Deep Are the Roots, Paperback

In these pages we meet a man, meet him as a child, an actor in training, an actor in performance. We meet a black man born in the United States in 1918 who fashioned a life for himself that kept him mostly abroad, mostly in Paris. Gordon Heath can be counted among such distinguished black expatriates as Ira Aldridge, Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin. Their names have been written larger than his in the record books, but with the publication of his memoirs Gordon Heath moves from footnote status to deserved inclusion in the text itself.

Gordon Heath (1918-1991) was an African-American actor, musician, and singer who appeared in numerous classical films such as 1954's Animal Farm and 1955's Othello. He became the first black announcer on American radio and played scores of whites on radio dramas. Heath owned his own nightclub and directed his own theater in Paris.