Josephine Baker hanging out with her pet cheetah in 1931. The cheetah’s name? Chiquita. Photo: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS.
Elisabeth Welch, the American singer who introduced the “Charleston” on Broadway before becoming a superstar in England, in 1935. Born in Manhattan in 1904 to a Scottish-Irish mother and African American father, Ms. Welch was a favorite of iconic composers Noël Coward and Cole Porter. She was the first singer to popularize the classic Porter tune, “Love for Sale” and it would become a signature song in her career. She also introduced “Stormy Weather” to British audiences and would be so beloved there, she remained for the rest of her life. Ms. Welch, among other career highlights in her 70-year career, was nominated for a Tony award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical in 1986 at age 82, for her role in “Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood.” Ms. Welch also starred in two films with Paul Robeson, “Song of Freedom” in 1936 and “Big Fella” in 1937. In the comment section, I am linking a fantastic short video (1:56) of Ms. Welch singing “Harlem in my Heart” from “Big Fella” and Mr. Robeson can be seen in the clip. Photo: National Portrait Gallery, London.
British contralto Evelyn Dove (1902-1987) wearing a mantilla and holding a fan in a photography by Carl Van Vechten taken on December 27, 1935. Born in London to a barrister from Sierra Leone and his British wife, Ms. Dove’s career took her all over the world, from American jazz clubs to cabarets from Paris to India. She was best known to most for her work in BBC radio broadcasts in the 1940s. In 1956, she portrayed Eartha Kitt’s mother in a BBC television drama called “Mrs. Patterson,” that starred the American-born British-based singer, Elisabeth Welch. She also appeared on stage in London’s West End in a production of Langston Hughes’s “Simply Heavenly.” Photo: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Marian Anderson, the elegant and groundbreaking contralto who was the first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, was born 116 years ago today in Philadelphia. She is probably best known to this generation for singing before a crowd of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after being refused permission to sing at Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution. DAR has made the effort to make up for the slight ever since, inviting Ms. Anderson to sing at the hall on many occasions soon after the infamous 1939 incident. In this photo, Ms. Anderson is shown arriving at Victoria Station in London on November 11, 1936, for her performance at Queen’s Hall. Photo: Bettman/Corbis
Langston Hughes, always a Vintage Black Glamour favorite, was born 111 years ago today in Joplin, Missouri. This 1932 photograph was taken by his good friend, Carl Van Vechten and was eventually given as a gift by another friend, the illustrator Prentiss Taylor, to the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Happy Centennial to the members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority! Delta Sigma Theta was founded 100 years ago today at Howard University, where these lovely sorors were photographed in 1930. Photo: Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
Zora Neale Hurston, born on this day in 1891, wrote these words in her 1950 essay, What White Publishers Won’t Print. ”For various reasons, the average, struggling, non-morbid Negro is the best-kept secret in America. His revelation to the public is the thing needed to do away with that feeling of difference which inspires fear, and which ever expresses itself in dislike. It is inevitable that this knowledge will destroy many illusions and romantic traditions which America probably likes to have around. But then, we have no record of anybody sinking into a lingering death on finding out that there was no Santa Claus. The old world will take it in its stride. The realization that Negroes are no better nor no worse, and at times just as bonny as everybody else, will hardly kill off the population of the nation.” This photo was taken on November 9, 1934 in Chicago by Carl Van Vechten. Via Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Found via The Washington Post’s obituary for dance legend Jeni LeGon - Ms. LeGon with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson from the 1935 film “Hooray for Love.” Photo: American Tap Dance Foundation Archives.
Effie Moore with a group of vaudeville dancers, circa 1930s. Photo: Addison Scurlock via Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History/Smithsonian
Sad news: Dance legend Jeni Le Gon passed away on December 7th at the age of 96. Born in Chicago in 1916, Ms. Le Gon began her career in the 1930s when she was just sixteen, dancing in a chorus line backed by Count Basie’s Orchestra. She is
Actor Robert Earl Jones photographed by Carl Van Vechten in 1938. The father of James Earl Jones, he appeared in Oscar Michaeux films, on Broadway and with Robert Redford in “The Sting”. In the 1930s, he was a boxer and the sparring partner of Joe Louis. Blacklisted in the 1950s, he appeared in an uncredited role as the club employee who offers Harry Belafonte a “piece of iron” in the 1959 film noir “Odds Against Tomorrow”. Mr. Jones died in 2006 at the age of 96.
