Wezlynn Tildon

Tildon was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the daughter of J. Wesley Tildon Jr. and Bertine Washington Tildon. Her father was a physician.^[1] Her uncle was Toussaint T. Tildon, director of the Veterans Hospital at Tuskegee.^[2]

Tildon was raised mostly in Chicago,^[3] but was a debutante in Harlem in 1939,^[4][5] and was billed as "Harlem's Glamour Girl" in newspapers.^[6][7] She graduated from Wadleigh High School for Girls in 1936, in the same class as composer Arlein Ford Straw.^[8] She graduated from New York University in 1942; at NYU, she was president of the Dramatic Art Club, and the only Black drama student in her year.^[9] She was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha.^[10] She also attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).^[2]

Tildon was junior society columnist for The New York Age newspaper,^[11][12] and worked for the Treasury Department as a young woman.^[13] In Chicago, she was a stage actress,^[14] and a member of the W. E. B. Du Bois Theater Guild^[15] and Skyloft Players.^[16] She was in the cast of Here Comes Tomorrow (1947–1948),^[17] the first all-Black radio soap opera to be broadcast in America.^[18] She starred in several episodes of the radio drama anthology series Destination Freedom from 1948 to 1950,^[19][20] playing historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, contralto Marian Anderson, poet Gwendolyn Brooks, and dancer Katherine Dunham.^[21] She was also in the regular cast of the first program broadcast over the National Negro Network, The Story of Ruby Valentine (1954), a daily soap opera.^[13]

Tildon wrote several songs, radio scripts, and stage plays, including The Cup (1948).^[22] She also taught acting classes at the New Era Professional College in Chicago.^[23] In 1954, she was "fan mail secretary" at the Today show.^[24]

Tildon died in 1993, at the age of 74, in Texas.