by Donald Bogle
In late April, as Thousands Cheer moved to San Francisco. Then came Denver. By early June, she arrived in Chicago for two back-to-back engagements. The first engagement was for the week of June 7. She appeared at the Chicago Theatre in the Loop, performing numbers from the Berlin revue with cast members from As Thousands Cheer but also adding new material, including Cole Porter’s “Miss Otis Regrets,” which she had recorded almost two years earlier, on August 20, 1934. It was just the type of dramatic narrative Ethel liked best. The song tells the story of a well-to-do woman who has murdered her lover and thereafter finds a lynching mob awaiting her. The song is narrated by the woman’s maid. Waters’ powers as an actress were again put to brilliant use.
Though Ella Fitzgerald and Mabel Mercer later recorded the song with great feeling and great phrasing, Waters set the stage, establishing two characters in the song, the maid and Miss Otis. At times, she might appear to overdo the pathos of the ballad—yet she never let herself slip into bathos, and she never lost track of the narrative line. Here again when it was essential that listeners understand the story, she had a total mastery of lyric and meaning. “Nobody else in this291 country, white or sepia, sings the run-of-the-mill song of the hour so painlessly and so persuasively,” wrote Ashton Stevens, that critic who had hailed her years earlier and now again celebrated her in the pages of the Chicago Evening America. “There is no tin, of course, in Cole Porter’s polite but terrific tragedy ‘Miss Otis Regrets She’s Unable to Lunch Today.’ But cheap singers have put their own cheap price on this priceless ballad by jittering it and hot-jazzing it. It’s just as well to have Miss Waters retract their libels. Her singing of it attests a great song worthy of a great songstress. ‘Miss Otis Regrets’ has been called Miss Waters’ second lynching song. But I think it is her first. It is more indirectly poignant than her heartbreaking ‘Supper Time.’ ”
During her second week in Chicago, Ethel headlined a show at the Black Regal Theatre. She took home $3,500 a week. Of course, she had matinees and late shows, but she still earned top dollar. Despite a rain storm on opening night, she packed the house. She again performed some numbers from As Thousands Cheer, as well as “Miss Otis Regrets.” She also danced and did comedy routines, still revealing herself to be an all-around entertainer with skills that few others could match. Some stars could sing. Some could dance. Some were comediennes. But none could do it all—at least not with her bravura.
In Chicago, word came that negotiations had been worked out and an announcement was made: Ethel was to return to Broadway in At Home Abroad, with a salary of $1,000 a week. It wasn’t what she was now pulling down, but she wouldn’t have to carry the whole production. Nor would she have several shows a day. Her hopes high, an exultant Waters arrived with Mallory at the offices of the Chicago Defender. As photographs taken that day revealed, they were a great-looking couple. Splendidly dressed in a tailored double-breasted suit, Mallory held his pipe in his hand, smiled graciously, and behaved like the perfect consort that he was. Ethel was stylishly dressed. Yet there was one aspect about her appearance that may have surprised her fans—and which would clearly distress Ethel herself in the years to come. Ethel Waters, the sexy Black goddess who had once sung those naughty songs and who still was considered a hot mama, looked heavier and rather matronly. Not huge. Not fat. Just heavier. There was no way she could appear in At Home Abroad without doing something about her weight. When she stepped onto the scale, she weighed 217 pounds.
Shortly afterward, she was back in New York, where she was set to appear at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. Despite the heat and humidity, she was relieved to resume her regular routine at the apartment on St. Nicholas. It was as chaotic as ever, with children in and out of the place, the usual hangers-on, and Mallory now trying to find his place in the scheme of things. Bessie Whitman still tended to Ethel’s personal needs. Pearl and others could be relied upon to keep everything else in order. Every day some word or other came from Gumm or the Shubert organization about At Home Abroad: rehearsal schedules, costume fittings, publicity stills. Ethel attended to all that was required of her, but she also had to prepare herself for the Apollo.
Like the Cotton Club, the Apollo, located on West 125th Street, had become another Harlem entertainment landmark. The theater was built in 1914, but in 1934, Frank Schiffrin and Leo Brecher took over the theater to present major Black entertainers; Ellington, Bojangles, Bessie Smith, and Buck and Bubbles—and later stars like Nat “King” Cole and James Brown—all appeared there. The Apollo also became famous for its gorgeous chorus girls and its amateur nights, where unknowns like Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Billie Holiday introduced themselves to the world. Unlike the Cotton Club, however, the Apollo opened its doors to Black audiences. It could be a tough place because the Black audiences could be quite vocal if they didn’t like what they saw. On the bill with Ethel were her protégées the Brown Sisters; comedian Pigmeat Markham; Jimmy Baskett (who would later play Uncle Remus in Disney’s Song of the South); the Apollo’s MC, Ralph Cooper; and former child star Sunshine Sammy. Among the numbers Ethel would perform were her standards, as well as “Miss Otis Regrets.” Since she hadn’t played Harlem in almost three years, this engagement was special to her, yet she also considered it a fairly routine booking. Still, it was grueling work. There were sometimes five shows a day, and because the Apollo was not yet air-conditioned, the sweltering heat made some patrons restless and irritable. For Ethel, it was hard to be gowned and fully made up and then to perform her numbers with the temperature steadily rising outdoors and indoors. Before her entrance, Ralph Cooper made jokes and had the crowd laughing, perhaps getting them in a mood for a different type of performance. It is hard to say what went wrong, but the Apollo audience just didn’t seem excited by Ethel’s material.
Marvel Cooke wrote that the “incomparable” Waters had to contend with the Apollo’s “whistling, wise-cracking292, gum-snapping, foot-stomping audience . . . an audience which romps raucously with Ralph Cooper and returns his ‘Hup’ with a ‘hup, hup, hup’ . . . an audience which itself goes to the theatre to display its uncertain talents—not especially to enjoy the performance of others—to an audience which mistakes smut for art. In that audience Ethel shone like a jewel in a bucket of mud.” Cooke believed the audience “was laughing in all the wrong places. During her serious interpretation of ‘Miss Otis Regrets,’ for instance, I heard many a snicker when Miss Otis was being lynched!” Cooke recalled that Ethel looked weary when she saw her offstage one evening, weary because of the audience’s reaction. She had a loud altercation with Cooper, letting him know that some of his banter had to be toned down. But the real question on her mind was: Had she lost her touch? The Black audience had always been her barometer. They were the most appreciative audiences in the world if they liked you. Did they still prefer that she sing the old “dirty” songs? Was a new generation in search of a different kind of singer, a different kind of star? Was she now considered part of the established mainstream entertainment world? Between the nightly performances, Ethel retreated outside the theater where she sat in her luxurious Lincoln sedan, which was parked by the stage entrance. Friends and members of the Negro press knew that’s where they could find her if they wanted to chat. In the end, playing the Apollo was not one of her stellar engagements. And it may have led her to question what success on the white time was worth—if she was to lose her Black following.
Much was at stake with At Home Abroad—for Ethel, for the revue’s young director, and for the producers, Lee and J. J. Shubert. With what he envisioned as a prestige production with major stars, Lee Shubert believed he could further establish his brother and himself as producers of quality shows. With that in mind, he had already selected a relative newcomer, Vincente Minnelli, not only to design the costumes and sets for the musical but also to stage it.
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in 1903 in Chicago, he had grown up in a bustling show business atmosphere. His parents had been performers in tent show
s before leaving their careers behind to settle in Delaware, Ohio. Upon graduating from high school, young Les, as he was known, headed to Chicago. Sensitive, artistic, and burning with ambition, he took courses at Chicago’s Art Institute. But mainly he learned on the job, at first as a fourth-assistant display artist at the Marshall Field Department Store, later as an assistant to the photographer Paul Stone, and then as the chief designer for the Balaban and Katz organization, which was Chicago’s chief movie theater chain. By this time, he had also changed his first name, dropping the Lester and adopting his father’s name, Vincente. In 1931, Minnelli moved to New York, where he had his first Broadway job designing for Earl Carroll’s Vanities. Later came a major break when he was hired not only to conceive but to direct the elaborate stage shows at Radio City Music Hall. At this time, he got an offer from Lee Shubert to do a Broadway show.
Though wildly successful, both Lee and his brother J. J. were not yet taken seriously. “The Shuberts had started293 producing plays as far back as 1901, and they had great financial success in supplying the lowest common denominator to popular musical theater,” said Minnelli. Having produced operettas and revues that often looked as if they had been thrown together without much creativity, the brothers “were a schlock operation,” said Minnelli, “the theater’s bargain basement.” Nor were the brothers particularly close. Often the two didn’t even speak to one another. “Lee and Jake waged a love-hate relationship and had no personal dealings with each other.” Nonetheless, they had reached an audience. ”They flourished by never underestimating the gullibility of the public. The Shuberts hired the finest musicians for a show’s opening, then after the reviews were in, replaced them with lowly scale performers. If they had a success with a production one season, they’d open a ragtag version the following year, run it for two weeks, and then ship out to the provinces as ‘direct from Broadway.’ ” But now, said Minnelli, Lee Shubert, having already produced two top-flight productions, The Ziegfeld Follies of 1933 and Life Begins at 8:40, and having worked with such stars as Fannie Brice, Ray Bolger, and Bert Lahr and such composers as Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, and Yip Harburg, “wanted respectability.” “I want to move on to quality shows,” Shubert told Minnelli, “and I think you should be with us.”
Minnelli’s contract gave him total control over his show’s content. “I would also have294 the authority to hire everyone connected with the venture, from crew to musicians to cast members.” He then set about putting together a revue, the type of show that As Thousands Cheer had been and Depression theatergoers had enjoyed. It would hop from one sketch to another with music, plenty of costumes, and lots of scenery changes. “The concept was to295 do a geographical revue, a musical holiday trip through Europe, Africa, Japan, and the West Indies,” said Minnelli. “Our original title was Not in the Guidebook, but it was soon changed to At Home Abroad.”
Signed to create the score for At Home Abroad were Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz. In 1931, they had written the music for The Band Wagon, and during their career, they would be the authors of such classics as “Dancing in the Dark,” “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan,” and “By Myself.” New York–born Dietz also served as director of advertising at MGM and later as a vice president in charge of publicity at the studio. Dietz would also write sketches for At Home Abroad, along with Marc Connelly, Dion Titheradge, and Raymond Knight.
Signed to star was comedienne Beatrice Lillie. Born in Toronto in 1894, she had first performed as part of a children’s act with her two sisters. At fifteen, she sailed to England, where her career took off. Appearing in revues both in England and in the States, she had a reputation as being the funniest woman alive and was known for her trademark long cigarette holder, her close-cropped hair, her fezlike cap, her acerbic wit, and her association with Noël Coward. In 1920, she had married the future Sir Robert Peel, who died in 1934 at the age of thirty-six. Hence, she was known as Lady Peel, but she appeared not to take that title too seriously.
Much as Minnelli was always in awe of Lillie’s talent, he wanted his revue to be new-style, innovative, and modern—to have an extra kick. During his Chicago years, he had been aware of that tall ebony singer-dancer-comedienne who was in and out of the city in any number of Negro productions and who had dazzled the critic Ashton Stevens. That same entertainer had also transformed As Thousands Cheer into precisely the kind of audience pleaser that he hoped At Home Abroad would be. She had changed the very concept of what a Negro woman could do on Broadway. Early on, Minnelli wanted Ethel in the show. So did Lee Shubert. Ethel realized this could be a major production. But like Minnelli, she was cautious about working for the Shuberts.
“We started rehearsing in296 July of 1935 and were scheduled to open almost three months later in New York,” said Minnelli. The production’s budget was an estimated $130,000. Tap dancer Eleanor Powell was signed for the show, as was ballet dancer Paul Haakon, Hoosier radio comic Herb Williams, British comedian Reginald Gardner, Eddie Foy Jr., the young dancer Vera Allen, and the African American group Six Spirits of Rhythm. Thomas Mitchell would direct the dialogue of the sketches. Minnelli would be credited with directing and staging the entire work. “Nobody told me I couldn’t continue performing all my music hall roles,” said Minnelli. “With the longer lead time, I convinced myself that I could direct, design costumes, decorate sets, and supervise the lighting.”
At Home Abroad was another show that Ethel had to brace herself for. To break down racial barriers in yet another white Broadway production meant there would be familiar challenges, to put it politely. Again there was discussion about the billing. Though she did not expect to be billed above Beatrice Lillie, this time around Ethel insisted that her name be above the title, like Lillie’s. But Beatrice Lillie’s representatives balked at the idea. Mock-ups of ads were sent back and forth in attempts to get approval from both sides, and in the end, though both names were above the title, Lillie’s name was still slightly higher than Ethel’s.
Again Ethel would have four songs to perform, though no one thought any of the numbers matched the quality of those in As Thousands Cheer. But Ethel went into rehearsals confident that she could make her magic work on the numbers, “A Thief in the Night” and “Steamboat Whistle.” Another number, “Got a Bran’ New Suit,” to be performed late in the show, would feature Ethel singing while Eleanor Powell tap-danced. With the fourth, “Hottentot Potentate,” which attempted to have some of the zing and heat of “Heat Wave,” she would be accompanied by the Six Spirits of Rhythm. In the orchestra was Eddie Mallory on trumpet.
Beatrice Lillie was considered the show’s top banana. “She was a huge297 star, and Bea, unconsciously I’m sure, assumed all her rightful prerogatives,” recalled Vincente Minnelli. “Her career was at its height. Her every gesture onstage was hilarious. All she had to do was turn her profile or move a certain way or raise a finger.” Minnelli remembered: “Offstage, Bea was not very talkative, and she was seldom funny. But she was wonderful company, and had an enormous number of friends.” That number did not include Ethel. Though the two remained cordial, the theater community was abuzz with stories that the women had come to “loathe” one another.
Still, one thing was very much in Ethel’s favor. Not for a minute did Minnelli ever undervalue her talent or her importance to At Home Abroad. Because of the times, the ways of the theater, and the racial attitudes in the nation itself, he understood she would not be considered a star quite in the ranks of Bea Lillie, but he also knew that no one could really compete with Ethel. Theatergoers might indeed leave the show thinking more about her performance than anyone else’s, even if that was not always openly acknowledged. For Minnelli, who would always admire not only great talent but great star personas as well, Ethel possessed both. For one number, Minnelli designed an elaborate costume for her with thick sparkling gold bands around her arms and neck, a striking blue gown, and an extravagant headdress. As over-the-top as the outfit was, Ethel, just as she had done with her cost
ume for “Heat Wave,” would know how to move in it, to bring the design itself to life. She would wear it. It would never wear her.
Minnelli, a pure colorist, as would be demonstrated later in his Hollywood musicals, understood the way the colors would play on Ethel’s vibrant brown complexion. The costume might both eroticize and exoticize her, in a way similar to what her “Heat Wave” costume had done. But Ethel would bring the colors to life. Minnelli had a masterful understanding—or intuitive grasp—of the way that the skin tones of some Black women, especially those who knew how to move, as Ethel and Josephine Baker did, could intensify the colors and the textures and designs of the fabric. For Baker in the 1936 Ziegfeld Follies, he designed “a shimmering sari” for one number. For another, he created a dress of gold mesh. “With it Josephine wore a plum-colored ostrich cape,” said Minnelli. “Critics may have complained that her thin, reedy voice didn’t fill the theater, but none of them denied that her gorgeous figure did more than ample justice to the costumes.” In some respects, he was ahead of Parisian designers of the 1970s like Hubert de Givenchy, Karl Lagerfeld, and most notably, Yves Saint Laurent, all of whom daringly used the Black model Mounia for colorful fantasies; they ended up stunning audiences, and in turn helped to revolutionize the fashion world. By the time Ethel took the stage in Minnelli’s costumes, something else would have transpired: through controlled dieting, fasting, and exercise—that daily romp around the bridle path on horseback—that matronly looking woman in the photo in the Chicago Defender would have completely vanished. Somehow she was looking hot again. Ironically, At Home Abroad would mark the last of her sexy, goddessy performances.
Even as Minnelli worked with her, even as he saw her short temper and her suspiciousness, he must have envisioned a future in which the two would work together again. Of the men who would direct her, Minnelli and later Elia Kazan and Fred Zinnemann appeared to understand her best. Each took time with her and studied her to discover the best way of working with her. Some stars needed a tough hand, a disciplinarian director who would bark out commands. Others needed a more sensitive approach. Despite her temper, Ethel fell into the latter category. Kazan said she had to be treated as if she were intelligent, which both he and Minnelli immediately recognized she was. And she seemed to need patience, despite the fact that she could be so unwilling to give it to others.
