Abbey Lincoln

Acting

Abbey Lincoln

Born 1930-08-06 · Chicago, Illinois, USA

Anna Marie Wooldridge, known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career not only out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards but writing and singing her own material.

Acting credits

Mo' Better Blues poster
6.5

Talented but self-centered trumpeter Bleek Gilliam is obsessed with his music and indecisiveness about his girlfriends Indigo and Clarke. But when he is forced to come to the aid of his manager and childhood friend, Bleek finds his world more fragile than he ever imagined.

Mo' Better Blues

1990

The Girl Can't Help It poster
6.3

A down-and-out gangster hires a down-on-his-luck agent to make his girlfriend a recording star within six weeks.

The Girl Can't Help It

1956

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) poster
7.6

During the same summer as Woodstock, over 300,000 people attended the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and culture, and promoting Black pride and unity. The footage from the festival sat in a basement, unseen for over 50 years, keeping this incredible event in America's history lost — until now.

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

2021

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat poster
7.7

Jazz and decolonization are intertwined in a powerful narrative that recounts one of the tensest episodes of the Cold War.

Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat

2024

Nothing But a Man poster
7.4

Railroad laborer Duff Anderson struggles to maintain his dignity and marriage to a preacher's daughter in the racially segregated South.

Nothing But a Man

1964

For Love of Ivy poster
6.2

A white family has had the same Black maid for many years. When she tells them she wants to go back to school and will be leaving soon, the 20ish year old son decides what she needs is a change and begins searching for a man to wine and dine her, but who won't marry her, thinking that this will distract her from her plans. The man he finds doesn't entirely cooperate.

For Love of Ivy

1968

Short Walk to Daylight poster
6.7

Eight people have to find their way out of a New York subway after being trapped following an earthquake.

Short Walk to Daylight

1972

Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes poster
NR

The Drum Waltzes explores the life and music of legendary drummer, activist Max Roach, his creative peaks, personal struggles and re-inventions from the Jim Crow to Civil Rights eras, from heady days of post-war jazz to hip hop and beyond.

Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes

2023

How It Feels to Be Free poster
NR

Tells the inspiring story of how six iconic African American female entertainers – Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier – challenged an entertainment industry deeply complicit in perpetuating racist stereotypes, and transformed themselves and their audiences in the process.

How It Feels to Be Free

2021

Great Women Singers of the 20th Century: Abbey Lincoln poster
NR

Abbey is seen a rare 1991 performance at the Promenade Theater in New York. She is at once beautiful, insightful and at the top of her musical gifts. The appearance represents the beginning of a great comeback that has since established her as a legendary jazz vocalist and composer.

Great Women Singers of the 20th Century: Abbey Lincoln

2005