Anita Thompson Dickinson Reynolds
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Biography
Anita Thompson Dickinson Reynolds (1901–1980) was an African American model, dancer, and actress. She was born in Chicago, Illinois on March 28, 1901, and died in St. Croix, United States Virgin Islands in 1980. She grew up in Los Angeles, California where her mother Beatrice Thompson was active in the NAACP. She trained as a dancer and performed with Rudolph Valentino. She was an actress in African American cinema. She worked as a nurse in France between the wars and left after the Nazi occupation. Upon her return to the United States, she studied to be a psychologist. Reynolds was also a teacher and art instructor. Her memoirs were published by Harvard University Press in January 2014, based on notes in interviews by Howard Miller and edited by Cornell University professor George Hutchinson.