MCKINNEY, NINA MAE (born Nannie Mayme McKinney, 12 June 1912–3 May 1967), African American actress, singer, and dancer best known for her breakthrough role in the 1929 film Hallelujah, Hollywood’s first all-sound feature film with an all-Black cast.
McKinney was born and raised in a small town in South Carolina, near the plantation where her family had worked, first as slaves and then as laborers, for generations. Her family moved to New York City when she was twelve, and at sixteen she began performing on Broadway, where she caught the attention of the film director King Vidor, who cast her as the lead in Hallelujah, the first Hollywood “talkie” with an all-Black cast, when she was only seventeen.
McKinney plays Chick, a charismatic singer and dancer who uses her beauty and charm to swindle a gullible farmer out of his hard-earned cash. In a particularly memorable scene, Chick croons and shimmies her way through Duke Ellington’s “Swanee Shuffle.” The performance earned her widespread acclaim, though many of the reviews were larded with stereotypical racist tropes, such as that of the “Black temptress,” or when her character was described as “half woman, half child.” Furthermore, it was only because McKinney was light-skinned—in the film her character is referred to as a “cinnamon gal” and “high-yaller” (the latter slang for a lighter-skinned African American)—that she was cast as a character intended to be seen as sophisticated and sexually desirable; darker-skinned actresses were generally relegated to roles as menials.
McKinney signed a five-year contract with MGM on the strength of her performance, but her career soon ran up against the reality that there were almost no major film roles for African American actors or actresses in the Hollywood of the time. Frustrated by the lack of opportunities, she moved to Europe, where she found greater acceptance and success in musicals and theater and was a celebrated performer, even becoming the first Black entertainer to appear on British television. When she toured with the pianist Garland Wilson she was often billed as “the Black Garbo” or “the Black Clara Bow.”
Throughout her career McKinney appeared in over two dozen films, though many of her roles were either uncredited or dismayingly stereotypical (she played maids on numerous occasions even though she had once vowed never to do so). Standout performances include Gang Smashers (1938), in which she portrayed an undercover agent posing as a cabaret singer.
McKinney may or may not have been married to the musician Jimmy Monroe (who later married Billie Holliday), as well as a handful of others at different times, but the details of her personal life remain sketchy. In 1967 at the age of fifty-four McKinney died in New York City from a heart attack. She was posthumously inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1978.