Erased

Maximus Wyld was a star of Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. Of mixed Black, Chinese and Native American descent, he was known as "the actor with a thousand faces" because he was cast almost entirely in ethnic roles: a Native American chief, a Mexican revolutionary, an oriental dandy. This graphic novel looks at the myth of American cinema through the eyes of minorities and brings out the political and social side of Hollywood filmmaking. Born Maximus Ohanzee Wildhorse, he was renamed Maximus Wyld by the studios. He was a gifted, award-winning and admired performer, and his filmography reads like an anthology of classics: Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Boulevard, Prisoner of the Desert and Rebecca. With his copper-toned face, striking beauty and animal presence, he opened a path for performers of color in a segregated industry. Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Yul Brynner were later able to rise to stardom after him. His charisma lit up white cinema and openly undermined its racial dominance. Yet no credits carry his name, and no trace of his face survives on film. The pioneer lies in the graveyard of Hollywood amnesia. The book asks what event drove him into limbo, and what hidden, more powerful force stowed his career away in a kind of cinematic Bermuda Triangle.