Eddie Green

ALBANY, Ga. – March 29, 2017 — BearManor Media is pleased to announce that Eddie Green: The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer by Elva Diane Green is a 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards finalist in the Biography (Adult Nonfiction) and Performing Arts & Music (Adult Nonfiction) categories.

Eddie Green: The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer by daughter Elva Diane Green tells the rags-to-riches story of Green’s determination to rise above and triumph against all odds to become a pioneering Black filmmaker, and renowned songwriter, composer, radio icon, and movie actor.

“As soon as I heard [Elva] was working on this book, I sought her out to be her publisher,” said Ben Ohmart, President of BearManor Media. “It’s an important story that deserves telling, and I was determined to be a part of that.”

In an era when Black entertainers struggled to gain a foothold in show business, Eddie Green rose from poverty to prominence. Green wrote Roaring Twenties blues standard “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” which was recorded by Sophie Tucker, Bessie Smith, Louis Prima, Frank Sinatra, and many others; starred in multiple Vitaphone short films and in 1939 Broadway musical The Hot Mikado; headlined at The Apollo; appeared memorably in two of America’s most popular long-running radio series, Amos ‘n’ Andy and Duffy’s Tavern, and rivaled Oscar Micheaux for honors as a pioneering Black filmmaker.

Talent and desire propelled Eddie on stage, over the air, and into films with Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Hattie McDaniel, Thomas “Fats” Waller, Jackie “Moms” Mabley, and James Baskette (Uncle Remus in Walt Disney’s Song of the South), Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and Louise Beavers.

Foreword INDIES winners will be announced during the 2017 American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago on June 24, 2017.

Eddie Green: The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer ($31.95, 204 pages, 6″ x 9″, hardcover, ISBN:  978-1593939670 / $21.95, 204 pages, 6″ x 9″, paperback, ISBN: 978-1593939663) is available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and BearManor Media.

Elva Diane Green is the daughter and biographer of Black filmmaking pioneer and legendary songwriter and composer Eddie Green. She wrote Eddie Green: The Rise of an Early 1900s Black American Entertainment Pioneer to prove to her grandson that a person can succeed no matter the obstacles. Elva currently resides in Los Angeles.

BearManor Media is the award-winning and Pulitzer-nominated press publishes cutting-edge entertainment books, audio books, e-books, CDs, and DVDs on movies, television, radio, theater, animation, and more. Founded in 2001 by Publisher Ben Ohmart, the BearManor Media catalog now features more than 900 outstanding subjects from the obscure to the eminent.