by Donald Bogle
Unlike Matthews, Eddie Mallory understood and liked show business, the comings and goings, the audiences, the backstage intrigues, the camaraderie of the band members, the sights and sounds of the towns and cities where he performed. He also liked the girls. In Chicago, Mallory had married a young dancer named Florence Hill in 1930. The couple had a son, John, but after Eddie moved to New York and became well-connected, he appeared to have forgotten all about Mrs. Eddie Mallory. For a spell, Hill joined him in New York, where she appeared in various shows. But the marriage was over—at least as far as Eddie was concerned. Women flocked around him as they had always done. They liked looking at him. Eddie could understand that because he apparently liked looking at himself, too. Solidly built, muscular but trim, with a broad forehead, penetrating eyes, a seductive smile, and a rakish mustache, he was athletic and worked hard to stay in shape. His interests were varied. An ardent amateur photographer, he made his own home movies. He was a golfer, too. In other respects, he fit the profile of the kind of man Ethel gravitated to. Mallory was a sharp dresser, a smooth talker, fairly sophisticated, and given to smoking a pipe. Around town, he was known as “Pretty Boy Eddie,” or just “Pretty Eddie.” Eddie Matthews had also sometimes been called “Pretty Eddie,” but the name seemed more appropriate to Mallory, as much because of his manner as his looks. Mallory looked like he might have been the ideal well-spoken, middle-class hero for one of Oscar Micheaux’s race movies had Micheaux not favored lighter actors for his leads. Mallory was hardly a high-yaller fellow. Instead he had a rich brown complexion, which for Ethel was just right.
Ambitious, aggressive, at times calculating, determined to make it to the upper echelons of show business—and have a good time along the way—Mallory was impressed by Ethel. When she took an interest in him, he was excited, never having seen a Negro woman with such stature and allure. Her entourage always hovered about as people stood waiting to cater to her every whim. Around the country, women now emulated her, noticed her clothes, her jewelry, her movements. Men looked her over. Crowds turned out for her performances. And now this very woman was beckoning him to become a part of her world, was having arrangements made so that he could travel with her, was eager to meet his family and friends, was clearly delighted in having him by her side when she entered a theater or attended some benefit or gathering. Like others, he had to have heard the rumors about her interest in women. But that was a minor matter. This kind of woman obviously went more than one way.
Mallory was similar to Matthews in one respect, however: he was in a bit over his head. But with show business running through his veins, Mallory felt confident he could handle it all. Yet no one could ever be prepared for Ethel: even as shrewd a show business pro as Earl Dancer could have told Eddie Mallory that. Of course, Mallory would never have listened. He was fortunate in one crucial respect: he was talented and never would be considered just a hanger-on. No one was quite sure when he was born. Some accounts said it was 1907; others placed his birth year in 1905; still others in 1902. Regardless, everyone knew he was younger than Ethel. People seeing the two together also noted something else. Although Eddie stood five feet nine and a half inches, Ethel looked taller. Because of her height, she usually preferred flats or low-heeled shoes, now more so than ever when she made an appearance with Eddie by her side. As could be expected, Ethel stayed mum on the subject of Mallory, but it was apparent they were a couple.
***
By November 1934, Ethel returned to Chicago where As Thousands Cheer opened at the Grand Opera House in the Loop. Stopping the show night after night, she was proclaimed “the one artistic genius” in the whole production. The bad press she had received for the Defense Fund events didn’t deter her from continuing her charity work. On Thanksgiving morning, she appeared at one of the city’s benefits to aid the needy. On another occasion, hundreds of people—Black and white—rushed to see her at a charity ball for Local 444 of the Cooks, Waiters, Bartenders, and Waitresses Union. So what if this was not one of those splashy, hoity-toity, star-studded charitable events? Proving herself to be a woman of the people, she crowned the “Queen of Waitresses285” at the event and performed “Moon Glow” and “Stormy Weather.” On December 14, she appeared at the Chicago Defender’s midnight Christmas Basket Fund drive at the Regal Theatre. Ethel, wearing a fashionable cloche hat, was photographed smiling flirtatiously at Chicago’s mayor, Edward J. Kelly, as she sold him tickets to the event. Still able to quickly read a person, to figure out what someone had on his or her mind, especially when it pertained to sexual interests, perhaps she detected something in the way the esteemed mayor looked at her—and was simply knowingly smiling back. Over three thousand people turned out to see her at the Christmas Basket drive. All these activities were part of her ongoing role as Ethel Waters, Race Woman. But it didn’t stop there. In an article for the December 15 edition of the Chicago Defender, she urged Chicagoans to see the play Stevedore, a searing social drama focusing on a nation’s racism and its terrifying lynchings that had previously opened in New York and was now playing in Chicago. “One of the most thrilling plays I have ever witnessed,” she wrote. “It is a smashing indictment of racial persecution. It makes its audiences understand the ‘Negro problem,’ the lives and troubles of Colored workers in the South.”
As the tour continued, backstage nothing was calm and ordered. Her understudy Maude Russell gave notice that she would leave the production following its run in Washington, D.C. Always publicly respectful of Waters, Russell sometimes privately bristled at even hearing her name. She’d seen enough of the tirades, the pettiness, the constant need for attention, and the chaos. Curiously, Ethel would always have some cast members who became her allies. Usually, these were performers whom Ethel was pleasant to and had shown kindness and concern. The entertainers Avis Andrews and Eloise Uggams, both relatives of future singer Leslie Uggams, always adored Ethel. But Ethel was still Ethel—still easily rattled and upset by minor infractions, still making demands, still barking out orders with an onslaught of profanity. Russell felt that, yes, Waters had had a tough childhood, but you couldn’t carry that around with you all your life. Wasn’t it time she got over it? Russell joined her husband, George Bynum, in Chicago, and Monette Moore was hired to replace her.
The show was about to embark on a tour of the South: Birmingham, Louisville, Little Rock, Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga were all on the schedule. The codes and restrictions of the South were nothing new to Ethel, but now she was traveling as the star of a white revue booked into theaters with audiences that rarely saw an integrated production, or at least this type of integrated production. Past presentations might have Negro actors in bit parts as maids or butlers but not as leads performing in scenes with white entertainers. Aware that taking Ethel to the South in this production was a daring venture, producer Sam Harris and his staff prided themselves on this move, which was indeed groundbreaking. But they were realists. Precautions had to be taken not just to appease white Southerners but ensure that they showed up and the theaters themselves weren’t burned down.
Consequently, Ethel’s scenes were reworked and restaged. The “Supper Time” sequence was no problem. But her “Harlem on My Mind” sketch, in which she had been surrounded by whites, now had her with Black cast members. The “To Be or Not to Be” number would be Ethel and Black performer Hamtree Harrington. “Heat Wave” was now a colored sequence. In various cities, the Southern press would be informed that Ethel would not appear in scenes with white stars. Too realistic to be surprised or even openly annoyed by the changes, Ethel rehearsed the changes and kept in mind the importance of playing such theaters in the South, breaking down some barriers. At some theaters, there might be occasions when Black theatergoers, eager to see their “Queen,” would find themselves relegated to the balcony or not even admitted to the performance. That was another reality Ethel was aware of.
In the South, it would also be out of the question for her to stay at the big hotels. I
nstead special accommodations had to be made for Waters, Hamtree Harrington, and the other Negro cast members. This was nothing new for Ethel, who was accustomed to staying at Negro boardinghouses or at the homes of “friends.” Now it was worked out for her to reside at the dwellings of prominent African Americans in the different cities—Black doctors, attorneys, ministers, or schoolteachers, members of the Black bourgeoisie, the dictys. Ethel didn’t care about that either. But it was still an embarrassment that the white entertainers who had replaced Webb, Miller, and Broderick, none of whom was as big a name as she was, could walk into any hotel in the land without a word being said. Negro stars like Marian Anderson, Bill Robinson, Billie Holiday, Katherine Dunham, and scores of others were confronted with the same dilemma. On the surface, Ethel might have appeared to grin and bear it, but inside she never did. Even so, she still preferred to be among her “people,” and she was flattered at the attention that those doctors, attorneys, ministers, and schoolteachers lavished on her; she was impressed and delighted to see the beautiful, well-run, and well-kept homes in which they lived and the extraordinary meals they prepared for her and the fancy gatherings they planned in her honor. These special occasions she would not forget.
But the segregated theaters and the whites-only hotels were not forgotten either. She seemed to have compiled a list of resentments or grudges about the white world, but that list brought out the contradictory sides of her personality. Her religion taught her to forgive, to be tolerant, understanding, and loving—but there was no way she could love the people who treated her in such a way. “She was a unique287 combination of old religiosity and free-floating hatred, always ready to overflow,” said director Elia Kazan. For decades to come, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, when Las Vegas emerged as a major entertainment venue, Black stars such as Lena Horne, Nat “King” Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dorothy Dandridge would be signed to play at the important hotels and casinos, but they would not be permitted to stay there. Vegas was described by many as a racist town. Consequently, the audiences were almost exclusively white for many years. Even in sophisticated New York, the entertainment capital, there were nightclubs and restaurants with whites-only policies. For Ethel, as for other Black stars, there was an ironic dichotomy. Onstage, she was clearly a great talent, an entertainment goddess, celebrated by white audiences with deafening applause and adoration. But offstage, it was still back doors, side entrances, and, in the South, being relegated to the colored part of town. Surely, the source of some of those outbursts and explosions at the theaters had to be her anger at her treatment and her frustration at not being able to change the situation.
Staying at the homes of prominent Black Americans, however, presented a different kind of problem for Ethel since she was traveling with Mallory. Producer Sam Harris no doubt just assumed the two had married, although he must have wondered when, precisely, the divorce from Matthews had been granted. Attorney Harold Gumm had learned not to question such matters, at least not openly. But Gumm understood that any prying questions of the press and the public had to be kept at bay. The press was already identifying Eddie Mallory as her husband, just as it had done with Eddie Matthews and Earl Dancer. When someone asked, “Who’s the good-looking guy with Waters?” there must have been sly smiles and smirks in some circles when the answer came back: “He’s the new husband.”
As the tour moved into the South, new indignities were imposed on Waters. In March, when she played Knoxville’s Elis Auditorium, the manager, Colonel Charles A. McElravy, informed the press that he had consulted with “locals” to learn if they wanted to see the show with Ethel. None objected, especially after he informed them that none “of the white actors288 or actresses will even be on the stage when Ethel is performing. Hence, there could be no objection on the ground that she is working with the white players.” Instead she will do “her famous specialties assisted only by Hamtree Harrington, another dusky performer.” The show went on. The audience loved her.
In Memphis, another problem reared its head, one that was not necessarily unexpected. Of the more than eight hundred seats in the gallery section of the theater where As Thousands Cheer was booked, only two hundred and fifty were allotted to Negro patrons. But far more blacks arrived at the theater. Though there were vacant seats in the balcony, the Black patrons were not permitted to take them. Some theatergoers were told to stand in the doorway. Others were allowed to sit in seats that were brought up from the basement. Others sat on the stairs. The message was clear. No Black theatergoer would be seated next to a white one. Just going to see a star like Ethel could be a humiliating experience. But she was such a beloved star that Black patrons put up with the indignities.
For Ethel, the worst leg of the tour was at the Tivoli Theatre in Chattanooga. Upon her arrival, a member of the Black press informed both Ethel and Hamtree Harrington that Black theatergoers would not be seated in any part of the Tivoli Theatre. The same thing had happened when The Green Pastures had played the theater only a few weeks earlier. “Ridiculous289,” said Harrington. “Tragical,” said Ethel. There had been similar problems, she told a reporter, seating Black patrons at a theater in Washington, D.C. Exasperated and frustrated, Ethel explained that the play had been changed in order not to upset white theatergoers. This statement was the closest she came to publicly revealing her anger. But when asked what she’d do about the situation, she explained that she could do nothing, “inasmuch as the local theatre management had full charge of the ticket selling and seating.” She added, however, that she wanted to return to the city in her own production for race audiences. Later generations might question why she did not simply refuse to go onstage. But contractually, as she told the press, she was obligated to perform. In some Southern cities, she socialized even more with members of the Black community, attending parties and receptions in her honor, as if this might in some way show that she understood and respected them.
***
By April, the tour carried her to Los Angeles. As she stepped off the train at the station, a band and a jubilant crowd was there to greet her. There was an official welcoming committee consisting of entertainers as well as prominent members of Los Angeles’ Black community, some of whom were present, others in absentia: Bill Robinson, Stepin Fetchit, Fats Waller, editor-publisher of the California Eagle Charlotta Bass, Etta Moten, actor Clarence Muse, and the drum corps of the American Veterans of Foreign Wars. Afterward, when As Thousands Cheer opened at the Biltmore Theatre, it was another smash success.
Though the city had Negro hotels, such as the Clark and the posh Dunbar, where entertainers like Ellington and Armstrong stayed, she took up residence at the home of the Reverend L. B. Brown, the father of three daughters who entertained under the name of the Brown Sisters. Cute and lively, the trio was popular on the West Coast. Ethel took them under her wing, serving as their mentor. For the next few years, she did much to help the sisters secure new bookings. Ethel saw “promise” in them, recalled Etta Moten, and later “introduced them to the290 New York public—and whenever an opportunity. . . . [arose] . . . helped them get work.” The girls were soon “on the Waters payroll.”
Waters relished Los Angeles’ social life, where one party after another was planned for her. An all-get-out glamorous bash was held at the Club Araby, a Black nightclub. A very grand, elaborate affair was arranged at the Elks Auditorium. For Ethel, there was again LA’s golden sunshine, its open spaces, its blue sky, and of course, those magnificent movie studios. As in the past, she was still considered a deluxe item from the East. In the large audiences that turned out to see her in As Thousands Cheer, there were not only the local folks but also the moneyed socialites of Los Angeles and the Hollywood hot-shots. As scores of people came to her dressing room to congratulate her on her performance, she realized this was a prime opportunity not only to meet many of those movie stars she had seen on the screen but also to be introduced to directors and producers. Maybe she could get some movie work. Warner Bros.—where she h
ad made On with the Show—expressed some interest. But nothing developed.
But while in Los Angeles, another matter was on her mind, perhaps a golden opportunity in the East. Gumm had informed her of plans for a new Broadway revue, another white musical, eventually to be called At Home Abroad, in which the producers—the all-powerful Shubert brothers—wanted to include Ethel. If all fell into place, she could be back on the Great White Way by the fall. It was what she needed, another important show that would cement her position as a Broadway star. Trusting Gumm to work everything out, she knew no announcement could be made until every detail was in place. In show business, it could be a kiss of death to speak too soon. If she went into the show, rehearsals would begin in New York in July. In the meantime, she had to fulfill her other commitments.
Ethel also received reports about the formation of an organization in which she took great interest. In New York, a group of leading Black performers had decried the lack of opportunities for African Americans in entertainment, primarily in theater but also films. The few parts offered to Negroes remained those stereotyped maids and butlers—bit parts with quick entrances and exits. Someone had to speak up for the Negro performer. There had to be a united front to fight for more significant roles and more significant African American productions. As the most successful African American female performer in the nation, Ethel was asked to support the establishment of the group, to be called the Negro Actors Guild. A charter had to be written. Incorporation was necessary, as well as additional support. As everything was starting to fall into place, Ethel joined others in launching the new organization.
