Gunn acted in several of his screenplays, including
Fame Game and Friends (1968) and Stop (1969). In
1970 he released three screenplays: Angel Levine,
based on Bernard Malamud’s “The Angel Levine”;
Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome, adapted from Don
Asher’s novel; and The Landlord, based on Kristin
Hunter’s novel. Gunn’s screen biography, Bessie
(1972), was adapted from Chris Albertson’s novel.
In 1973, Ganja and Hess, reedited as Blood Couple,
was selected as one of the 10 best American films
of the decade at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
Gunn directed Ganja and Hess and appeared in it
as George Meda. Gunn also wrote The Greatest:
The Muhammad Ali Story (1976), starring Mu-
hammad Ali, Ernest Borgnine, James Earl Jones,
Roger E. Mosely, Paul Winfield, Lloyd Haynes, and
Dina Merrill; he also wrote Men of Bronze (1988).
On April 5, 1989, one day before The Forbid-
den City opened at the Public Theater, Gunn died
of encephalitis in Nyack Hospital in New York. In
the spring of 1989, Black Film Review dedicated
a special issue to him. In 1991 Phyllis Klotman
co-dedicated Screenplays of the African American
Experience to Gunn and to his friend Kathleen
Collins Prettyman.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Donalson, Melvin. Black Directors in Hollywood. Aus-
tin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
Monaco, James. American Film Now. New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1979.
Schraufnagel, Noel. From Apology to Protest: The
Black American Novel. Deland, Fla.: Everett/Ed-
wards, 1973.
Loretta Gilchrist Woodard
Guy, Rosa Cuthbert (1925 or 1928– )
A playwright, short story writer, and author of
young-adult fiction, Rosa Cuthbert Guy was born
in Diego Martin, Trinidad, to Henry and Audrey
Cuthbert, who migrated to New York in the 1930s.
Their daughters, Rosa and Ameze, followed later in
- By 1934 the girls had become orphans who
lived with a cousin—a political radical with ties
to MARCUS GARVEY’s UNIA who taught Guy to be
socially aware. By the time she was 14, Guy had to
leave school to help take care of her older sister. She
married Warren Guy, Sr., and gave birth to a son,
Warren Jr. They divorced in 1950. During World
War II, while her husband was in the service, Guy
worked with the American Negro Theatre. Along
with novelist JOHN KILLENS, Guy cofounded the
Harlem Writers Guild, a workshop whose partici-
pants included MAYA ANGELOU, LONNE ELDER, and
fellow Caribbean-born African-American writer
PAULE MARSHALL. The guild provided a venue for
Guy’s further educational development, which she
had also pursued at New York University. Guy, who
became friends with MALCOLM X, became actively
involved in the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.
The author of more than 15 novels, Guy pub-
lished her first novel, Bird at My Window, in 1966.
Set in Harlem, as is much of Guy’s fiction, during
the period of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, Bird at
My Window is a painful examination of a mother-
son relationship. Coffee House Press republished
it in 2001. Guy’s next book, Children of Longing
(1950), a collection of essays, was followed by her
trilogy, The Friends (1973), Ruby (1978), and Edith
Jackson (1979). Guy, who lived in Haiti and New
York during the 1980s, was prolific during that
time, publishing A Measure of Time (1983), New
Guys around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and
Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love: or The Peas-
ant Girl (1985) And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987),
and The Ups and Downs of Carl David III (1989),
among other works. She published an adult novel,
The Sun, the Sea, a Touch of Wind, in 1985. My
Love, My Love became the basis of an award-win-
ning musical.
However, among her young-adult fiction, Guy’s
award-winning, somewhat autobiographical novel
The Friends remains her best known. Set in Harlem
during the Great Depression, The Friends tells the
story of the Cathy family, West Indian immigrants,
and particularly the experiences of their daugh-
ters, Phyllisia and Ruby, who come of age in a new
culture and educational system. Finding herself
alone in her new environment, Phyllisia is desper-
ate to make new friends and simultaneously keepGuy, Rosa Cuthbert 219