----------------------------Original message---------------------------- State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 10025 Krin Gabbard Associate Professor Comparative Literature 212 749-1631 27-May-1995 04:41pm EDT FROM: KGABBARD TO: Remote Addressee ( [log in to unmask] ) Subject: Re: Interracial Romance While doing some work on the 1961 film _Paris Blues_, I ran across a number of sources that say the film was originally supposed to include a romance between Paul Newman and Diahann Carroll. Duke Ellington canceled several months worth of appearances and flew to Paris to do the music for the film because he liked the idea of interracial romance. Shortly after shooting began, however, the money men at United Artists chickened out and insisted that the couples be color-coded according to less controversial standards. Producer Sam Shaw says that he and director Martin Ritt were prepared to go with the original plan but that they were overruled. Thomas Cripps has a few words about the situation in _Making Movies Black_, and Mercer Ellington refers to it in passing in his biography of his father, _Duke Ellington in Person_. As far as I know, actual interracial romance was not depicted with any sincerity until the independent film _One Potato Two Potato_ in 1964. The major studios allowed Sidney Poitier to get close to Elizabeth Hartman in _A Patch of Blue_ in 1965, but a full-blown romance doesn't happen until _Guess Who's Coming to Dinner_ in 1967. Are there relevant films here that I have overlooked? Krin Gabbard SUNY Stony Brook