin, heard Jester and invited him to collaborate with him. This led to a thirty-year collaboration during which time Jester arranged and collected music for the movies. In 1939, Hairston married Margaret Swanigan. He also wrote and arranged spirituals for Hollywood films as well as for high school and college choirs around the country.

Hairston wrote the song "Mary's Boy Child" in 1956. He also arranged the song "Amen", which he dubbed for the Sidney Poitier film Lilies of the Field, and arranged traditional Negro spirituals. Most of Hairston's film work was in the field of composing, arranging, and choral conducting. Hairston also acted in over 20 films, mostly in small roles, some of which were uncredited. Among the films he appeared in were bit parts in some of the early Tarzan movies, St. Louis Blues, The Alamo, To Kill a Mockingbird, In the Heat of the Night, Lady Sings the Blues, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and Being John Malkovich.

In 1961, the US State Department appointed Jester Hairston as Goodwill Ambassador. He traveled all over the world teaching and performing the folk music of the slaves. In the 1960s he held choral festivals with public high school choirs, introducing them to Negro Spiritual music, and sometimes leading several hundred students in community performances. His banter about the history of the songs along with his engaging personality and sense of humor endeared him to many students.

Hairston appeared on TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show. He had the role of Leroy on the radio program and as Henry Van Porter on the television program. He also played the role of Wildcat on the show That's My Mama. In his senior years he appeared in the show Amen as Rolly Forbes. His last television appearance was in 1993 on an episode of Family Matters. Hairston also played the role of "King Moses" on radio for the Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall show Bold Venture.

Hairston died in Los Angeles of natural causes in 2000 at age 98. Born in 1901, Hairston's life spanned each year of the 20th century. For his contribution to the television industry, Hairston has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame located at 6201 Hollywood Blvd. He is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.

Movies for Jester Hairston...

John Wayne's 'The Alamo'
Title: John Wayne's 'The Alamo'
Character: Jethro
Released: June 6, 1992
Type: Movie
Documentary about the making of the John Wayne film The Alamo (1960). Included are behind-the-scenes photos and footage of the actual production of the film, clips from it and interviews with members of the cast, crew and local residents in Brackettville, TX, where it was filmed.
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Title: Family Matters
Released: September 22, 1989
Type: TV
A long-running dramedy centering on the Winslow family, a middle-class African American family living in Chicago, and their pesky next-door neighbor, ultra-nerd Steve Urkel. A spin-off of Perfect Strangers.
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I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
Title: I'm Gonna Git You Sucka
Character: Pop
Released: November 10, 1988
Type: Movie
Jack Spade returns from the army in his old ghetto neighbourhood when his brother, June Bug, dies. Jack declares war on Mr. Big, powerful local crimelord. His army is led by John Slade, his childhood idol who used to fight bad guys in the 70s.
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Title: Amen
Character: Rolly Forbes
Released: September 27, 1986
Type: TV
Amen is an American television sitcom produced by Carson Productions that ran from September 27, 1986 to May 11, 1991 on NBC. Set in Sherman Hemsley's real-life hometown of Philadelphia, Amen stars Hemsley as the deacon of a church and was part of a wave of successful sitcoms on NBC in the 1980s which featured entirely or almost-entirely black casts. Others included The Cosby Show, A Different World, and 227.
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Green Eyes
Title: Green Eyes
Character: Dirk Dubeck
Released: January 3, 1977
Type: Movie
Disillusioned Vietnam veteran Lloyd Dubeck travels back to Southeast Asia in search among thousands of war orphans for the son he left behind.
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The Last Tycoon
Title: The Last Tycoon
Character: Waiter in Stahr's Office (uncredited)
Released: November 18, 1976
Type: Movie
Monroe Stahr, a successful movie producer, pursues a beautiful and elusive young woman — all the while working himself to death.
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The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
Title: The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings
Character: Furry Taylor
Released: July 16, 1976
Type: Movie
In the world of 1930s Negro League baseball, a spirited team of renegade players travels around the Midwest looking for that one big score. Richard Pryor, Billy Dee Williams, and James Earl Jones star as three barnstorming ballplayers who take on prejudice and their own League's unfair rules while stealing cars, food and home base - anything to prove that they're the best team around. It's a showdown of brains over booby traps and sportsmanship over racial segregation as Bingo Long's All-Stars swing their way into a winning season;.
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Title: Harry O
Released: September 12, 1974
Type: TV
After being shot in the line of duty, Harry Orwell was forced to retire from the San Diego Police Department. To supplement his police pension, Harry runs a private detective agency out of his beach house... The series starred David Janssen and was executive produced by Jerry Thorpe.
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Title: That's My Mama
Character: Wildcat
Released: September 4, 1974
Type: TV
Clifton Curtis has got it made—he runs a successful business he inherited from his late father and he's lucky with the the ladies—but he still lives with his Mama. She rules the roost and dispenses advice to everyone who'll listen—no one at Oscar's Barbershop is spared from Mama's wisdom. And they wouldn't have it any other way.
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Lady Sings the Blues
Title: Lady Sings the Blues
Character: The Butler
Released: October 12, 1972
Type: Movie
Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured.
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Title: Nichols
Character: Melville
Released: September 16, 1971
Type: TV
Nichols is an American Western television series starring James Garner broadcast in the United States on NBC during the 1971-72 season. Set the fictional town of Nichols, Arizona, in 1914, Nichols differed from traditional Western series of the era. The main character, a sheriff, rode on a motorcycle and in an automobile rather than on the traditional horse. The hero did not carry a firearm and was generally opposed to the use of violence to solve problems, preferring other means. Margot Kidder portrayed Ruth, the love interest/barmaid of Nichols.
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Finian's Rainbow
Title: Finian's Rainbow
Character: Passion Pilgrim Gospeller (uncredited)
Released: October 9, 1968
Type: Movie
An Irish immigrant and his daughter arrive in Kentucky with a magical piece of gold that alters the course of several lives, including those of a struggling farmer and an African American community facing persecution from a bigoted politician.
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In the Heat of the Night
Title: In the Heat of the Night
Character: Endicott's Butler
Released: August 2, 1967
Type: Movie
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.
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To Kill a Mockingbird
Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
Character: Spence Robinson (uncredited)
Released: December 20, 1962
Type: Movie
Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.
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Summer and Smoke
Title: Summer and Smoke
Character: Thomas (uncredited)
Released: November 16, 1961
Type: Movie
In a small Mississippi town in 1916, an eccentric spinster battles her romantic yearnings for the randy boy next door.
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The Alamo
Title: The Alamo
Character: Jethro
Released: October 23, 1960
Type: Movie
The legendary true story of a small band of soldiers who sacrificed their lives in hopeless combat against a massive army in order to prevent a tyrant from smashing the new Republic of Texas.
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Title: Thriller
Character: Papa Benjamin
Released: September 13, 1960
Type: TV
Thriller is an American anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons on NBC. The show featured host Boris Karloff introducing a mix of self-contained, macabre weird-horror and morbid, hitchockian crime stories, in some of which he also starred.
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Raymie
Title: Raymie
Character: Ransom
Released: July 5, 1960
Type: Movie
Raymie, an eight-year-old boy and an avid fisherman, dreams of catching a legendary giant barracuda known as Old Moe.
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Title: Rawhide
Character: Zachariah
Released: January 9, 1959
Type: TV
The tale of trail boss Gil Favor and his trusty foreman Rowdy Yates as they drives cattle across the old west. Along the way they meet up with adventure and drama.
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Title: The 20th Century Fox Hour
Released: October 5, 1955
Type: TV
The 20th Century Fox Hour is an American drama anthology series televised in the United States on CBS from 1955 to 1957. Some of the shows in this series were restored, remastered and shown on the Fox Movie Channel in 2002 under the title Hour of Stars. The season one episode Overnight Haul, starring Richard Conte and Lizabeth Scott, was released in Australia as a feature film.
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Title: Gunsmoke
Character: Wellington
Released: September 10, 1955
Type: TV
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The central character is lawman Marshal Matt Dillon, played by William Conrad on radio and James Arness on television.
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Pete Kelly's Blues
Title: Pete Kelly's Blues
Character: Mourner (uncredited)
Released: July 31, 1955
Type: Movie
In 1927, a Kansas City, Missouri cornet player and his band perform nightly at a seedy speakeasy until a racketeer tries to extort them in exchange for protection.
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Tarzan's Hidden Jungle
Title: Tarzan's Hidden Jungle
Character: Witch Doctor
Released: February 16, 1955
Type: Movie
Hunters trespass into Sukulu country, where animals are sacred, posing as photographers.
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Title: Studio 57
Released: September 21, 1954
Type: TV
Studio 57 is an American anthology series that was broadcast on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from September 1954 to September 1955, and in syndication from 1955 to 1956.
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Tanganyika
Title: Tanganyika
Released: July 3, 1954
Type: Movie
A landowner in colonial Africa leads a safari through Nukumbi territory in order to capture an escaped criminal.
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Gypsy Colt
Title: Gypsy Colt
Character: Carl
Released: April 2, 1954
Type: Movie
In this trans-species remake of Lassie, Come Home, a faithful horse undertakes a perilous journey to return to the family it loves.
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So This Is Love
Title: So This Is Love
Character: Preacher
Released: July 15, 1953
Type: Movie
Film biography of opera star Grace Moore, released in 1953.
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We're Not Married!
Title: We're Not Married!
Character: Lead Christmas Caroler (uncredited)
Released: July 11, 1952
Type: Movie
A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally married.
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Yes Sir, Mr. Bones
Title: Yes Sir, Mr. Bones
Released: July 13, 1951
Type: Movie
A young boy finds himself in a home for retired minstrel acts. He's anxious to find out as much as he can about them, and flashbacks show what it was like back in the days of the minstrel shows.
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Title: Amos 'n' Andy
Released: June 28, 1951
Type: TV
A sitcom set in Manhattan's historic black community of Harlem.
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Across the Pacific
Title: Across the Pacific
Character: Passerby (uncredited)
Released: September 4, 1942
Type: Movie
Rick Leland makes no secret of the fact he has no loyalty to his home country after he is court-marshaled out of the army and boards a Japanese ship for the Orient in late 1941. But has Leland really been booted out, or is there some other motive for his getting close to fellow passenger Doctor Lorenz? Any motive for getting close to attractive traveller Alberta Marlow would however seem pretty obvious.
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In This Our Life
Title: In This Our Life
Character: Black Man in Jail (uncredited)
Released: May 8, 1942
Type: Movie
An unhappy, self-centered woman runs off with her sister's husband, wreaking havoc and ruining the lives of those around her.
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Sundown
Title: Sundown
Character: Native Boy (uncredited)
Released: October 31, 1941
Type: Movie
Englishmen fighting Nazis in Africa discover an exotic mystery woman living among the natives and enlist her aid in overcoming the Germans.
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Deep South
Title: Deep South
Released: October 4, 1930
Type: Movie
Short subject from Pathe based on the writings of Grantland Rice, primarily remembered for his elegant approach to sportswriting. This was one of the last of the Van Beuren Corporation's "Song Sketches," along with another "The Voice of the Sea."