Rediscovered Man who may be most prolific black actor in early UK cinema

Look up the actor Lucius practically Blake on IMDb and you'll find just two official credits to his name

- Nadia Khomami

Google him, and his presence is nonexistent. But over the course of a 25-year career as a self-described "film artist" Blake appeared in more than 30 British films - making him possibly the most prolific black actor in early British cinema.

Now, Blake's life and career have come to light after extensive research by a film historian who says the story of his erasure is far from unique.

Marc David Jacobs, who will be delivering a presentation on the subject at BFI Southbank today in celebration of Black History Month, said: "Lucius Blake is just one of the hundreds of people of colour who have been lost to British film history."

Jacobs was watching the 1929 movie The American Prisoner when he thought it might be the first credited part for a black actor in a British-made talkie.

When he began researching film archives, he discovered Blake was a jobbing artist who had appeared in dozens of films from 1928 to 1952. These included the silent version of Sweeney Todd in the 1920s, the first Hammer film in the 1930s, one of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's most obscure productions in the 1940s, and Sidney Poitier's second feature film in the 1950s.