by Donald Bogle
But, most important, Ethel visited the office of the specialist Dr. Wicant, who determined that a growth—a wart—on her left vocal cord would have to be removed in a highly experimental and dangerous procedure that, if she consented, he planned to perform by Ethel’s birthday on October 31. Originally, Waters had hoped to spend more time at the residence of Bricktop, but because she needed rest, she stayed outside Paris in St. Cloud. In October, she contacted Carl Van Vechten, informing him of her plans. On the day of the operation, a tense Ethel feared that should something go wrong, her career would be over. Dr. Wicant had her sign a release absolving him of any negligence should the operation prove unsuccessful, but fortunately, everything went smoothly.
Planning to leave for London on November 10, she was scheduled to open at the city’s world-famous Palladium on November 25. Before her engagement, so she informed Van Vechten in a letter dated October 31, 1929, she wanted some time to adjust to London. Arrangements were made for her to stay at the home of the expatriate Black American entertainer John Payne. She also told Van Vechten she was sending a letter care of him for her friend, dance instructor Rita Romilly. But mainly, in her correspondence, she seemed eager to let Van Vechten know that she was doing everything required to get her vocal problems taken care of—mainly through rest and exercises—so she could sing again. She also was homesick for “spades”—colored people, she said. She planned to be in London for three weeks. But if audiences there didn’t like her, she didn’t care, because that way she could return to the States even sooner. Clearly, she did not feel at home staying abroad. During this trip, she frequently wrote Van Vechten, which marked the beginning of a correspondence between the two that continued up to the time of his death decades later. Her letters could be playful and chatty. She referred to him as “Darling Carlo” or “Divine Carlo” or “My Nordic Lover” and might sign off as “Your Native Mama.” To Van Vechten, she revealed her anxieties, her anger, her nervous exhaustion, and her professional and personal dilemmas.
But something else may have happened during this time in Paris. Years later Waters would say she suffered two miscarriages in her lifetime. “I never birthed no210 children,” she said. “I lost two.” But she would never specify when or where the miscarriages had occurred. What with the length of her stay in Paris and some delays, could she have lost her first child at this time? It wasn’t like her to spend so much time just having fun, not doing much of anything. Was her recuperation the reason for a change of plans she would soon have? Or had the recuperation taken place earlier when she left Bricktop’s to spend time in St. Cloud? Had the rush to leave the States with Eddie been to get away from prying eyes that might detect her pregnancy and perhaps to marry before her pregnancy was obvious? Was the loss the result of an abortion?
A few weeks later, Waters contacted Van Vechten again, this time to inform him of her plans to head for London a few days later than originally planned, on November 15. Waters reminded Van Vechten that she’d be staying in London with John Payne, whom she referred to as “Madam J. Payne.” Van Vechten, she wrote, would recognize him as one of their “lodge members,” possibly a code term for someone who was African American. Or homosexual. By now, Ethel must have been as hip to Carl’s sexual interests as he was to hers. She also spoke of Eddie—who still insisted that she call him “The Lover”—and Algretta, who “at this present age211 gives great promise of following in her own mother’s footsteps, which is prostitution. Ah la, première class.” One can only wonder what led her to make such a pronouncement. Later she commented on the little girl’s attempt to smoke a cigarette and sip alcohol.
In her new communication with Van Vechten, she asked to be remembered to the Robesons. She also let him know that she was still waiting to hear from Rita Romilly. Finally, she wrote that her voice had improved to the point where she could scream “real loud for assistance should one attempt to seduce me on my way home at nite [sic] in the country.” Sending love from Eddie and the baby, she closed her missive by referring to herself as “your native Thrill.”
Before leaving Paris, Ethel posed for pictures, soon to be circulated to the Negro press, in Dr. Wicant’s reception room. With her were Matthews, looking spiffy in suit and tie; Algretta, actually looking glum; Dr. Wicant; Black writer J. A. Rogers, who covered cultural events for the Negro press; and Gene Ballard, a musician who had also served as an aviator during the Great War and had been decorated for valor by the French government.
By now, On with the Show had opened in the States and England—to mixed reviews. In the New York Times, Ethel was listed in the credits, but nothing was said about her performance by critic Mordaunt Hall in his initial review. But he must have had second thoughts. because later, in a longer piece, he commented: “Ethel Waters as Bernice212 from Birmingham, however, does well with her bits of Negro melody.” Variety made note of her: “The stage portion is mostly213 numbers. More than customary doses of girls, with several songs and a specialist without a ‘part’ in the plot, Ethel Waters, colored. Miss Waters has two songs. Preferred is the ‘Blue’ song for that sounds like a selling hit.” The film, however, would have a place in movie history. “For anyone who wants214 to know what the Broadway musical comedy of the 20s was like, this film is indispensable,” critic Pauline Kael later wrote. “Sally O’Neil is hard to take, but the compensations include Ethel Waters, slender and torchy, singing ‘Am I Blue?’ and ‘Birmingham Bertha.’ ”
A few days before her opening at the Palladium, Ethel, apprehensive about her British debut, was invited to the Tivoli Theatre, where On with the Show was playing. The excited reception of the crowd—people cheering and applauding—helped ease some of her anxieties but also awakened her to the power of film. Just as audiences on her Black Swan tour had rushed to see in person the magical goddess of recordings, now they yearned to see the woman in the flesh whose face and body had been blown up to Olympian proportions on the screen. Ethel was perhaps as entranced as everyone else at seeing herself in larger-than-life dimensions.
Ethel soon confided to Van Vechten that she hoped she’d get another movie deal. Clearly bitten by the movie bug, she wished to “get one to star in with a story, to prove I can do some decent acting in a speaking play as well as sing a lot of songs. It seems the other people feel that I can do only one kind of work. Oh: well we’ll change the subject.” That short time in the movie capital had captured her imagination. So had the city itself, seemingly so open and free of the congestion of the East. Though Ethel Waters would always be thought of as a quintessential New York theater star, she was already lured by the magical sunshine of the City of Angels.
Finally came the big night—November 25—at the Palladium. The press revealed that a clause in Ethel’s contract permitted the venerable theater “to select215,” actually, if necessary, censor her songs. Some may have wondered how Waters would fare with the staid British public, but, nightly, the crowds cheered and begged for encores, which Ethel had to decline. Suffering from laryngitis, on many nights she could barely speak once she came offstage. Panicky about her voice, she kept performing nonetheless.
Following the Palladium engagement, she canceled her plans for an immediate return to the States. Other offers had come in. She accepted an engagement at the Kit Kat Club and then performed at the ultrachic Café de Paris, a favorite haunt for the rich and famous, the titled and the privileged, the top of Europe’s very tony international set. “Half the fashionable world was at the Café de Paris to hear Ethel Waters make her first appearance in cabaret in England,” reported London’s Daily Sketch. Some in the club like the King of Greece and the Queen of Spain may have seen Florence Mills when she had been the toast of the town. Others surely had seen Baker. But the onetime Sweet Mama Stringbean, whose records had sold abroad, had now come to town. Onstage, she appeared with a new short curly hairdo, a gown that shimmered and sparkled, and dangling earrings, which were a gift from Fania Marinoff. The audience went wild. “Ethel Waters continues to216 be
the sensation of London, and nearly all the London papers and society columnists are singing her praises,” an excited J. A. Rogers reported. “There was no question about the enthusiasm of her audience,” the Daily Express exclaimed. “They cheered and encored her again and again, especially when she sang the appealing ‘[My] Handy Man.’ ”
There was one number, however, she refused to perform: “She could not, nevertheless, be prevailed on to give what is perhaps her best song—‘Shake That Thing.’ ” This classic song that audiences still loved would eventually be removed from her repertoire, especially as she continued to try to clean up her image. “My Handy Man” wasn’t much cleaner, but it wasn’t as famous. The engagements kept her in London through Christmas and the New Year.
Invitations to parties and dinners poured in. With Matthews by her side—he proved the perfect escort—she attended one event after another with Britain’s theatrical set. But often she felt uncomfortable and came to detest the gossipy stories about her that she knew were making the rounds. She confided to Van Vechten that at entertainer Plunkett Green’s home, she believed that because she neither smoked nor drank nor “necked” with Eddie, it was assumed that she was a “man hater” and that she might even be having an affair with African American performer-columnist Nora Holt. She believed some onlookers had the mistaken idea that Eddie was hopping in the sack with John Payne. Or Madam John Payne, as she had referred to him. In truth, all the gatherings simply made her yearn even more, as she confessed to Van Vechten, for “Colored Heaven.” Close as she was to Van Vechten, she refused to use his term to describe Harlem. She broke records at the Café de Paris, and after some time off to rest her voice, she returned to the nitery in February for another four weeks where again she performed to a packed house of the high and mighty. Tallulah Bankhead came to see her. So did Olga Baclanova and Lord Furness.
But the talk in Britain and the States was of the attention that the Prince of Wales showered on Waters. “Prince of Wales at Café De Paris 3 Times in Week to Hear Ethel Waters Sing,” was front-page news in the Chicago Defender on February 22. Perhaps just as much as the Palladium, the Café de Paris put her on the international map. She accepted a date at another of London’s music halls, the Holborn Empire Theatre, and another offer came for her to finally make her Paris debut at the Plantation nightclub on Rue Pigalle, which was owned by Black American Lou Mitchell. Her salary in London was $1,250 a week. The Plantation, however, offered her a mere $300 a week. She turned it down and thus never played Paris. Still, her fame spread to other parts of Europe and to China, where jazz and Western dance steps—namely, the Charleston—were becoming popular. Duke Ellington’s records were being sold in China, but nothing was selling like the blues, and Ethel ranked on the list of China’s favorites.
But fears about her voice persisted. Might she permanently damage her voice by singing improperly and then never be able to sing again? She took voice lessons with noted specialist Louis Drysdale. Aside from the fact that Drysdale was considered one of the best on the continent, Ethel no doubt was pleased that he was also a musician who understood the vocal apparatus. Just as important, he was a man of color. With Drysdale, she worked long and hard to learn to use her voice differently, to sing in another range.
On March 12, 1930, she boarded the Aquitania, along with Eddie and Algretta, for her return to the States. Having enjoyed the sights of both Paris and London, she felt a sense of accomplishment. Though the trip had been important for her career, she never had the desire to remain abroad. Perhaps that was because of a kind of continental sophistication that she did not altogether feel comfortable with, though Waters by now had become a very sophisticated woman. Perhaps it was because of the simple fact, as she had indicated to Van Vechten, that there were not enough of her “people” around. Regardless, Waters would always be a supremely American brand of star. Her personal narrative, which she soon discussed almost relentlessly in interviews, was a distinctly American one: the poor girl from nowhere who had risen to the top through hard work and a fierce talent. Though she could appreciate the attention of nobility, she would always respond most to others like herself who crawled out of the pit, be it an economic or emotional one, and made a name or place for themselves. That included the men and women currently in her life like Eddie and Pearl or even Dancer or those of the future, be it be composers like Harold Arlen and Irving Berlin or a writer like DuBose Heyward or directors like Vincente Minnelli and Elia Kazan.
Chapter 7
Depression-Era Blues, Depression-Era Heroine
IN THE FEW MONTHS that Ethel had been out of the country, the nation had been dealt a devastating blow, the results of which would reverberate throughout the decade. On October 29, 1929, the stock market had crashed, leaving in its wake a nation in social, economic, and political turmoil. Everyone would be affected by it. Jobs would grow scarce. Banks would close. Homes would be lost. Soup lines, bread lines, and unemployment lines would sprout up in city after city, state after state. A fourth of the nation would be left unemployed. President Herbert Hoover would practically be booted out of office as Franklin Delano Roosevelt was ushered in, bringing with him plans for an economic recovery for a frightened, fatigued populace.
In retrospect, the era opened—for Black entertainers—on a surprisingly optimistic note with the success of Marc Connelly’s comedy drama The Green Pastures, a fantasy about a Negro heaven that debuted on Broadway in February 1930. As De Lawd, actor Richard Harrison gave a warm and winning portrait of a world-weary but humane heavenly father frequently perplexed by the doings of colored humankind. Often patronizing, The Green Pastures’ dramatic sequences nonetheless proved oddly moving and—for the Black theater community—offered hope for future “serious” stage productions with African Americans. The play won the Pulitzer Prize. But the optimism was short-lived. Within two years, the number of Broadway shows would dwindle from a record high of 270 in 1927 to 180 in 1932. The Hollywood studios that Ethel dreamed about struggled to keep their doors open. In time, the nation would seek relief from its woes by going out to the picture show or turning on the radio or buying tickets to the dramas and extravaganzas on the Great White Way. But that was still to come. In the meantime, Black performers struggled to hold onto their careers.
Obviously, Ethel was in a better position than most. Energized after her trip abroad and still able to command as much as $1,500 a week, she threw herself back into work. At first, the jobs flowed. In April, she drew packed houses at the Victoria Theatre in New York. There followed the revue Jazzland in 1930 at the Lafayette, then the revue called Zonky with Butterbeans and Susie and her friend, the cornetist Dijau Jones. Once it traveled to Chicago, Zonky was called “the greatest show that has ever played the Grand theater.” But in a very short time, Ethel, too, was affected by the crash. Budgets for shows were tighter. Producers scrambled to get financing for projects now considered risky. Her schedule was far from full. A large household and staff had to be maintained. Algretta had to be cared for. Pearl Wright had to be kept on salary. Her maid Bessie had to be paid. Her family members in Philadelphia had to be provided for. Naturally, Eddie had to be able to live in style. Ethel was responsible for them all. Then, too, even during these financially tough times, there was an image to maintain. Both she and Matthews were seen about town, each looking like a million dollars, each driving his or her own swanky automobile. One evening when she arrived at the Lafayette Theatre, all eyes were on her. “Dressed in the latest217 mode, with a magnificent pointed fox scarf and a close-fitting turban, the one and only Ethel created quite a stir,” reported the Pittsburgh Courier, “as she walked with queenly air down the aisle of the crowded theater. Oh, yes, there were those famous jade earrings, the gift of Fannie Marinoff (Mrs. Carl Van Vechten), long pendants, just the finishing touch to the attire of the most outstanding comedienne of the race.” Being a fashion plate was nothing new to her, but it cost money. She had to keep working.
A promising prospect was a new
Blackbirds revue being put together by Lew Leslie. Since his days at the Plantation Club, Leslie had become a major player in New York’s Black musical theater. He was also a colorful character, crafty and manipulative, and a showman through and through. Born Lewis Lessinsky in 1886 in Orangeburg, New York, he had begun his career as an impressionist, then teamed up for a time with entertainer Belle Baker, but eventually switched to promoting talent. One of the first productions he was involved in was George White’s Scandals of 1921, in which white actress Tess Gardella appeared in blackface as Aunt Jemima. It was a hit. Immediately, Leslie saw the commercial potential of authentic Negro entertainers and was on the lookout for the real thing. Once he brought Florence Mills to the Plantation Club, he took her to Broadway and Europe. He also created dazzling floor shows for the Cotton Club.
While Ziegfeld had become famous for his Follies and his great stars and while such other producers as Earl Carroll with his Vanities and George White with his Scandals had also created franchise productions, Leslie made a name for himself by parading top-of-the-line colored talent, indeed by “glorifying the Negro.” Sometimes called “the Negro Ziegfeld”—despite the fact that he was not a man of color—he “was the pioneer of the Negro nightclub revue, the first to glamorize Negro girls and the one who set the pattern for such clubs as the Cotton Club, the Alabam, and others,” said Noble Sissle. From his shows came such standards as “On the Sunny Side of the Street,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” and “Diga Diga Doo.” He, too, developed franchise productions, his Blackbirds shows, which were lavish, feverishly energetic Black musical revues that were showcases for Black stars. He had wowed the critics and audiences alike with Blackbirds of 1928, in which he had starred a fifty-year-old Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who showed no signs of slowing down, with the lush and lovely young Adelaide Hall. The pair had set the stage ablaze. The revue, which ran for 518 performances, was the longest-running show of the 1928–1929 season. A year later his $250,000 show International Revue bombed.
