by Donald Bogle
Once the marriage and her radio show ended, she seemed, as always, restless, unable to sit still or relax. Always she craved movement, as if she needed a round of activities so she would not have time to think or reflect—as if she still needed such activities to convince herself that she was on her way somewhere, that she was still climbing some ladder. Even now, she didn’t appear to accept the fact that she was indeed a huge star, bigger than any Black woman in America before her. Baker had triumphed in Europe, and Waters understood that it was not the kind of success that could be taken lightly. But she had made it in the United States. She liked the fact that she had, yet she believed there was still more to do.
Her participation in well-publicized events, most for charity, continued full-force. In early May, as “the premiere singing actress276 of the Race,” she was the honored guest at the year-old $1 million YMCA on West 135th Street. The new building, which had been funded by John D. Rockefeller, became a significant cultural center in Harlem for years to come.
That same month, she participated in one of the year’s most ambitious and significant series of fundraising events. In desperate need of money for its National Defense Fund, which offered legal counsel to Black Americans and waged court battles against discriminatory practices around the country, the NAACP joined forces with the Pittsburgh Courier to stage benefits in several cities. Enlisted to perform at the events were major Black stars, who would travel to New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. For a Black fundraiser, few events, if any, of this magnitude on the national scene had ever before been organized. Engineering this campaign was Maurice Dancer, whose weekly columns on the entertainment scene now appeared in the Courier. In the lineup of stars in support of the NAACP-Pittsburgh Courier fundraiser were some of the major names in Negro entertainment: Bill Robinson, Fats Waller, Andy Razaf, Aida Ward, Ada Brown, Lucky Millinder, Jimmie Lunceford, W. C. Handy, Etta Moten, the dazzling young Nicholas Brothers, and Ethel. The theme song for the galas would be a new number by J. C. Johnson titled “Little Black Boy.”
At the kick-off gala at New York’s Apollo Theatre on West 125th in late May, Harlem had rarely seen a night as splashy and glamorous as this. Stepin Fetchit flew in from California. Cab Calloway, who had been in Philadelphia and who originally had planned to perform alone, ended up arriving at the Apollo with his entire orchestra. Over sixteen hundred people—paying tickets priced at 50 cents, 75 cents, and $1—jammed the theater and lined the street, waiting to enter. Onlookers also stood outside, hoping to see the celebrities. There was such a crush that the police were called in to control the excited crowd. Finally, traffic came to a halt on West 125th Street.
Backstage, stars greeted one another, as caught up as the adoring fans in seeing another famous face. Onstage one entertainer after another performed at a high level, aware of the competition and determined not to be overshadowed. But no one was quite prepared for Ethel. She had arrived early at the Apollo, perhaps to best prepare herself emotionally. But as she stepped onstage, it was almost as if she were the only star of the evening. The crowd gave her a thunderous greeting. Then all turned eerily quiet as she performed the theme song “Little Black Boy.” Waters “acted” the song and performed it—just as she done with “Eli Eli”—with a depth of emotion usually associated only with the old Negro spirituals. Many that night were moved to tears. “The response of the277 audience should convince Miss Waters of her stupendous popularity,” wrote the Pittsburgh Courier. “The vociferous applause that greeted her entrance, the cries for ‘more,’ ‘more’ that followed her rendition of ‘Little Black Boy’ should confirm the oft-told story that Ethel is our greatest woman star and she is sincerely loved and honored by her people.” Her encore was “Stormy Weather.” The crowd again went wild.
Her next stop for the National Defense Fund campaign—on June 17, a Sunday night when there was no performance of As Thousands Cheer—was the Nixon Theatre in Pittsburgh where she was again joined by other stars. Accompanying Ethel to Pittsburgh was Pearl Wright, who also now acted as one of Ethel’s secretaries, and the young trumpet player Eddie Mallory. No one seemed to know much about Mallory, why he was a part of Waters’ entourage, or if perhaps he would soon be working with Ethel on a forthcoming recording. But his presence nonetheless was noted. Already there were whispers.
Upon her arrival at the theater, Ethel was besieged by “a seemingly endless troop278 of autograph hounds [who] file[d] in and out of her dressing room.” Everything about her was now being discussed, from the clothes she wore, to her makeup, to her hairstyles, to the light chatter she might have with an adoring fan. In the past, stars like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey had been pursued, discussed, and adored, but nothing compared to the response to Waters. That maddening excitement of seeing the recording star in person had now intensified to a fever pitch—to an unprecedented level for an African American performer. For days, weeks, and months, she was all that anyone who had actually seen her could talk about.
But after the next stop in Philadelphia, the fundraising tour became embroiled in controversy and then scandal. Suddenly, events coordinator Maurice Dancer was arrested in New York and charged with embezzlement amid angry accusations that proceeds for the Defense Fund had been mismanaged. Funds were missing and had to be accounted for. Had Dancer walked off with the money? The whole messy business was recorded in the Negro press. Defending himself, Dancer publicly explained precisely what the expenses for the fundraisers had been. He detailed the cost to use the Nixon Theatre in Pittsburgh and also the travel costs to bring in entertainers. As was true of such other charitable events, sometimes the expenses canceled out huge profits for the charity. But what surprised many were details pertaining to Ethel, who it had been assumed had donated her services. In one respect, she had. In another, she hadn’t. Through Pearl Wright, Ethel had insisted on being paid $250 for the evening in Pittsburgh, in addition to her expenses, which included three train tickets and drawing room accommodations for Waters, Pearl Wright, and that mystery man, trumpeter Eddie Mallory. The total paid her was $400. When the fundraiser had moved to Philadelphia, Waters, through Pearl, again insisted on payment. In desperation, Dancer had explained to Wright that the Philadelphia theater was smaller, and he simply couldn’t shell out much money. But Pearl insisted on a payment of $400. Because the benefit was already heavily publicized, Dancer knew he couldn’t cancel Waters’ appearance. At one point, he stood by the box office, watching patrons pay. Once the box office tally went to $250, he literally took the money and rushed with it to Pearl Wright.
After Dancer informed the press of Miss Waters’ demands, her fellow entertainers were outraged. Bill Robinson hit the roof. Robinson had actually driven to Philadelphia with family and friends in his Duesenberg. He hadn’t charged a dime, nor had anyone else as far as he knew. Expenses were one thing, but an actual payment was another. Robinson had never liked Ethel, apparently from the moment he met her. Call it professional jealousy, but he had gotten to the point where he loathed even being in her presence and was said to have trained his dog to growl whenever Ethel was near. Needless to say, none of this was good publicity. But as far as anyone knew, the queenly Ethel was unfazed. If anything angered her, it was most likely the fact that people seemed upset by her demands.
During this period, the fundraiser incident was one of the few instances when she received bad press, but another occurred once the short film Rufus Jones for President played theaters. Despite Ethel’s enthusiasm for the film, the end results, in many respects, proved disappointing, not because of her work but because of the images. On the one hand, the movie provided glowing pleasures. In his dance sequence, little Sammy Davis Jr. was a whirling marvel as he tapped his way to glory. Precocious is hardly a strong enough word to describe this kid with so much talent. Ethel herself seemed above the film’s misconceived highjinks. Dressed in a long white gown and maintaining her poise, she sang “Am I Blue?” and “Underneath a H
arlem Moon.” Then and especially in the years to come, the iconic sequence occurred when Ethel held Davis on her lap and rocked him to sleep. But that was not enough to stop the criticism of the short film. Partly a fantasy about a little boy (Sammy Davis Jr.) who dreams of becoming president of the United States, Rufus Jones for President was at times a shocking display of racist imagery—with its talk about pork chops, watermelons, and razors and its depiction of rigidly stereotyped dice-rolling Black characters. During little Rufus’ presidential campaign, a placard read:
Vote Here for Rufus Jones
Two Pork Chops Every Time You Vote
There was also a covert message even in this fantasy about a child’s aspirations. Ethel tells little Sammy: “The book says anybody born here can be president.” But she also warns him: “Stay on your own side of the fence. Don’t cross the line. . . . And no harm will come to you.” Even in a fantasy, African Americans were being reminded of their place in American society.
African American columnist Ralph Matthews, who in most respects was an adoring fan, questioned Ethel’s professional choices, in general and in particular, in accepting the role in Rufus Jones for President. In an open letter to Ethel in the Baltimore Afro-American, Matthews stated his objection to “the subtle implication in279 the song ‘Stay on Your Own Side of the Fence.’ That seemed to propagate the ugly desire of the whites who want us to accept Jim Crow and segregation without a squawk.” He also wrote, “The scene showing the Congressmen and Senators shooting craps and checking their razors outside the Senate chamber might have been good satire if it were not for the fact that this caters too much to the diabolical belief of the cracker that Black folk never rise above the primitive.” His concluding remarks attacked the very direction in which Ethel had taken her career.
Now that you are singing on the radio and appearing in “As Thousands Cheer” and are making movies, primarily intended for white houses, I can see how you can ignore, after a fashion, what colored folks think about you. Now your dollars are all white dollars and white people have queer appetites where their colored entertainers are concerned. You are trying to please that appetite. . . . As one who is anxious that you always remain our most “beloved” darling of the stage, a true successor to Black Patti, Aida Walker, and Florence Mills, as a favor to me, won’t you exercise a little more care in your selection of vehicles and songs? It makes me sore to hear people saying mean things about you; I don’t like it.
Matthews’ comments must have stung her in the most personal way. Now her work was being dissected—as well as her decision to perform it on the white time. Her other short, Bubbling Over, had similar disturbing images: a lazy husband; rowdy, triflin’ in-laws; a shyster swami. How could so “modern” and forward-looking an entertainer as Ethel, a woman who represented a new era, have made such appalling and racially offensive choices? By now, discussions and debates had been ignited within the African American community about movie images. No longer should Black Americans simply be satisfied that Black actors and actresses were finally getting film work and becoming known to the large movie audience. Now those performers should think of the distortions inherent in those roles, most of which were dimwitted comic servant characters; of the harm those images did to Black America’s self-image—and also to the way in which Black Americans were being perceived by the larger culture. Ethel may have been too angry to seriously consider his comments because Matthews had dared to criticize her. But that would change.
Chapter 9
A Woman of the People, Back on Broadway
DURING THE SUMMER, replacements had to be brought in for stars Clifton Webb, Marilyn Miller, and Helen Broderick, who were out of As Thousands Cheer either because of vacations or because of illness. But Ethel the mighty remained, and in doing so, became the drawing card for the revue. Out-of-towners had heard so much about her performance and the power and poignancy of “Supper Time” that she was the star most theatergoers wanted to see. If she were to leave the show, was there any Negro female performer who could replace her, any as famous and as celebrated? Simply stated, no, there really was no one else who could do the role. Berlin knew it. So did Sam Harris. So did Moss Hart. When the musical closed in September 1934, Webb, Miller, and Broderick had all gone their separate ways. Miller’s case was particularly sad: she died in 1936, at the age of thirty-eight, reportedly as a result of a brain infection after surgery for a sinus condition. According to theater gossip, however, the real cause of her death was syphilis, contracted from her reckless husband, Jack Pickford. Nonetheless, the decision was made to take As Thousands Cheer to such cities as Boston, Toronto, Detroit, and Chicago with Ethel as the major star. For a woman who had started in the show with below-the-title billing, that decision must have been sweet vindication. Briefly, Berlin and Hart also talked about doing a follow-up revue to their smash success, but it never materialized. Traveling with her on tour would be Dorothy Stone in the Marilyn Miller role and such original cast members as Hamtree Harrington and Ethel’s understudy, Maude Russell.
The tour was yet another whirlwind experience, a dizzying blur of cities, theaters, people. Everywhere she went, she was wined and dined, celebrated and adored. She glided through a steady round of teas, dinners, and parties, as fans, Black and white, eagerly sought to meet the Broadway star. Throughout, she traveled in high style in a custom-built roadster that always drew attention as she entered or stepped out of it.
When the company played Chicago, Ethel granted one of her “infrequent interviews280” to the Pittsburgh Courier. As usual, she was guarded. Within the Black press, there was still outrage that her radio program American Revue had been canceled. Asked about the show, she answered that she enjoyed “broadcasting because it brings me close to people who cannot see me, but I really prefer appearing before an audience.” But when pressed for a statement about the program’s cancellation, she stated that contracts had not been renewed. “Of course, there isn’t any doubt that in some sections my efforts were not appreciated, but I do not care to comment upon that at this time.” She then changed the subject. “I am enjoying my work in ‘As Thousands Cheer’ and now that we are on the road,” she told the writer, “I feel that we will have the same success which we had in New York. Of course, I always hold optimistic beliefs, partly because I am a Catholic and partly because I subscribe to the ideas which ‘unity’ teaches. I am proud of the fact that I am trying to do my best and I hope that my own people will appreciate my efforts.”
In the interview, she expressed some personal opinions. “There are many things which the public does not know about me. I boast of being a good housekeeper and love children and dumb animals. Women smoking does not interest me. I like to see women smoking if they can smoke. For myself, I abide by health rules, at least to a certain extent.’’ Why she discussed the topic of women smoking was anyone’s guess. Perhaps she had grown annoyed with some woman or other in her life who smoked. She also commented on Black theater productions. “They are all right if they get the right sort of backer. ‘The Green Pastures’ is still going good. I am not prepared to comment upon the merits of ‘Green Pastures,’ however, because I have opinions of my own and what I say might be misconstrued if I made a statement favorable or unfavorable. A person in my position can’t talk too much.” With that comment, Ethel “smilingly dismiss[ed] the interviewer.”
There was another comment that readers may not have given much thought to, yet it expressed a career goal that had been on her mind for some time. “Of course, people only think of me as one who can be funny, but actually, I want to prove to the world some day, that I can become a tragedienne.” Ethel had once stated she wanted to play Sister Scarlett. That hadn’t happened, but she still hoped somehow to perform a dramatic role. Was she also suggesting that she had tired of her singing career?
By October, when she arrived in Detroit, high Negro society eagerly sought her out. She was also now a “guest in fashionable white281 society parties and written up in the s
ociety pages.” “Happiness was heavy in282 her eyes as she waved to those who welcomed her, the hand she waved sparkling with many large and expensive jewels,” reported the Detroit News. So much a style maven had she become that the Negro press, more than ever, reported on what she wore. When nearly four hundred guests greeted her at an informal tea given by a local club, the readers of the Courier were informed that “Miss Waters was attractively283 gowned in black. Her dress was cut with beige neckline in front and low in the back; with this she wore a chic black hat and waist length pointed fox cape. A shoulder bouquet of gardenias presented [to her] was her only accessory.”
On another occasion, she seemed to be glowing, perhaps more than ever, as the guest of honor at an after-theater party at the home of a Mr. and Mrs. B. Mitchell. Her most significant accessory that evening was Eddie Mallory, the trumpeter who had accompanied her on that fundraising trip to Pittsburgh. Mr. Mitchell, it turned out, was Eddie’s cousin. Eddie’s brother, Frank, was also at the party. Ethel was in seventh heaven with two dashing young men by her side, especially Eddie. Could the suave and sexy Mallory, known to be a favorite of the ladies, be the new man in Ethel’s life, even though she was not yet divorced from the other Eddie, Mr. Matthews? No one could say for sure. And no one was asking Ethel. But the gossip had started.
Mallory was born in Jacksonville, Illinois, and grew up in Chicago. An accomplished and serious musician, he had studied at Chicago’s Conservatory of Music and New York’s Juilliard School of Music. Eddie began performing in Chicago clubs and theaters with a band called the Alabamians. Playing saxophone as well as trumpet, he was also a talented arranger. After four years, Mallory left the Alabamians to work with bandleader Tiny Parham. Briefly, he took control of Parham’s band but soon moved to New York, where he performed with Benny Carter, the Arcadians, and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band. Mallory was playing with this latter band at the Cotton Club during the 1933 season when he and Ethel first met—“while she was singing284 ‘Stormy Weather,’ ” according to the press. Ethel was hooked. She apparently had helped him secure a job as a musician on As Thousands Cheer.
