Mae Mercer (June 12, 1932 – October 29, 2008) was an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

singer Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

and actress. She was born in the Temperance Hall community of Edgecombe County. Mercer lived in North Carolina through age 15. She spent eight years in the 1960s singing in a blues bar in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, the Blues Club, owned by publisher

Maurice Girodias Maurice Girodias (12 April 1919 – 3 July 1990) was a French publisher who founded the Olympia Press, specialising in risqué books, censored in Britain and America, that were permitted in France in English-language versions only. It evol ...

and touring Europe. She eventually came to own and operate a blues club in the city. Mercer returned to the United States in the early 1970s to begin a career as an actress in films and television. Films in which she appeared included ''

Dirty Harry ''Dirty Harry'' is a 1971 American neo-noir Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates ...

'' (1971), '' The Beguiled'' (1971), ''

Frogs A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...

'' (1972), '' Cindy'' (1978), and ''

Pretty Baby Pretty Baby may refer to: * ''Pretty Baby'' (1950 film), a comedy film featuring Dennis Morgan and Betsy Drake * ''Pretty Baby'' (1978 film), a drama film featuring Brooke Shields ** ''Pretty Baby'' (soundtrack), a soundtrack album from the film ...

'' (1978). She was co-producer of the

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

''Angela Davis: Portrait of a Revolutionary'' (1972). In 1996, the Mayor of

Rocky Mount, NC Rocky Mount is a city in Edgecombe and Nash counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The city's population was 54,341 as of the 2020 census, making it the 20th-most populous city in North Carolina at the time. The city is 45 mi (72 ...

, Fred Turnage, declared June 12 ''Mae Mercer Day''. During this time, Mercer sought to produce her own biographical picture through her production company Black Owl Productions and was backed by local pastor Reverend James Bullock. Filming was slated to take place in

Edgecombe County Edgecombe County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 48,900. Its county seat is Tarboro. Edgecombe County is part of the Rocky Mount, North Carolina, Metropolitan Statistical Area ...

and other parts of North Carolina, New York,

and

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

Filmography

References

External links

*
''Los Angeles Times'' obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mercer, Mae 1932 births 2008 deaths American blues singers American film actresses American television actresses African-American actresses 20th-century African-American women singers People from Rocky Mount, North Carolina Actresses from North Carolina 20th-century American singers 20th-century American actresses 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American actresses 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American people