Gertrude Hadley Jeannette was a Black playwright, producer, director, Broadway actress, and civil rights activist who was also one of the first women licensed as a taxicab driver in New York City. She was born in Urbana, Arkansas on November 28, 1914 to Willis Lawrence Hadley and Sallie Gertrude Crawford Hadley. During the Great Depression, the family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where Jeannette attended Dunbar High School. She met Joe Jeannette II (1910-1992), a former prizefighter and president of the Harlem Dusters motorcycle club, during her high school prom. They eloped to New York City in 1933 and settled in Harlem. In 1935, Jeannette became the first woman licensed to drive a motorcycle in New York City. That same year, their only son, Robert, was born. He died in 1940.
Jeannette enrolled in shorthand classes in the basement of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and took acting and speech therapy with the American Negro Theater (ANT). In order to pay for the acting lessons, Jeannette became a taxicab driver. She passed the test in 1942, and became one of the first licensed female cab drivers in New York City. She continued to drive a cab until 1949. That same year, both Jeannette and her husband were present at the Peekskill Riots, working as bodyguards for singer and civil rights activist Paul Robeson.
Jeannette's seventy-year career in theater, television, and movies began in 1945, when she was cast as the lead role in Our Town. She debuted on Broadway in 1949's Lost in the Stars, which ended her career as a cabdriver. Her other Broadway credits include originating roles in The Long Dream (1960), Nobody Loves an Albatross (1963), The Amen Corner (1965), The Skin of Our Teeth (1975), and Vieux Carré (1977). Some of her film credits include Nothing But a Man (1964), Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), and Black Girl (1972).
Jeannette began writing plays in 1950 in response to an absence of authentic Black characters on the stage. Despite being blacklisted during the Red Scare due to her and her husband's associations with Robeson, she wrote A Bolt from the Blue (1948), The Way Forward (1948), Light in the Cellar (1960), Open House (1974), Who's Mama's Baby, Who's Daddy's Child? (1985), and Gladys' Dilemma (1990).
In 1979, Jeannette founded the Harlem Artists Development League Especially for You (HADLEY) Players, with the mission to develop theatrical talent and enrich cultural life in the Harlem neighborhood.
Jeannette earned numerous accolades. She received the Outstanding Pioneer Award from the Audience Development Committee (AUDELCO) in 1984, the AT&T and Black American Newspaper's 1987 Personality of the Year Award, and the 1992 Harlem Business Recognition Award from the Manhattan Section of the National Council of Negro Women. In 1991, Jeannette was honored as a living legend at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She received the Lionel Hampton Legacy Award in 1998. In 1999, she was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, and received the Paul Robeson Award from the Actor's Equity Association in 2002. She continued to act into her eighties, and retired from directing at the age of ninety-eight.
Gertrude Hadley Jeannette died on April 4, 2018 at her home in Harlem.