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Avon Long

Avon Long was an American actor, stage performer, television actor and musician whose career stretched from Harlem’s Cotton Club to Broadway, film and television. Born in Baltimore on June 18, 1910, Long established himself as a singer and dancer during the 1930s. He performed in Hot Chocolates in 1933 and appeared at the Cotton Club singing “Brown Boy.” The following year, he and a 16-year-old Lena Horne co-introduced Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s “As Long As I Live” in Cotton Club Parade. Broadway remained central to Long’s work. He played Sportin’ Life in the 1942 revival of Porgy and Bess, then returned to the role for Columbia’s 1951 recording, which was the most complete recording of the opera issued at that time. His other stage credits included Beggar’s Holiday, Carib Song and the 1952 revival of Shuffle Along with Thelma Carpenter. A 1945 New York Times review of Carib Song called him “a fine singer and dancer,” while arguing that the production gave him too little to do. Long later appeared in Don’t Play Us Cheap, which opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater in 1972 and ran for 164 performances. He joined fellow cast members in recreating his stage role for the 1973 film adaptation. In 1976, he originated the role of John in Broadway’s Bubbling Brown Sugar, a production that ran for 766 performances. His screen work included a specialty number in Centennial Summer and compact supporting appearances in The Sting, Harry and Tonto and Trading Places. In the latter, he played Ezra, the servant handed a painfully small Christmas bonus by Ralph Bellamy’s character. Long also portrayed the elderly Chicken George Moore in the television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations. Whether carrying a stage role or landing a brief film moment, Long brought together the musical, theatrical and screen traditions that shaped his long career. He died in 1984.