Pioneer film cowboy: 'I am colored, and I love it'

He was born Umberto Alejandro Ballentino to an Irish mother and mixed-race Sicilian father. His stepfather was Ethiopian. Young Umberto became Herb Jeffries. In the 1930s, he was known to moviegoers as the Bronze Buckaroo and was called Hollywood's first black singing cowboy in a feature film.

Jeffries also crooned with the Duke Ellington Orchestra (his hit "Flamingo" sold millions), ran jazz clubs in France, starred in movies with Dororthy Dandridge and Angie Dickinson, married a burlesque queen named Tempest Storm (one of his five wives) and appeared in the TV shows "Hawaii Five-O" and "The Virginian." He still performs.

Now 94 and living in Southern California, Jeffries is the subject of "A Colored Life: The Herb Jeffries Story." The documentary, as part of the Pan African Film Festival, will be shown at 11:45 a.m. Saturday at the Woodruff Arts Center's Rich Theater.

Jeffries also will be there to discuss his life and career. And there will be a screening of his 1939 all-black western "The Bronze Buckaroo."

We caught up with Jeffries this week before he left his California ranch for Atlanta.

Q: So are you black or white?

A: I'm all colors, like everyone else. If we all go back 10 or 15 generations, we don't know what we have in us. I don't think there's one person from around the Mediterranean who doesn't have Moorish blood. I have Sicilian blood, and I have Moorish blood. I am colored, and I love it. I have a right to identify myself the way I do and if nobody likes it, what are they going to do? Kill my career?

Q: How'd you become a black — excuse me, colored — singing cowboy in the movies?

A: I was playing with Earl ["Fatha' "] Hines' band in Cincinnati, playing a dance on a Sunday afternoon, standing out behind the club when eight kids were running up an alley playing cowboy. All the kids were Caucasian. Running behind them was a little colored kid, dark skin, crying. I asked him, somebody hit you? He said, "No, they're my friends." I said then what are crying about? He said, "They won't let me play cowboy. They said cowboys are not black." That inspired me.

When I was with the band in the South, I saw these segregated theaters. And there were unbelievable amounts of Negroes going to watch cowboys like Tom Mix and Buck Jones. I decided I'd make a colored cowboy movie.

Q: Didn't the producer insist you darken your skin?

A: When we couldn't find a person who could ride, act and sing, I said, "Let me play it." Jed Buell [the producer] said no way, with your blue eyes and that hair, nobody will believe you.

I said people been believing it when I sang with Earl Hines and other bands. I said if my hair's too straight, I'll tie the cowboy hat on so it won't fall off in a fight. As for my skin, take me to [a cosmetics store] and darken it just a shade.

So I made the first feature picture ever where a man who identified himself as a Negro was able to play a heroic part — not throwing spears in Tarzan, or playing parts like Stepin Fetchit.

Q: What was the importance of that?

A: I'm considered the first Negro or colored person to represent a hero in a full-length feature picture with music. Now you have people of all races winning Academy Awards. I was one of the people who put his shoulder to the door so they could do it. And I lived to see it. You could give me a million dollars and it would not give me the joy that I get from being one of the grains of sand on that particular beach.

Q: Ever pass for white?