Kicha's photos

Youngest sister (Emma Louise Hyers) top right and older sister (Anna Madah Hyers), is at the bottom left. The Hyers Sisters were important performers of musical theatre in northern California. They lived in Sacramento and started out as musical prodigies. Anna Madah was 12yrs and Emma Louise was 10yrs (although they were billed as ages 10 and 8) at their concert debut in 1867 at the Metropolitan Theatre in Sacramento. Their parents, Samuel B. Hyers and Annie E. Hyers (nee Cryer), had come west from New York. As singers themselves, they had first trained their daughters before sending them for instruction to a German professor, Hugo Frank, and then to the opera singer Josephine D'Ormy. Anna was a soprano; Emma a contralto and gifted comedienne noted for her character songs. They performed for several years in the San Francisco and Oakland areas before embarking on their first transcontinental tour in 1871, under their father's management. For their east coast performances, including an appearance at the Steinway Hall in New York, Samuel Hyers engaged the services of Wallace King, tenor and John Luca, baritone. Mr. A.C. Taylor pianist of San Francisco, traveled with the sisters as accompanist. Early in their repertoire the sisters had included 'dialogues in character' and were said to possess 'great dramatic ability.' It was no surprise, when on March 26, 1876 at the Academy of Music in Lynn, Massachusetts, they presented a musical drama entitled, 'Out of the Wilderness,' which had been written for them by Joseph Bradford of Boston. For this show the quartet of singers was joined by Sam Lucas, a sometime minstrel actor slated to become a veteran comedian of the African American stage. Billed as the Hyers Sisters Combination, the troupe toured their show to New England towns, playing mostly one-night stands. In June the play's title was changed to 'Out of Bondage.' It was a simple tale of a slave family before and the Civil War. Four younger slaves go North as older folk hold back when Union troops arrive to liberate the South. In the end the family is reunited as the elders, who had stayed behind, visit their children, who have become professional vocalists. In 1883 the sisters decided to leave their father's management. Their parents had long been estranged, mother Annie Hyers having moved away from the family home in Sacramento, first to San Francisco then to Stockton. The breach with their father came in 1881 when he admitted into the company a young woman, 'little more than a teenager,' named Mary C Reynolds, whom he married two years later. He was then 53. Reynolds, billed as Mrs. May Hyers, was also a contralto and competed with Emma Louise (her stepdaughter) for roles. As the situation became untenable and likely to generate controversy, the sisters felt it incumbent on them to leave. At ages 17 and 19, they chose to be on their own. The sisters found new engagements for their combination of vocalists, at times in league with other managements, at other times contributing special items in companies of so called minstrels. Both sisters entered first marriages in 1883: Anna Madah to cornet player Henderson Smith and Emma Louise to bandleader George Freeman. The latter wedding took place in full view of the audience on the stage of the Baldwin Theatre in San Francisco during a performance of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Callender's Minstrels. By the start of the 1890s the sisters had been performing professionally for more than twenty years and had won recognition and respect for their talents and skills. Sources: A History of African American Theatre by Errol G Hill and James V Hatch , Blacks in Blackface by Henry T Sampson

She was born Marjorie Smith, and grew up in Harlem, New York in its heyday. Seduced by ballet and other "Europeanist" genres, she dropped out of Hunter College, and wore herself out building a career as an adagio dancer in vaudeville between the late 1920s and the mid '40s. In 1933, using the stage name Margot Webb, she formed a partnership with Harold Norton, and the team of "Norton and Margot" was born. Their career was emblematic of the paradoxes and double standards which existed for black artists in white America. Had the pair been tap dancers, lindy hoppers, or an exotic act, they might have gained a reputation in the mainstream entertainment industry. Webb was light enough to pass for white though she never did, and her partner was often mistaken to be Spanish. But because they identified themselves as black, they were paid less, booked less, booked at less popular places, not allowed to stay in hotels next to their bookings, and shown off as spectacle than entertainment. After their 1933 debut in New York, the team performed with major bands of that era, including Roy Eldridge, Chick Webb (no relation to Margot), Earl Hines, Noble Sissle and Louis Armstrong. They toured extensively on the Black Vaudeville circuits in the East and Midwest. In 1937 they toured Europe first as part of the Cotton Club Revue and, later, as an independent act on Continental variety shows. They were well known in the Black nightclub and vaudeville circuits for fifteen years, filling a position in Black entertainment that faded into oblivion by the time of their retirement in 1947. Upon retirement Ms. Webb became a physical education teacher. Her partner Norton, had dropped out of sight. Sources: Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era by Brenda Dixon Gottschild; Murray Korman, Photographer

Minnie Brown was a stage actress, singer and vaudevillian. Also, in 1920 she served as vice president for the National Association of Negro Musicians. The Broad Ax Newspaper (Salt Lake City Utah), June 22, 1912 Young Woman of Rare Talent, Concert and Stage Work of Miss Minnie Brown , Brief account of the notable career of a western girl who has won a national reputation as a vocal instructor in the Musical Settlement School. New York, one of the most accomplished and highly gifted singers of the race, who has made a national reputation in the art, is Miss Minnie Brown, the leading soprano soloist at St Mark's M. E. church, in this city. Miss Brown has a remarkably clear and sweet voice of wonderful range and under perfect control. So wonderful is the sweetness and control of her voice that she has earned the sobriquet of the human mocking bird. Miss Brown has had a notable musical career. She has toured the country in concert work. For six years she was a member of the Williams & Walker company and for one year was a member of the "Load of Koal" company, put on the road by Bert Williams. During her long career in concert work and on the stage she made a national reputation as one of the most thoroughly accomplished singers of the race. Miss Brown hails from the west and was born In Spokane, Washington. Her parents were pioneers of the west and represented the sturdy type of western settlers of years ago. At an early age she showed a leaning toward a musical career, and her parents encouraged every effort in that direction. She graduated from the Spokane high school. After graduation she took up the study of voice culture under Mrs. Ethel Child Waltron. Miss Brown attributes a great deal of her success in her musical career to the interest of her teacher. She began her career as a concert singer in her native home. Her tour through British Columbia and adjoining cities was very successful and opened up the way for the larger possibilities which awaited her. On coming east she joined the Williams & Walker company. For six years she remained with the company and won a place among the foremost of the talented aggregation. It was while with Williams & Walker that Miss Brown won her national reputation in featuring the song the "Red Rose," then the most popular ballad of the day, which she sang with decided success. Miss Brown will be remembered all over the country by the large number of patrons of this famous company. Her tour with "Load of Koal" ended her stage career. Since taking up her residence In New York, Miss Brown has been a force in the musical life of the city. She is one of the teachers in the Musical School Settlement for colored children in New York. She stands high in the musical circles of the country and in New York is constantly in demand as a singer. Miss Brown is a young woman of remarkable strength of character and is a splendid example to the young women of the race. With all of her culture and charm of personality Miss Brown remains the same modest and unassuming young woman which she was before winning her laurels in the musical world. She is ever ready to assist in any good movement for the advancement of the race. She has a large circle of friends in the religious, social and educational life of the city. Sources: Luther S White, Photographer; African American Vernacular Photography; Selections from the Daniel Cowin Collection

Elizabeth Boyer who started in the screen game as a leading lady. She is an engaging little heroine in the Reol Production Company's release of Paul Laurence Dunbar's story, "The Sport of Gods." Elizabeth Boyer was born on June 16, 1902 in Jacksonville, Florida. She was an actress, known for starring in The Sport of the Gods (1921). She was married to Bob Sawyer, an actor, singer and musician. He was best known as the leader of the Bobby Sawyer Trio which appeared at the Cotton Club in Harlem during the 1930s. Ms. Boyer was the older sister of actress and dancer, Anise Boyer. Ms. Boyer sadly committed suicide by jumping eleven stories from the bathroom window of her Harlem apartment on Christmas Day in 1946. On July 16, 2008 the US Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps celebrating vintage black cinema. One of the stamps featured the poster from the silent film, The Sport of the Gods with Ms. Boyer and actor Edward R. Abrams illustrated on the cover. Sources: IMD; The Competitor, vol. 2 - 3, 1921

As she appeared in costume in the 1952 film Affair in Trinidad. Juanita Moore, a groundbreaking actress and an Academy Award nominee for her role as Lana Turner’s friend in the classic “Imitation of Life,” died on the first day of the New Year of 2014. Born in Los Angeles, Ms. Moore got her start in show business as a chorus girl at New York’s Cotton Club, then joined the Ebony theater. She was the fifth black performer to be nominated for an Oscar, receiving the nod for the film that became a big hit and later gained a cult following. The 1959 tear-jerker, based on a Fannie Hurst novel and a remake of a 1934 film, tells the story of a struggling white actress’s rise to stardom, her friendship with a black woman and how they team up to raise their daughters as single mothers. It brought supporting actress nominations for both Ms. Moore and Susan Kohner, who played Ms. Moore’s daughter as a young adult attempting to pass as a white woman. Kohner’s background is Czech and Mexican. By the end, Turner’s character is a star and her friend is essentially a servant. The death of Ms. Moore’s character sets up the sentimental ending. “The Oscar prestige was fine, but I worked more before I was nominated,” Ms. Moore told the Los Angeles Times in 1967. “Casting directors think an Oscar nominee is suddenly in another category. They couldn’t possibly ask you to do one or two days’ work. You wouldn’t accept it. And I’m sure I would.” Ms. Moore also had an active career in the theater, starting at Los Angeles’s Ebony Showcase Theatre in the early 1950s, a leading black-run theater. She also was a member of the celebrated Cambridge Players, with other performers including Esther Rolle and Helen Martin. Her grandson, actor Kirk Kellykhan is currently president and chief executive of the Cambridge group. She appeared on Broadway in 1965 in James Baldwin’s play “The Amen Corner” and in London in a production of “A Raisin in the Sun.” “The creative arts put a person on another level,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “That’s why we need to bring our youngsters into the theater.” Her first film appearance was as a nurse in the 1949 film “Pinky.” As with other black actresses, many of Ms. Moore’s early roles were as maids. She told the Times that “real parts, not just in-and-out jobs,” were opening up for black performers. Source: Washington Post

Elzy broadcasting over the NBC network in 1940. Radio brought Elzy’s voice to millions of listeners across America. Photo courtesy of the C.C. McCracken family. She was one of the first inductees to the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame. The role of Serena in the original production of Porgy and Bess was created by her. She starred as Dolly in the feature film The Emperor Jones. She was part of the Harlem Renaissance and sang on stage of the Apollo Theatre. She did more in her thirty-five years than many performers do in a lifetime. Yet, you may not know her name -- Ruby Elzy. Abandoned by her father at age five, Ruby Elzy (1908 - 1943), was raised by strong women -- her mother and grandmother. Ruby's first public performance was at age four when she sang at church in Pontotoc, Mississippi. Even then her voice was beautiful and strong. Already with a dream to sing on stage, Ruby Elzy moved steadily toward that goal. While at Rust College in Mississippi, Ruby was discovered by a visiting professor who arranged for her to study music at Ohio State University. The OSU experience was strong in preparing Ruby to meet the world on stage and to hone her skills of people management. Ruby Elzy attended Julliard School in New York City on a Rosenwald Fellowship. There, she was able to meet the top black performers of that day as the Harlem Renaissance was opening doors for black artists. Without going to Europe for easy acceptance, Ruby remained in America winning audiences on radio, in Hollywood and on stage. She performed the role of Serena in Porgy and Bess more than 800 times. Serena's aria "My Man's Gone Now" became Ruby Elzy's signature song. Her last performance was a week before her death, when she had plans to sing grand opera in the lead role of Verdi's Aida. Ruby Elzy died during a routine operation to remove a benign tumor. As outstanding as her career history was and is, the person who Ruby Elzy was is probably more remarkable and outstanding. Her voice opened doors for her, but it was her personality that won over a society that was closed to black artists for the most part. Ruby Elzy used her southern charm, talent, and work ethic to change contemporary attitudes with a smile. At the time of her death she was becoming more active in social change and would have been an powerful beacon in the Civil Rights Movement. Sources: Black Diva of the Thirties: The Life of Ruby Elzy; by David E. Weaver

Nina Mae McKinney, who was called the first black movie star after showing off her talents in the 1929 film “Hallelujah.” About 20 minutes into “Hallelujah,” Hollywood’s first all-sound feature with an all-black cast, Nina Mae McKinney appeared on screen as Chick, a singer and dancer, in a sexy flapper dress. She had flashing eyes, an armful of jangly bracelets, and no qualms about cheating a handsome young cotton farmer out of the money he had just gotten for his family’s crop. Chick showed off her talents doing the Swanee Shuffle (“Just imitate the way a waiter/Walks with a plate of grub”); flirted shamelessly while close-dancing with the farmer (Daniel L. Haynes); and sweet-talked him into a fateful dice game with a con man. “Hallelujah” was a musical drama from an important white director, King Vidor, and McKinney would soon be called the first black movie star. After the film’s release in 1929, The Daily News of New York hailed her as “an honest-to-goodness screen star — the first colored girl to attain this distinction.” Some referred to her as the black Clara Bow. When African-American newspaper headlines called her only Nina Mae, everyone knew whom they meant. MGM gave her a five-year contract, then seemed to realize there were no leading movie roles for black women in the 1930s. Lamenting what he feared would be her fate, Richard Watts of The New York Herald Tribune wrote that her “exile from the cinema is the result entirely of narrow and intolerant racial matters.” It was 1934. She moved to Europe and began a successful musical and theatrical career there, punctuated by American comeback attempts. She left performing in the early 1950s, although as late as 1954 Hue magazine reported that she was “preparing a return to show business in a new act.” McKinney was 54 when she died at Metropolitan Hospital in Manhattan on May 3, 1967. The cause was a heart attack, according to a short obituary in The New Amsterdam News. Her funeral was at the Little Church Around the Corner, whose ties to the theater world go back to the 19th century. “She could act, sing, dance and wisecrack with the best of them, but she came along too early and there was no place for her,” Fayard Nicholas of the dancing team the Nicholas Brothers is quoted as saying in “Nina Mae McKinney: The Black Garbo,” Stephen Bourne’s 2011 biography. The book quotes the film historian Donald Bogle as calling her “energy incarnate and delirious fun to watch.” Nannie Mayme McKinney was born to Hal and Georgia (Crawford) McKinney on June 12, 1912, in Lancaster, S.C., a small town near the North Carolina border. When she was 12, her parents moved to New York City looking for new job opportunities, and her father found work with the postal service. She stayed behind for four years, living with a great-aunt who worked as a housekeeper and cook, running errands for a white family and appearing in plays at Lancaster Industrial, an all-black school. Then she moved to New York herself. That first year, she was on Broadway, in the musical revue “Blackbirds of 1928.” It was there Vidor saw her in the chorus line and offered her the “Hallelujah” role. McKinney appeared in more than two dozen films and shorts over two decades, but about half of those were uncredited parts — often as a maid (the kind of role she had publicly vowed never to play) or an unnamed entertainer in a nightclub scene. One of her most acclaimed performances was as an undercover agent posing as a cabaret singer in “Gang Smashers” (1938), the best of her three “race movies” (low-budget features made for black audiences). Her last credited screen appearance came in “Pinky” (1949), Elia Kazan’s drama starring Jeanne Crain as a fair-skinned black woman passing for white. McKinney’s one scene, as a fiercely jealous girlfriend, was powerful: Crain is “nothing but a low-down colored girl trying to steal my man,” she tells police officers. But it didn’t revive her Hollywood career. Other movies included “The Devil’s Daughter” (1939), a drama set in Jamaica; “Danger Street” (1947), a mystery starring Jane Withers; and “Pie, Pie, Blackbird” (1932), a lauded musical short with Eubie Blake and his band. Leaving the United States was probably the best move McKinney ever made, and she did it early. A three-month European publicity tour for “Hallelujah,” starting in 1930, expanded to include club dates in Paris, London, Berlin, Monte Carlo and beyond. She returned to Paris in 1932, possibly inspired by Josephine Baker, the African-American entertainer who had recently become a Folies Bergère star. While in England, McKinney starred opposite Paul Robeson in the film “Sanders of the River” (1935), playing an African chief’s wife — with thin-plucked Hollywood eyebrows. She also had the distinction of being the first African-American entertainer on British television, as part of the BBC’s experimental broadcasts in the 1930s. She often topped the bill at British clubs. Reviews mentioned some frequent numbers: “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” “Stormy Weather,” “Lazybones” and “Shuffle Off to Buffalo.” Almost two decades later, her last recorded public performance was less successful: as the prostitute Sadie Thompson in a short-lived staging of “Rain” at the Apollo Theater in 1951. Reports differ on whether McKinney was ever legally married to Jimmy Monroe, a jazz musician who later became Billie Holiday’s husband. McKinney and Monroe toured nationally with his band in the mid-30s, and a 1994 Daily News tribute shortly after Monroe’s death mentioned her as an ex-wife. Newspapers reported other marriages — to Robert Montgomery (nicknamed Charleston and not the white film star of that name) in 1939; to Frank McKay, a civil engineer, in 1949; and others — but they were unconfirmed. McKinney left no known survivors. In 1978, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame. Her first film director had recognized her gift. “It took no great effort to bring it out,” Vidor wrote in “A Tree Is a Tree,” his 1953 memoir. “She just had it. Whatever you wanted, whatever you visualized, she could do it.” NY Times: Overlooked No More: These remarkable black men and women never received obituaries in The New York Times — until now. We’re adding their stories to our project about prominent people whose deaths were not reported by the newspaper; Nina Mae McKinney An actress who defied the barrier of race to find stardom in Europe, By Anita Gates; Ms. McKinney as she appeared in the film Reckless (1935)

Actors Edward Thompson and Evelyn Preer (married in real life) in a scene from Melancholy Dame from 1929. The movie was produced by Al Christie. Synopsis A nightclub owner's wife (Preer) is jealous of his attention to his star singer (Hyson), and vows to get her fired. Cast Edward Thompson as Permanent Williams Evelyn Preer as Jonquil Williams Spencer Williams as Webster Dill Roberta Hyson as Sappho Dill Charles Olden as Florian Slappey

How a Black Man From Missouri Transformed Himself Into an Indian Liberace New Republic by Liesl Bradner September 12, 2015 Before Liberace, there was Korla Pandit. He was a pianist from New Delhi, India, and dazzled national audiences in the 1950s with his unique keyboard skills and exotic compositions on the Hammond B3 organ. He appeared on Los Angeles local television in 900 episodes of his show, “Korla Pandit’s Adventures in Music”, smartly dressed in a suit and tie or silk brocade Nehru jacket and cloaked in a turban adorned with a single shimmering jewel. The mysterious, spiritual Indian man with a hypnotic gaze and sly grin was transfixing. Offstage, Korla—known as the "Godfather of Exotica" — was living the American dream: he had a house in the Hollywood hills, a beautiful blonde wife, two kids, and a social circle that included Errol Flynn and Bob Hope. He even had his own floral-decorated organ float in the Rose Bowl parade in 1953. Like most everything in Hollywood, it was all smoke and mirrors. His charade wasn’t his stage name—it was his race. Korla Pandit, born John Roland Redd, was a light skinned black man from St. Louis, Missouri. It was a secret he kept until the day he died. A new documentary, Korla, explores Pandit’s extraordinary life and career. Filmmakers John Turner and Eric Christiansen grew up in the Bay Area watching Korla on TV and listening to his music. The two worked together for 35 years at KGO-TV in San Francisco, where Korla had a live show in 1964. Both fell under his spell learning the truth in a Los Angeles Magazine exposé in 2001, three years after Pandit’s death. “He was a slight man with a beatific smile who was spouting pearls of wisdom about how we could get along better and the universal language of music,” Turner told me. “Why question a person like that?” As legend has it, Korla was a child prodigy born in New Delhi to a Brahmin priest and a French opera singer. When he was 11, Korla was sent away to England and then to America for classical training at the University of Chicago. Pandit’s invented life closely mirrored his real one. John Roland Redd was one of seven children born into a musical family. His spirituality can be traced to his father, a Baptist minister. His mother was of Creole ancestry. Most importantly, his talent was real. Relatives interviewed recall that, at age three, John could learn a song once and have it memorized. “It’s the definition of a myth,” said record producer Brian Kehew, who worked with Korla in the mid-1990s. “The reason his story rings true is there’s truth in it. I never questioned the concept. He looked like an old Indian man,” Kehew continued. He was one of few people who managed to catch a glimpse of his straight, jet-black hair free of its turban. Americans fascinated with the east eagerly accepted this charming figure and his mystical interpretations due to their minimal knowledge of the Indian culture and customs—by and large, Americans were only exposed to swami stereotypes in TV and film. Which is probably why nobody disputed his fantastic story, although he was notably uncomfortable when Indian fans asked to meet him after his gigs. “He wasn’t the first person to pass as a white man in order to get ahead, he just passed as an Indian man wearing a turban,” a childhood friend remarks in the film. (Christiansen: “In hindsight, he said he was Hindu but Hindus don’t wear turbans. Sikhs do, but they don’t wear jewels on their turban.”) It wasn’t the first time Redd had passed as something other than black—Korla Pandit was just one of his incarnations. After arriving in Los Angeles, he began playing jazz and R&B but quickly realized he could make more money playing Latin tunes as “Juan Rolando”. Passing as Mexican, he was able to join the whites-only Musicians Union. Soon he was playing supper clubs and lounges, on top of a gig providing eerie background music for the “Chandu the Magician,” occult radio show. As “Cactus Pandit” he played for Roy Rogers’ cowboy singing group, “Sons of the Pioneers.” In Korla Pandit, though, Redd had found a winning formula. He took the organ, an unpopular instrument associated with soap operas and roller skating rinks, and made it sexy and magical. “I really think he really became that person,” Christiansen said of his transformation. “He was more Korla Pandit than John Roland Redd. His makeover into Korla informed his music, not the other way around.” His wife, Disney animator Beryl June DeBeenson, was the architect behind his mystique and final metamorphosis. In 1948, the couple met the television producer Klaus Landsberg at Tom Brenenman's Restaurant; he offered Korla the daily TV show that would make him famous. Pandit had only two requirements: First, that he’d provide music for the “Time for Beany” puppet show; and second, that he would not speak on camera. “I think they both recognized that becoming Korla Pandit was an opportunity for him to gain a level of fame that he couldn’t have as a black man,” said Allyson Hobbs, assistant professor of history at Stanford University and author of A Chosen Exile, an examination of racial passing in America. In 1951 Pandit signed with Louis Snader, a California theater owner and TV producer, whose telescriptions—short film clips used as fillers on local stations across the country—gave Pandit national exposure. After a contract dispute in 1953, Snader replaced him with another eccentric pianist who also had a secret: Liberace. “[Liberace] used the same sets and took credit for his staring into the camera and breaking that wall," said Christiansen. “He felt like Liberace stole his soul.” Five years later, in 1956, Korla Pandit went north to San Francisco for another show. During this time, he also recorded 13 albums for Fantasy Records, whose roster included Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, and Lenny Bruce. “What he was doing in terms of reinventing himself wasn’t that unusual by Hollywood or music industry standards,” Turner said. It was a time when anyone could become anybody. “Korla’s story shows us just how fluid identity was in the 1950s,” Hobbs said. “Often people passed for survival doing things they couldn’t if they were living as black person. In doing that they lost a lot. They had to separate from family to fully inhabit a new life.” Redd’s family had a different understanding of the pressures of passing, however. “They felt he was very authentic and were very close to him,” Hobbs said after meeting family members at a recent screening in San Francisco. As Korla’s career waned in the ’60s, he was relegated to playing supermarkets and pizza palaces, teaching piano, and occasionally attending speaking engagements as a spiritualist. In the ’90s, near the end of his life, the Tiki-lounge music revival gave Korla one last career resurgence and cult following. He recorded with The Muffs, and made a cameo appearance in Ed Wood. One of his last performances was a sold out show at the legendary Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco. “In my mind the movie is not about Korla’s false story or deception,” Kehew said. “That doesn’t matter to me compared to how good he was musically. If you want to be up on the stage in a spot light you have to be more interesting than the person on the street,” he continued. “That’s what Korla managed to do.” Korla Pandit: www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQHaglomIU0

Eddie Anderson took time off from playing “Rochester” on the Jack Benny Program to appear with Katherine Dunham in Star Spangled Rhythm, a 1942 all-star cast musical film made by Paramount Pictures. The number is titled "Sharp as a Tack." Edward Anderson Eddie "Rochester" Anderson was born in Oakland in 1906. His father, Big Ed Anderson, had been a minstrel performer; his mother, Ella Mae, had been a circus tightrope walker until an accident ended her career. Eddie Anderson started out in vaudeville and had appeared in a number of films when he debuted as the voice of a Pullman porter on Jack Benny's popular radio show in 1937. Audiences responded with such enthusiasm that the canny Benny soon made Rochester his man Friday and inseparable sidekick, and the duo starred together on radio, in movies and on television for twenty-three years. He was born in Oakland, California, on September 18, 1905. As a child, Anderson sold newspapers on a street corner and permanently damaged his vocal cords (he had to yell loudly to attract attention), leading to his trademark "raspy" voice. Anderson began his show business career at age 14 in a song-and-dance act with his brother Cornelius and another performer. They billed themselves as the Three Black Aces. He began his career in Radio and in 1937, Anderson made what was supposed to be a one-shot appearance on the The Jack Benny Program. The audience loved his droll humor and he became a regular member of the cast and the first black performer to acquire a regular part on radio. The show easily made the transition to early television and as "Rochester van Jones" (known simply as "Rochester") Anderson constantly deflated Benny's pomposity with a high-pitched, incredulous, "What's that, boss?" As a legacy of blackface minstrelsy, the pairing of Benny and Anderson was based on comedy routines of the White master and his slave Uncle Tom. The high esteem in which the two actors held each other was evident upon Benny's death in 1974, in which a tearful Anderson, interviewed for television, spoke of Benny with admiration and respect. By 1942, he was earning $100,000 a year and for a time was the highest-paid Black actor in Hollywood. Anderson invested his money wisely and became extremely wealthy. In addition to his partnership with Benny, Anderson appeared in over sixty motion pictures, including Uncle Peter in Gone with the Wind, Cabin in the Sky, and as one of the taxi drivers in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He reprised his Rochester role in Topper Returns, this time as Cosmo Topper's valet (though he jokes about 'Mr. Benny' in the film). Anderson died in 1977 due to heart disease at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Los Angeles, California. Eddie Anderson was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2001. Source: Blackface!, Ken Padgett The above number Sharp as a Tack: vimeo.com/167177450

Siren Navarro was born on August 4, 1887 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her mom was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and her father was born in Italy. She was an early black entertainer who gained her biggest success when she teamed with dancer Tom Brown in an act called, "Brown and Navarro." They became a well known act touring the vaudeville circuit. Her former partner, Tom Brown was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1868. He was with McCabe and Young's Minstrels then with Richard and Pringel's Minstrels and the Lafayette Players. He died on June 20, 1919 of stomach cancer. Miss Navarro (sometimes spelled Nevarro), later re-invented herself (circa 1920) in an act with her husband (the couple married in 1919), Fred Byron and his brothers. They became known as the Byron Brothers Saxophone Band or the Byron Brothers Saxophone Quintet. After Siren joined the group it became known as the Byron Brothers Sextette. The elder Byron was known for inventing an instrument called the 'byrondolin.' In the 1930 census it lists her as being a housewife --- also appears she didn't have children. Siren Navarro Byron died on August 28, 1943 and is buried in Worth Township, Cook County, Illinois at the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. She was 56. Source: White Studio, Daniel Cowin Collection (circa 1910)

She's the first Black woman to be recorded commercially in the United States. Daughter of Harvey and Martha Robinson --- she was born Daisy Robinson in Big Rapids, Michigan, circa 1882. Shortly after her birth the family moved to Grand Rapids, and in 1890, to Chicago. Daisy showed great musical promise as a child .. studying with an organist and pianist. At age twelve she became the organist at Quinn Chapel. At age seventeen she entered show business, joining the three Winslow Sisters to form an act called "The Colored Nightingales," which played at the Alhambra Theatre in Chicago in 1899. This was followed during 1900 and 1901 by various engagements in Chicago, with the Slayton Jubilee Singers and others. Shortly thereafter she met a young actor named Green Henry Tapley, a member of the Williams and Walker theatrical troupe. They were married around 1903, and Daisy joined the company, traveling with it to London where she met the great composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and others. Back in the United States she appeared with Williams and Walker in vaudeville in December 1905, at the same Alhambra Theatre where she debuted as a teenager. Also in the Williams and Walker troupe was a singer and actress named Minnie Brown, who became Daisy's closest friend and companion, remaining with her for the rest of her life. 1910 was a turning point for Daisy ... in that year the Williams and Walker company broke up, and she apparently separated from her husband (although she continued to carry his name). With her friend Minnie Brown (who eventually became Daisy's domestic companion today it would be called a same sex relationship) she settled in New York City, where she became a teacher of piano, organ, and voice. Dedicating herself to the promotion of black artists, she quickly became friends with many of the leading black concert musicians of the day. It was no doubt through this widening circle of friends that she came into contact with Carroll Clark, a young baritone who was attempting to build his own career as a concert singer. Clark had been recording since 1908, and in December 1910 he and Tapley were invited to the Columbia studios in New York to record the hymn "I Surrender All." This single duet by Tapley and Clark was released in March 1911, few copies are found today, and the masters were not released to other labels. It would be Tapley's only recording. Following this, Daisy Tapley returned to her work of teaching, performing, and organizing recitals. In early 1918 an article in the New York Age reported that she had angrily canceled a recital at the YMCA when she learned that the organization would not allow a mixed race audience. Instead, with Minnie Brown, she initiated her own series of "educational recitals" approximately once a month during the winter featuring the best black concert talent of the day. The series continued for the next three years, "at a financial loss because of her desire to increase the artistic appreciation of the colored race." They featured such well known names as Florence Cole-Talbert, Roland Hayes, Clarence Cameron White, Harry T Burleigh, and lecturer W.E.B. Du Bois. A 1920 item noted Tapley was then treasurer of the New York chapter of the National Association of Negro Musicians (Minne Brown was vice-president). More projects followed in the early 1920s, including directing the chorus productions at the 71st Regiment Armory and at Carnegie Hall. The latter engagement led to her founding the Negro Singing Society of New York. Daisy Tapley's busy life came to a sudden halt when she was stricken with ovarian cancer in mid-1934. Eight months later, on February 5, 1935, at age forty-two, she passed away at her apartment on West 136th Street. Minnie Brown was by her side. Her funeral drew a large crowd of musicians of both races. Had it not been for her single venture into the recording studio in 1910, Daisy Tapley's voice would have been stilled forever. As it is, we have that piece of audio to remind us of a woman who contributed much to the advancement of black concert music. I Surrender All from Tapley and Clark (1910) archive.org/details/78_i-surrender-all_miss-daisy-tapley-... Source: Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1890 - 1919 , by Tim Brooks

Madame Annie Pauline Pindell was born in Exeter, New Hampshire in 1834. When an infant the sound of a musical instrument would cause the most intense excitement in the child, and as she grew older it was discovered that she possessed a remarkable organ in height, depth and sweetness. In those days the free colored people gave small thought to the cultivation of any talent that they might possess, so nothing was done to develop the girl's great gift. At nineteen the young girl married Joseph Pindell, a brother of the Baltimore Pindells, so well known in that city, and later in Boston. Proud of his wife's talent he encouraged her to study and improve, and soon Mrs. Pindell became a familiar figure among musical circles in Boston. In those days there were no great music schools and so Mrs. Pindell studied first with a celebrated German professor and later was under the tuition of Wyzeman Marhsal in elocution, and of his brother in music, vocal and instrumental. Indefatigable in her desire to acquire knowledge and improve in her art, the singer added to her vocal work the study of German, French and Italian, and she also made herself an expert performer on the piano, harp and guitar. She also delighted in original composition and Ditson's house published her songs, of which "Seek the Lodge Where the Red Men Dwell," was the most widely known, becoming a popular "hit" of the day. Mrs. Pindell went to California in 1860, and for thirty years her magnificent voice was celebrated on the Pacific Coast. On the occasion of a visit to the Hawaiian Islands during Queen Emma's reign, Mrs. Pindell was presented with a diamond necklace worth fifteen hundred dollars. The compass of this singer's voice was the same as the "Black Swan's," embracing twenty seven notes, from G in bass clef to E in treble clef. Musical critics compared her to Madame Alboni. Her great uncle was James Monroe Whitfield, an abolitionist and poet. Her niece was not only her namesake, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins but a famous novelist, journalist, playwright, historian, and editor. Pindell was the earliest documented black female composer in the United States. Her songs “Seek the Lodge Where the Red Men Dwell” and “Ah, Foolish Maiden” are listed in the Complete Catalogue of Sheet Music and Musical Works, 1870, published by the Board of Music Trade of the United States of America. Madame Pindell died in Los Angeles, California, May 1, 1901. Source: Illustration and article appeared in the Colored American Magazine [Nov. 1901, Vol. 4, No. 1 issue].

Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield was the first African American opera singer who became popular in the United States and Europe. Many reviewers and critics portrayed Greenfield as unusual and exotic to increase her popularity. Nevertheless, her performances disrupted racist stereotypes about slavery and Black people. She became the best-known Black concert artist of her time and performed for Queen Victoria. Elizabeth (Eliza) Taylor Greenfield was one of the first African American musicians to gain international recognition. Her natural vocal talents took her to places beyond what anyone could imagine for someone enslaved born in Mississippi during the 1850's. Popularly known as "The Black Swan" whe was born into slavery in Mississippi. She gained her freedom as a teenager in the 1820s when her "mistress" moved to Philadelphia. Active in local abolitionist circles, she made her public debut as a concert singer in 1851. She toured widely and to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic before eventually returning to Philadelphia and opening a music studio. She possessed an incredible and powerful clear 27-31 note vocal range. Sang soprano, tenor, and bass. James Trotter, one of her vocal contemporaries, described her as having “remarkably sweet tones and wide vocal compass.” She worked hard and persevered to overcome the challenges surrounding her. Born enslaved in Natchez, Mississippi as Elizabeth Taylor. At the tender age of 1, she was taken to Philadelphia by her namesake and owner Mrs. Elizabeth Greenfield. Once settled in Philadelphia, Mrs. Elizabeth Greenfield joined the Quaker Society of Friends and freed all those she slaved. However, Miss Elizabeth continued to serve as a maid and companion. A self-taught vocalist and musician Miss Elizabeth learned to play the piano, guitar, and harp, often providing entertainment for Mrs. Greenfield’s guests. After Mrs. Greenfield’s death, she supported herself by giving public and private performances, gaining significant recognition throughout the Northeast. On March 31, 1853, in a landmark engagement, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield made her New York City debut at Metropolitan Hall, drawing an all-white audience that exceeded nearly four thousand people; the people of her own race could not be “accommodated” (in other words barred from attending due to their race). Greenfield apologized to who had been denied the chance to hear her and subsequently gave a concert they could attend to benefit the Home of Aged Colored Persons and the Colored Orphan Asylum. A few days following her recital, she traveled to Europe for engagements in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in hopes of finding a good teacher to further develop her vocal technique. Shortly after her arrival in England, she was abandoned and left penniless by her manager in London. Luckily Greenfield crossed paths with Harriet Beecher Stowe, an American abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, while in London. With Stowe’s assistance, she was able to sing for the Duchess of Norfolk, the Duchess of Argyle, and the Duchess of Sutherland. She even received a royal invitation to sing for Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace and on May 10, 1854 gave a command performance. Another notable performance includes a benefit concert she gave in 1855 for Mary Ann Shadd’s campaign to encourage the emigration of refugee slaves to Canada. Upon returning to America, Greenfield received anything but the royal treatment. She was refused entrance to a university music class because of her race. Determined, she opened a music studio in Philadelphia, where she created and directed an opera troupe in the 1860s. Greenfield used music and her opera troupe to fight the oppressive systems of American slavery and racism. Her troupe traveled the world singing for integrated audiences and donating proceeds to colored nursing homes and orphanages. She eventually settled in Philadelphia, where she opened a music studio and created and directed an opera troupe in the 1860s. She passed away on March 31, 1876, her obituary was published in The New York Times. Trivia: The first black owned record company established in 1921, was named Black Swan Records in Greenfield's honor. Sources: Library and Archives Canada, photographed in Buffalo, NY (photographer unknown); NPS; "The Music of Black Americans: A History" Eileen Southern and, "Music and Some Highly Musical People" James Trotter and "Opera Exposures: Excerpt from Life Upon the Sacred Stage, The Black Swan: A Tribute Concert ," by Mary Sheeran

Madam Desseria Plato stands foremost as a dramatic soprano. Born in New York City, she has studied with several of the prominent teachers there. As a lyric actress she has no equal among the other prima-donnas. Her voice is of astonishing compass and beauty; she sings with ease G below the staff to E above high C. Madam Plato recently made a concert tour through the West with great success. She is a most deserving artist, having gone through many hardships to maintain the high position which she now holds. Her last appearance in New York was last May, when she sang the part of Carmen in Bizet's opera with wonderful success, considering that it was the first time she had ever appeared opera, and the part is one of the most trying. The details concerning Desseria Plato's career are not known. However, when she attracted attention she did so on a grand scale. During the last decade of the 19th century Plato was making a name for herself as a concert singer. In Signor A Farini's Grand Creole and Colored Opera and Concert Company she was billed as a "prima donna mezzo-soprano." With Farini's company she sang the role of Azucena in Verdi's Il Trovatore at the Union Square Theatre in New York. As a substitute for Sissieretta Joyner Jones (Black Patti), at a concert given on Colored American Day (August 23, 1893) at the Chicago World's Fair, she again gained much attention. In 1896 Plato joined John Isham's Oriental American Company. She died in 1907. Sources: Colored American Magazine (1902 issue); Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians, by Eileen Southern

Aida Overton Walker pictured along with her hubby George A Walker in a publicity photo depicting their version of the famous Cakewalk in the 1903 play In Dahomey performed at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London, England. The play was written by Will Marion Cook, Jesse A Shipp and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Synopsis: A musical comedy about a fraudulent scheme to return discontented Blacks to Africa. It was performed by a cast of about one hundred African American actors, and made a huge impact not only on the theatre but on fashion. Its display of dances such as the 'Cakewalk' and 'Buck and Wing' helped them become the latest dance hall crazes in the UK. Despite the show’s misrepresentations of Africa, it was a milestone because it was created and performed by an all-black cast and was the first to introduce an African theme to the musical genre. A few historical facts about the play In Dahomey : It was the first African American musical play. It was created and performed by an all African American cast. The show had 53 performances in New York,. Had a seven month run in England. The play ran between the years 1902 and 1905. All music and lyrics were written by African Americans, Will Marion Cook and Paul Laurence Dunbar. Source: V&A Theatre Collection

Belle Davis was an African American song and dance artist, entertainer, choreographer, and director. She was a recording pioneer who toured Europe extensively during the period 1901-1929. Not only did she record on disc as early as 1902, she also performed in front of a movie camera at least twice during the early years of this century. In spite of these extraordinary achievements, little has been written about her; her biography, her discography and her filmography remain sketchy. Belle Davis, was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 28, 1874, the daughter of George Davis. Of European and African ancestry, she spent most of her adult life abroad, largely in Britain, where she arrived in mid-1901 with two boys who were billed as Piccaninny Actors. Her performance style changed from ‘coon shouting’ and ‘ragtime singing’ in the 1890s to a more decorous manner, where prancing children provided the amusement. She directed their stage act, and with two, sometimes three or four, black children the act was a vigorous and popular entertainment in British and continental theatres. Davis's troupe appeared on the reputable Empire Theatre circuit in late 1901, recorded in London in 1902 (including the song ‘The Honey-Suckle and the Bee’), continued touring London and the provinces in 1903, and ventured to the continent. Dozens of other African-Americans were entertaining the British at this time, and on June 9, 1904 Davis married one of the more successful, Henry Troy, in London. Following her marriage the act continued to tour, and was filmed, for commercial distribution. The Empire circuit continued to employ the group, as did other leading theatres. They presented their ten-minute stage act in Dublin, Cardiff, Swansea, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Sheffield between May 1906 and August 1909, and appeared in Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Vienna, St Petersburg, and Brussels during the same period. Some leading performers had their apprenticeship as dancers in Davis's act; when they grew too large she recruited younger boys from America. The act had been seen by hundreds of thousands of Britons by 1914, when war prevented continental touring and so exposed more Britons to Belle Davis and Her Cracker Jacks. She and the children performed in major cities as well as Ayr, Doncaster, Portsmouth, Ilkeston, and Weymouth during the war years. Her last known performance in Britain was in 1918. From 1925 to 1929 she directed the dancing in the revues at the Casino de Paris, and 1929 also saw Belle Davis Piccaninnies in Germany with Wunderland der Liebe, a revue set in the south seas. As early as 1915 she was describing herself as married to the African American entertainer Edward Peter (Eddie) Whaley (circa 1880–1960), and she took out an American passport in the name Belle Whaley in 1920. She and Whaley eventually did marry, on July 12, 1926, but they had divorced by 1936. In 1938 she boarded the Queen Mary in Southampton to return to a Chicago address. Sometimes billed as a creole , Davis was a soprano whose songs were not from the minstrel show or spiritual traditions, but were graceful melodies. By contrast the children were energetic dancers who combined suppleness with comedy. Their well-dressed director's elegance was praised, and is evidenced by surviving promotional material. The mercurial entertainment business had few acts for whom top theatres provided employment for the length of time she worked in Britain. Her qualities both as a singer and as dance director, combined with her professionalism in travelling from town to town, country to country, in charge of boisterous children, were solid, and enabled her to have success at her chosen profession for three decades. Stately, well dressed, and showing faint African features, she presented American dance and song to countless Britons and kept top employers anxious to take her act for their shows. Source: [Rainer E. Lotz]

Louisa Melvin Delos Mars, was one of the first African Americans to graduate from the New England Conservatory of Music, and the first African American woman to have an opera staged and produced. The opera, "Leoni, the Gypsy Queen", was performed in Providence, Rhode Island in 1889. Louisa also directed, produced, and performed in her own operettas. She composed and copyrighted five full length musical dramas between 1889 and 1926. Details on her life are scant....born Louisa Melvin in Providence, Rhode Island around 1858. She was the oldest daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Melvin. During the 1880s she and her younger sister, Carrie Melvin Lucas, formed a duo, with Carrie playing violin and cornet with Louisa singing. Her sister, Carrie Melvin Lucas was the second wife of famous vaudevillian, Sam Lucas. The couple (who would later divorce) had a child who became a popular musician in her own right, Maria Lucas (Louisa's niece). [Info: American Opera by Elise K. Kirk] On a census site I found that she was married to William Delos Mars (1856 - 1927). The couple had two sons, Charles born May 19, 1883, and Christian born December 23, 1886 both in Providence, Rhode Island. Source: The Colored American Magazine, vol. 5, 1902