Range on Harlem

Herb Jeffries, Hollywood’s first black singing cowboy, has died of heart failure at the age of 100. Jeffries made movie history as the black Roy Rogers, as a singing cowboy with a Clark Gable mustache and a white hat – some clichés know no racial lines – in several low-budget 1930s Westerns with all-black casts, including Harlem Rides the Range and The Bronze Buckaroo, and he was a prominent part of Rhythm Rodeo. Jeffries, who had grown up on a farm, came up with the idea after seeing The Terror of Tiny Town, the all-midget Western and decided that niche oaters was the wave of the future. He later performed as a baritone with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with his biggest hit being "Flamingo," which sold in the millions long before million-selling recordings were commonplace. Jeffries was largely forgotten until a 1992 retrospective at the Gene Autry Museum, the discovery of several long-list prints of his films and noted film preservationist Mario Van Peebles’ use of clips from Jeffries’ films in his 1993 movie Posse.