[Swipe 👆] Gary Simmons’ “Ghost Reels” drawing installation will be on view in The Drawing Center stairwell through January 2018. According to Simmons, the work reflects “the memories of actors that have been blurred in the history of Hollywood film . . . a kind of silence in both voice and visibility.” Here we explore the contributions of African American actors and musicians of the early 20th century. Born in Cairo, Illinois in 1895, Rex Ingram studied at Northwestern University before moving to California, where he began his career on screen as an extra in the 1918 film “Tarzan of the Apes”. His first major role was as De Lawd in “The Green Pastures”, a 1936 Warner Brothers adaptation of the stage play that filtered biblical stories through a white imagining of African American Christianity. In 1940 he earned international stardom for his role as the Djinn in “The Thief of Baghdad”. Appearing in over 36 films and television shows and several stage plays over the course of his caree...