Background
Jeannette was born in Urbana, Arkansas.
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Gertrude Jeannette
Edit ProfileCareer
In 1935 she became the first woman to get a license to drive a motorcycle in New York City, and she joined her husband"s motorcycle club in the early 1940s. In 1942, she took and passed the cab driver"s test and became the first female cab driver in New York City. She continued to drive a cab until 1949 when she got her first big acting gig on Broadway in the play "Lost in the Stars."
Jeannette is one of several prominent African American theater directors featured in the 13 minute documentary Drama Mamas: Black Women Theatre Directors In the Spotlight and Remembered, which was shown at the Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival in Brooklyn, New York in March 2006.
Achievements
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1984 Audelco Outstanding Pioneer Award 1987 American Telephone & Telegraph Company and Black American Newspaper"s Personality of the Year Award 1991 Named a Living Legend at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1992 Harlem Business Recognition Award from the Manhattan Section of the National Council of Negro Women 1992 Paul Robeson Award 1999 Inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame.
Connections
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Born
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Nationality
United States
Awards
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1984 Audelco Outstanding Pioneer Award 1987 AT&T and Black American Newspaper's Personality of the Year Award 1991 Named a Living Legend at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1992 Harlem Business Recognition Award from the Manhattan Section of the National Council of Negro Women 1992 Paul Robeson Award 1999 Inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame1984 Audelco Outstanding Pioneer Award 1987 AT&T and Black American Newspaper's Personality of the Year Award 1991 Named a Living Legend at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1992 Harlem Business Recognition Award from the Manhattan Section of the National Council of Negro Women 1992 Paul Robeson Award 1999 Inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame