Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546062
86 SAG-AFTR A | Summer 2026 | sagaftra.org Leave It to Beavers! Louise Beavers, Screen Actors Guild National Board Member, 1945–1960 I n late 1934, Louise Beavers garnered rave reviews as housekeeper/cook Delilah Johnson in Universal's Imitation of Life starring Claudette Colbert. Critics said, "Finally, this excellent actress has come into her own as a featured artist" and "Louise Beavers … turns in a film portraiture that will be recalled many times ere the memory of this picture slips from your mind. You've seen Louise Beavers before, playing colored maids and cooks, but in Imitation of Life, she is cast in a part that will bring her fame." Fame, yes. More versatile roles? No. As a Black actor in 1934, there was no "next level" open to her. In November 1945, Beavers became the third African American member elected to Screen Actors Guild's board of directors, in what would be her first of four three-year terms, and went to work on the problem. On Sept. 15, 1946, she examined 10 proposed membership resolutions with fellow board member Boris Karloff, above. No. 4 had particular resonance: "Whereas, Negro actors have a long and honorable history in the American theatre and in the motion picture industry and played an important part in the formation of our Guild, and whereas, unemployment among our Negro Guild members has reached a point more alarming than at any time in Guild history, and whereas Negro parts being omitted from a great many screenplays and are, in many cases, actually being cut out of books and plays when adapted to the screen, and whereas, in several instances producers have even gone to the length of using white actors in Negro roles, now therefore be it resolved that the Screen Actors Guild use all its power to oppose discrimination against Negroes in the motion picture industry, and be it further resolved that a special committee be set up at once to implement this policy and to meet with representatives of the Screen Writers' Guild and the Motion Picture Producers Association in order to establish in the industry a policy of presenting Negro characters onscreen in the true relation they bear in American life." Beavers continued to seek solutions as a member of the Guild's Negro Employment Committee with fellow African American members, and board members including Ronald Reagan. Sadly, ill-health finally forced her retirement, and she passed away Oct. 26, 1962, after a heart attack at age 62. SAG-AFTRA ARCHIVES Louise Beavers joined newly elected president Leon Ames and fellow board members William Walker and Ronald Reagan at the 1957 SAG annual membership meeting, above. Left, In the 1946 comedy Lover Come Back, Beavers played Lucille Ball's maid but, uncommon for the time, a Black actress is featured by herself on a theater lobby card.