Juano Hernández

Puerto Rican-born actor

• Born: July 19, 1896
• Birthplace: San Juan, Puerto Rico
• Died: July 17, 1970
• Place of death: Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico

Hernández starried in films in which he portrayed uncommon, dignified black characters during the 1940’s and 1950’s, a time when black actors almost always played comic and often demeaning roles. He received critical acclaim as one of the first ethnic actors to play a leading role equal to that of the white actors in the 1949 film Intruder in the Dust. His work made the next generation of black and Latino actors’ work less degrading and ultimately more satisfying.

Early Life

Juano Hernández (WAH-noh ehr-NAN-dehz) was born Huano G. Hernández, the son of a Puerto Rican fisherman and a Brazilian mother. While he was still an infant, his father died and his mother took the baby back to Rio de Janeiro. By the time he should have started school, his mother died. To support himself, Hernández started singing for food in the streets. He managed to survive and also learn the skills suitable for a career in entertainment.

Unable to go to school, Hernández taught himself to read and write. He learned acrobatics and joined a Cuban circus, performing as a tumbler, acrobat, and strong man. When he moved to the Caribbean islands, he turned professional boxer, fighting under the name Kid Curley. He also sang in a minstrel show. Deciding his future lay in entertainment, he made his way to the United States by the 1920’s

Once in the United States, he successfully established his career in entertainment. He worked for a while in vaudeville and performed at the famous Cotton Club and in the theatrical show Blackbirds. He worked as a radio scriptwriter and performed in soap operas and other shows, costarring in the first all-black soap opera, We Love and Learn. He also acted in such shows as The Shadow, Against the Storm, and Mandrake the Magician. His work in radio was highly successful, and he was the only black actor who was consistently used on radio shows. Because of radio’s visual anonymity, Hernández, with his deep strong voice, could play all kinds of roles, regardless of the characters’ ethnicity. Consequently, he played Benito Mussolini, Chiang Kai-shek, Haile Selassie I, and Mandrake the Magician, among others. His participation in the popular radio series The Cavalcade of America made his name recognizable to the public. In 1927, he was in the chorus of the Broadway production of Showboat, which led to film opportunities.

The films in which Hernández first acted were produced by the Foster Photoplay Company of Chicago, the Lincoln Motion Picture Company, and Micheaux Film and Book Company, all black-owned and black-operated firms whose motion pictures starred black actors and were shown in black-owned theaters around the country. Among the films he made with these companies were The Girl from Chicago (1932), Harlem Is Heaven (1932), and Lying Lips (1939). These films helped Hernández hone his acting skills and made the mainstream film companies aware of him.

Life’s Work

The film for which Hernández will likely be most remembered is Intruder in the Dust, released in 1949. Although there were a few other dignified black actors at this time, like Paul Robeson, Rex Ingram, Canada Lee, and Leigh Whipper, Hernández’s performance as Lucas Beauchamp, a poor southern sharecropper unjustly accused of murder, earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for New Star of the Year and two foreign film awards.

He performed in more than thirty films, as well as several television shows. In 1950, he made three films: Young Man with a Horn, The Breaking Point, and Stars in My Crown. His role as a judge in Trial (1955) was acclaimed as an outstanding performance. In 1957, he played a Kenyan in Something of Value, which also starred up-and-coming black actor Sidney Poitier. In 1960, he and black actor Woody Strode appeared in Sergeant Rutledge.

His role of Mr. Smith in The Pawnbroker (1964) with actor Rod Steiger was said by film critic Pauline Kael to be “the single most moving performance [she] saw in 1965.” His performance as a dispirited, pathetic, lost man was described as brilliant. By the 1960’s, the caliber of his roles declined. When he made his last film, They Call Me MR. TIBBS!, in 1970, he was playing a more stereotypical role— a toothless old janitor. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, Hernández also appeared on numerous television programs, including Studio One in Hollywood, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Adventures in Paradise, Route 66, The Defenders, and Naked City.

Altogether, Hernández’s film career lasted from 1932 to the 1970’s. When he retired, he moved back to Puerto Rico where, in 1970, he died of a brain hemorrhage.

Significance

Though Juano Hernández’s name is not widely known today, his dignified portrayals of proud, intelligent men made it possible for subsequent black and Latino actors to get roles that were not stereotypically musical, comic, or demeaning. He always played a strong, defiant individualist who met a crisis head on and scorned the rules of white society.

His later roles did not allow him much opportunity to display his ethnic assurance. As a consequence, his impact as a pioneering Afro-Latino actor was lost on subsequent audiences, and his legacy is not as evident as it deserves to be.

Bibliography

Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. 4th ed. New York: Continuum, 2001. A discussion of Hernández’s role in Intruder in the Dust and his subsequent work. Features black-and-white photographs.

Gray, John. Blacks in Film and Television. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990. A listing of bibliographical sources that examine the black film experience.

Leab, Daniel. From Sambo to Superspade: The Black Experience with Motion Pictures. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976. Hernández’s performance in Intruder in the Dust and his subsequent roles are critiqued. Includes black-and-white photographs.

Medrano, Marianela. “Notes on Eusebia Cosine and Juano Hernandez.” In The Afro-Latin Reader: History and Culture in the United States, edited by Miriam Jimenez Roman and Juan Flores. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010. Essay describing Juano Hernández’s specific Afro-Latin contributions to American culture.