Pearl Connor
| Pearl Connor-Mogotsi | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Pearl Cynthia Nunez 13 May 1924 Diego Martin, Trinidad |
| Died | 11 February 2005 (aged 80) Johannesburg, South Africa |
| Nationality | Trinidadian |
| Occupation | Theatrical and literary agent, actress and cultural activist |
Pearl Connor-Mogotsi, née Nunez (13 May 1924 – 11 February 2005), was a Trinidadian-born theatrical and literary agent, actress and cultural activist, who was a pioneering campaigner for the recognition and promotion of African Caribbean arts. In the UK, in the 1950s, she was the first agent to represent black and other minority ethnic actors, writers and film-makers, and during the 1960s was instrumental in setting up one of Britain's first black theatre companies, the Negro Theatre Workshop. In the words of John La Rose, who delivered a eulogy at her funeral on 26 February 2005: "Pearl Connor-Mogotsi was pivotal in the effort to remake the landscape for innovation and for the inclusion of African, Caribbean and Asian artists in shaping a new vision of consciousness for art and society."
Pearl Cynthia Nunez, the ninth of her parents' 12 children, was born in Diego Martin, Trinidad, to Albert Antonio Nunez and Georgina Agnes Fitt, and had a convent school education in Port of Spain. Describing her background, in an interview with Yvonne Brewster, she said: "I came from a family of educated mixed-race people in Trinidad, and we were readily exposed to music and the arts in general and the folklore....And our education was of course in the same pattern as most of the colonials. It was a British education and an English education, so we were doing Shakespeare and all that kind of thing and all the modern poets and Dickens. We were quite familiar in our secondary school education with those writers, so we had an idea what drama was, but it was the folk theatre that imbued me with the interest I had in the theatre." Her first experience of performance was at the Little Carib Theatre, founded by Beryl McBurnie, who became her greatest influence.
In 1948 Pearl met and subsequently married in England the Trinidadian folk-singer and actor Edric Connor (1913–68), with whom she eventually had two children: Peter and Geraldine. She had gone to the UK to study law at King’s College, London University, but she deferred her studies to manage her husband's career.
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