Bill Gunn: An Unsung Hero of Black Filmmaking

Nora Soto, Pre-Professional in our Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, celebrates the brilliance of filmmaker Bill Gunn, whose papers are now available in our collections: 

Bill Gunn, while too obscure for household name status, is regarded as an icon of black independent filmmaking. Throughout his thirty-year career as an actor, playwright, novelist and filmmaker, until his untimely death in 1989, he amassed a rich oeuvre of creative work, both published and produced, unreleased and unrealized. The collection of his life’s work is now available for research purposes in the Schomburg Center’s Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division.

As the Pre-Professional for the Division, I help to process the In the Life Archive, a collection of cultural materials and records created by black LGBT/queer individuals and organizations. Working on the Bill Gunn Papers gave me a chance to familiarize myself with a lesser-known and immensely talented auteur whose works offer a unique vision of black American life.

Bill Gunn was born in 1934 and raised in Philadelphia by his equally gifted parents, William Harrison, Sr., a musician and poet, and Louise Alexander, an actress who directed a local theater company. Gunn began his career as a theater and film actor, making his Broadway debut in the 1954 production of The Immoralist starring James Dean, and later appeared in The Member of the Wedding with Ethel Waters in 1955. Frustrated with the lack of creative control as an actor as well as the limited roles available to him, Gunn turned his attention to playwriting and directing his own original work. In 1959, he premiered his first play, Marcus in the High Grass, at the Theater Guild in New York. The success of his subsequent plays, Celebration (1965) and the one-act Johnnas (1968), allowed Gunn to pursue screenwriting. His early output includes his adaptation Kristen Hunter’s novel, The Landlord (1970).

Gunn was a pioneer of black filmmaking, and in 1970 he became the second black filmmaker to direct a film for a major studio with his directorial debut Stop, of which he also served as the film’s screenwriter, co-producer, and casting director. Shot on location in Puerto Rico, Stop’s controversial premise and X rating caused Warner Bros. to shelve the film, which remains unreleased to this day.

Gunn’s second and most iconic film was Ganja & Hess, a 1973 horror film starring Duane Jones and Marlene Clark. Written and directed by Gunn and produced by Chiz Schultz, the film was marketed as a blaxploitation film and received a limited release in the United States, where it performed poorly. Nevertheless, Gunn’s experimental spin on vampire horror earned him critical acclaim, including being selected for Critic’s Week at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where it was also recognized as one of the ten best American films of the decade. Ganja & Hess remains an enduring cult classic of both horror and independent black filmmaking, and was remade by Spike Lee as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus in 2014. Lee credited Gunn as the co-writer.

Gunn later worked on the screenplay of Muhammad Ali’s 1977 biopic, The Greatest, for which he was uncredited in the final version of the film, and directed Personal Problems, a 1980 avant-garde soap opera featuring black directors, writers, and actors. He continued to write plays, including the musicals Black Picture Show, Rhinestone, Family Employment, and The Forbidden City (his final work in 1989). In addition to his extensive credits as a playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, Gunn was the author of two novels, All the Rest Have Died (1964) and the semi-autobiographical Rhinestone Sharecropping (1981), as well as many unpublished works.

The Bill Gunn Papers offer researchers a treasure trove of his creative work captured throughout all stages of the writing process. The collection contains drafts, annotated scripts, and notes of his produced work, as well as a vast array of his unproduced and unpublished material across these mediums. In surveying the collection, it is apparent that Gunn had an immense creative spirit and a unique vision. Regretfully, much of his work would remain unreleased, and with his early passing at the age of 54, Gunn’s full potential would never be realized in his lifetime. Nevertheless, Bill Gunn created a body of work worthy of preservation and further investigation so that his legacy may continue to resonate and inspire.

The Bill Gunn Papers are now available for research in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division of the Schomburg Center.