Kathleen Collins, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Kathleen Collins

African-American writer

Date of Birth: 18-Mar-1942

Place of Birth: Jersey City, New Jersey, United States

Date of Death: 18-Sep-1988

Profession: screenwriter, film director

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Kathleen Collins (March 18, 1942 – September 18, 1988) (also known as Kathleen Conwell, Kathleen Conwell Collins or Kathleen Collins Prettyman) was an African-American poet, playwright, writer, filmmaker, director, civil rights activist, and educator from Jersey City, New Jersey.
Her two feature narratives—The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy (1980) and Losing Ground (1982)—furthered the range of Black women's films.
Although Losing Ground was denied large-scale exhibition, it was among the first films created by a Black woman deliberately designed to tell a story intended for popular consumption, with a feature-length narrative structure.
Collins thus paved the way for Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991) to become the first feature-length narrative film created by a Black woman to be placed in commercial distribution.
Influenced by Lorraine Hansberry, she wrote about "African Americans as human subjects and not as mere race subjects" [emphasis in the original].