The lacerating 1959 drama Shadows, a pinnacle of US independent film-making, heralded two striking new talents: the director John Cassavetes and the actor Lelia Goldoni, who was just 20 when she gave a guileless performance combining wistful romanticism and mercurial restlessness. She played Lelia – all the actors in the film share their first names with their characters – who is an African-American woman “passing” for white. Goldoni herself was of Sicilian descent.
When Lelia’s white boyfriend (Tony Ray, son of the director Nicholas) meets one of her darker-skinned brothers (Hugh Hurd) and realises that she is black, his discomfort inflames tensions in the household and sends aftershocks through the rest of the film.
