Hilda Simms

Hilda Simms was born Hilda Moses in Minneapolis, Minnesota, one of 11 siblings. When Simms starred in the critically acclaimed Broadway hit Anna Lucasta, her mother Lydia refused to attend the play on Broadway, stating that she would not watch her daughter play a prostitute as she didn't raise her that way. Simms and her siblings were raised devout Catholics in Minneapolis and walked several miles to school each morning to attend the Basilica of St. Mary on the outskirts of Minneapolis.[2]

Hilda Simms backstage on Broadway

Hilda Simms in Yank, the Army Weekly (February 1945)

Before becoming an actress, Simms planned to enter the teaching profession. She enrolled at the University of Minnesota and engaged in her studies until lack of funds forced her abandon them. Simms relocated to New York, acting in radio dramas and becoming a member of the American Negro Theater, where she gained professional acting experience. As a member of this noted ensemble, she worked on sound effects, props and publicity while learning her new craft. In New York she met and married William Simms and adopted his surname. Her first marriage ended in divorce, although she retained her first husband's surname as her professional name.

The marriage to Simms was short-lived. In 1943, two years after divorcing him, Simms made her debut in the title role of Philip Yordan's play, Anna Lucasta. Yordan had originally written the play for an all-white cast but the show made a huge splash when the American Negro Theater produced it. The production moved to Broadway in 1944 where it became an early drama featuring African American actors in work that explored themes un-related to race. When the play toured abroad, Simms continued playing in Anna Lucasta while enjoying a singing career in Paris nightclubs under the name Julie Riccardo.[3]

During the British tour of the play in 1947, Simms met and married veteran American actor Richard Angarola. The couple returned to the States in the 1950s and Simms embarked on a promising film career that was cut short.

Her first role was as co-star to heavy-weight boxing champion Joe Louis. She played the boxer's wife in The Joe Louis Story (1953). In 1954, she featured as the sympathetic coatcheck girl Anne in Black Widow, a CinemaScope thriller by Nunnally Johnson. However, just as her career seemed to gearing up, she became a victim of the Hollywood blacklist.[2]

The United States Department of Justice denied her passport in 1955 and canceled her scheduled 14-week USO tour of the Armed Forces in Europe, even though she had entertained troops and made War Bond tours during World War II. The Defense Department decision was based on speculation about her affiliation with the Communist Party in the late 1930s and early 1940s. That decision caused her dozens of lost opportunities and any chance of a film career evaporated. In 1960, she wrote an article titled "I'm No Benedict Arnold", which told her side of the story.[2]

Advertisement for Simms' morning radio show, Ladies Day, in New York City

Simms continued her stage career in such productions as The Cool World, Tambourines to Glory, The Madwoman of Chaillot. She was a regular on the television series The Nurses and hosted her own radio show, titled Ladies Day, on New York City's WOV. She narrated, along with Frederick O'Neal, the educational record "Great Negro Americans", written and produced by Alan Sands. She also became an active participant in political movements and served as the creative arts director for the New York State Human Rights Commission. She eventually fulfilled her original dream of becoming a teacher and earned a master's degree in education from the City College of New York.

Hilda Simms died in Buffalo, New York, aged 75, from pancreatic cancer.[2]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hilda Simms.

• Hilda Simms at the Internet Broadway Database
• Hilda Simms at IMDb