Lucius Blake: The overlooked actor who was one of Britain’s most prolific
The thing about early British cinema was that most black actors seemed to have been omitted from most of the credits of its films. If things were different, though, then for all intents and purposes, the actor Lucius Blake might have been considered one of the most prolific actors in Britain in the first half of the 20th century.
Blake was born in Jamaica and moved to the United States when he was 23 years old. However, shortly after, he moved to the United Kingdom and started his career in the film industry. Of course, there isn’t too much information about Blake in the history books or online, but the truth is that he actually appeared in over 30 British films in just 25 years.
Thankfully, though, film historian Marc David Jacobs has researched Blake’s work and showcased how his omission from film credits was common practice at the time. With credits in the likes of Sweeney Todd, King of the Damned, Men of Two Worlds and The End of the River, Blake should have been a half-recognisable name at the very least, but sadly this was not the case.
“Lucius Blake is just one of the hundreds of people of colour who have been lost to British film history,” Jacobs had told The Guardian back in 2023. Jacobs went on to explain how black actors from later periods have “benefitted” from having their work accessible and available, but only four of the 25 films Blake appeared in have been released on DVD.
Even his appearance alongside the popular German actor Conrad Veidt in The King of the Damned had seemingly fallen into obscurity; otherwise, it might have raised Blake’s profile years after the fact. According to Jacobs, the “extraordinary film could have contributed to his earlier recognition, [but] has largely languished in undeserved obscurity since last being shown on television in the early 1990s.”
Blake had sometimes been credited as J. Blake or Sam Blake, although even these alternative names do not link him to an anonymous actor with more notoriety. In addition, Jacobs argues that the obscurity of Blake, even in the realm of the cinephile, has sometimes yet “unsurprisingly led to his being mistaken for other black actors”, and he had also frequently been missed off the cast list of even his biggest box office success.
“While the problem is one shared by numerous character actors of the period (including white actors), actors of colour appeared predominantly in these smaller or more obscure roles, so their absence from most histories of the period is more keenly felt,” Jacobs explained, pointing out the fact that there may be many other black actors who have been shunned and omitted from the cinematic history books.
Jacobs had given a presentation on Blake during the 2023 Black History Month at the BFI. One of the main reasons for Blake’s obscurity, the film historian argues, is that he had been involved in a number of silent movies of the early-mid 20th century, a realm in which only the biggest stars were focused on with a sense of primacy.
The name Lucius Blake is unlikely to conjure up any immediate images from the rich history of British cinema, but the investigative work of Jacobs has shown that the Jamaica-born actor was one of the most prolific of his era, even if he didn’t get the recognition he deserved.
