User:Cjfromla/sandbox

Darby Jones was born in Los Angeles On February 21 1910 and died in November of 1986. He was an African-American actor who began his two and half decade professional acting career while in his early twenties. Darby was  in  reasonable  demand for  the   popular Tarzan movies and worked in  different features  that  included as Tarzan Buster Crabbbe, Johnny Weissmuller, and Lex Barker.

Darby was a breakthrough actor. He was able to go beyond the typical characters African-American actors were cast in and characters that actors in general were cast in when he landed the starring role of  Carrefour  in Val Lewton's I Walked With A Zombie (1943). Up until that time there were slightly more than a handful of zombie movies that had been produced. Darby's performance as Carrefour helped bring about the popularity of Zombie movies. I Walked With A Zombie was unique from any other horror/drama movies ever produced to that time. Two years later Darby was cast in the comedy horror film Zombies On Broadway  with Bela Lugosi. Darby's comedic abilities were again made use of  in the classic Charlie Chan movie Black Magic AKA Meeting At Midnight. In the short period Darby can be seen performing in Meeting At Midnight he is teamed up with African-American comedic actor Mantan Moreland. While 2 or 3 years shy of 50 Darby worked in Something of Value (1957) and this was to be his last performance in a movie. While Darby Jones was closing out his career African-American actor ( later to become actor/director/producer) Ivan Dixon who was also cast in it was at the very beginning of his. Sidney Poitier was a few years into his career was also cast in it and we all know how his career exploded as he displayed his talent. Darby Jones was one of the trailblazing actors for all actors. As a young actor starting out in the 1930's Darby Jones like others with his very dark skin tone and features was limited by the characters available to African-American actors at the time. He stayed with it and kept his acting career going by displaying his talent at every opportunity  small or large. Bit part, day-player, starring role, speaking or nonspeaking, drama,action,horror comedy,for Darby Jones they were all opportunities. He played every character with class giving the performance his all. Darby Jones broke new ground for himself,African-American actors in particular and all actors in general.