Edmund Cambridge

Bio: A versatile director and actor with roots on stage, screen, and film, Edmund Cambridge was a founding member of New York's renowned Negro Ensemble Company, which smashed color barriers in the 1940s, in addition to serving as stage manager of Jean Genet's off-Broadway smash The Blacks, which featured some of the most legendary African-American names in show… More Bio: A versatile director and actor with roots on stage, screen, and film, Edmund Cambridge was a founding member of New York's renowned Negro Ensemble Company, which smashed color barriers in the 1940s, in addition to serving as stage manager of Jean Genet's off-Broadway smash The Blacks, which featured some of the most legendary African-American names in show business.Born September 18, 1920, in New York's Harlem Hospital, Cambridge began his theatrical career as a dancer and eventually worked his way to directing. Often the sole African-American face in numerous stage productions, it was Cambridge's dedication to the craft that drove him to collaborate with Douglas Turner Ward, Robert Hooks, and others in the founding of the Negro Ensemble Co. In addition to his role in founding that particular organization, he was also instrumental in the founding of Hollywood's Kirkpatrick-Cambridge Theater Arts School alongside fellow thespian Lincoln Kirkpatrick. As a director, Cambridge's work included Lonne Elder III's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, James Baldwn's Amen Corner, and 227, a play that would later spawn a popular television series of the same name. With over 80 film and television credits to his name, the popular actor appeared on television in Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, and ER, with feature credits including Friday Foster (1975), Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991), and Waking the Dead (2000). Cambridge's later work included an appearance on television's The Bernie Mac Show and in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. On August 18, 2001, Edmund Cambridge died in the same hospital he was born following complications after an accidental fall. He was 81. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi