by Donald Bogle
Graham’s ministry had caught the eye of publishing czar William Randolph Hearst, who believed that Graham’s Christian base, possibly a conservative one, might aid in the battle against communism. At one point, Hearst reportedly told his editors to “puff Graham,” meaning build him up in the Hearst corporation’s newspapers and magazines. By 1954, Graham made the cover of Henry Luce’s Time, which was one of the great professional status symbols for decades. Eventually, his Billy Graham Evangelistic Associates, with headquarters first in Minneapolis and later in Charlotte, North Carolina, grew into a massive organization with a weekly radio program, Hour of Decision; a syndicated newspaper column, My Answer; a magazine, Decision; World Wide Pictures, which produced and distributed more than 130 productions; and Christianity Today.
Graham did have his critics. In 1950, after meeting with President Harry Truman at the White House, Graham told the press about discussing how to fight communism in North Korea. Annoyed, Truman labeled him a “counterfeit” publicity seeker. Afterward Graham learned not to reveal private conservations with leaders. Eventually, he would meet with all the nation’s presidents in the twentieth century. As President Dwight David Eisenhower neared death, he asked to see Graham. Though perhaps thought of as a Republican conservative, especially later when he visited Richard Nixon at the White House, Graham was a registered Democrat.
Early on, Graham also opposed segregation. Following Martin Luther King Jr.’s imprisonment at the time of the Montgomery bus boycotts, Graham contributed bail money to help with his release. During Eisenhower’s presidency, he wanted federal troops sent to Little Rock at the time schools were being desegregated. Later he refused to go to South Africa until the government would permit desegregated audiences to attend his revivals.
But in the 1950s, as postwar America was about to enter an unprecedented era of financial prosperity, Graham called for the nation to renew itself, to find God, to honor Jesus Christ, its savior. As his national prominence grew, so did his ambition to reach more of the country. Now he launched his Crusades, a series of large-scale revival-style religious rallies. In May 1957, he was due to bring his Crusade to New York’s Madison Square Garden.
Before the Crusade’s arrival, an entranced Ethel listened to Graham on the radio and believed she was rediscovering a faith and a love for Jesus that had been dormant for decades. That didn’t mean she had not sung her Lord’s praises all this time. But now she reexamined her life, her goals, her actions. Graham struck a nerve, which was surprising because when she thought of good old-time preaching, it was with a Black minister in the pulpit. The fact that Graham was white would lead to a shift in her attitudes about the ofays.
On the Tex and Jinx Show, Tex McCrary asked if she planned to attend the Graham Crusade. Not having seriously considered doing so until that moment, she answered yes and also predicted: “The Garden’s not only614 going to be full, but the meeting will be extended.” Later she professed that she had not known what led her to make such a comment. Finally, she attributed it to the Lord leading her down a new path. Regardless, she received a call from Lane Adams, a member of the Graham organization, who had heard her statements and offered her tickets to the first week of rallies.
With a group of nine friends, she arrived at Madison Square Garden, then located at 50th Street and Eighth Avenue. Ethel was very familiar with the old Garden, its splendors and its history. Here was the site for the circus when it came to town, for hockey and basketball games, for great boxing bouts. Here she had performed in many benefits and fundraisers. That night Madison Square Garden was filled to capacity for the Crusade. The Crusade Team, as members of the organization were called, was on the lookout for her. “We were shown the615 entrance where to my surprise they were expecting me,” Ethel recalled. Right away, it appeared as if the team believed she could be important to the Crusade, if that meant no more than her speaking well of the Crusade on future television broadcasts. That evening, though Ethel may not have thought of it in such a way, was another form of theater. The lights, the music, the speakers, the choir, the amplified sounds, the beautiful choir robes, the crowd itself, and the charismatic centerpiece, Reverend Graham himself, were all there to lift the spirit, to alter consciousness, to create a scintillating communal reverie—as foot soldiers helped both the committed and the wayward, the devoted and the backsliders, to reach into themselves and thereby find themselves, and therefore find the Lord.
Mesmerized by Graham’s sermon, she admitted, “I couldn’t tell you616 a single thing he said in so many words.” But she knew he had opened a door, that his inspired message had given her hope and direction, and that her life was about to change. Leaving Madison Square Garden in an exalted state, she returned the next night and the nights that followed. But she no longer wanted to take friends with her. Nor did she want to wait in line to enter the arena. Her legs were weak and her fatigue was as debilitating as ever. At that point, she called Lane Adams to ask if she might be given a special “button” that would allow immediate entry. Adams informed her that if she joined the group’s choir, she would automatically be guaranteed such a button. But Ethel balked. “The last thing I617 wanted to do was to sing in that choir. I did hate group-singing,” she said. When Adams insisted, Ethel finally agreed. “If I had to say I’d sing in the choir in order to get into the meeting, I’d do it. All I wanted was to get in without dropping dead outside.” That night, as she was about to take a seat in the alto section of the choir, she was so large that a man was brought in to saw off an arm of the chair so she could be seated.
Thereafter, Ethel Waters nightly took her position with the choir. Not long afterward, the flashbulbs popped and the press followed the story. Once again, she made for good copy. The famous singer, having endured tough financial times, believed herself safe and saved now in the arms of the Lord, thanks to the words and encouragement of this new-style evangelist, Billy Graham. “This is the most618 wonderful thing that could happen for New York,” she told the press. “Billy Graham is one of God’s disciples. He and I speak the same language. You see, I’m hipped with God.” At this point, Ethel looked as if she wanted simply to blend in with the group. But, of course, that would not last. At one of the gatherings, a request was made for Ethel to sing “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Though hesitant, she performed the song, which was perhaps the highlight of the evening.
Though possibly unfair to say that the organization used her, she was indeed of use. It never hurt to have an endorsement, by her mere presence and then by her statements to the press, from this famous woman. Many assumed that Graham’s followers were mainly white. Her presence suggested that Graham could communicate with all Americans, white and Black. The presence of this Black earth mother—a comforting, devout, trustworthy, kind-hearted, thoughtful, wise woman—also enhanced and amplified the image of the Crusades themselves. No one could ever say that either Reverend Graham’s organization or Ethel had planned things this way, but certainly these were part of the effects.
By the time she met the Crusade’s musical director, Cliff Barrows, he was well aware of the impact of her presence at the Crusades. One evening, shortly after it was learned that the New York Crusade would be extended for four additional weeks, Barrows, as Ethel recalled, took the microphone to announce that a request had been made from someone in the audience for Ethel Waters to perform “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” on next Tuesday evening’s television broadcast. He repeated the request. Naturally, Ethel agreed. On the following Tuesday, after performing her now signature song, Waters said she “knew something deeper was619 taking place.” Having wrestled with the thought of her show business career versus her new recommitment to Christ, she “found out that the two lives could not mix.” After performing “Sparrow” five times at the New York Crusade, she suggested to Cliff Barrow, “who was still pretty620 much a stranger to me,” that a recording should be made of her singing. “I thought they’d get in a lot of money. They did,” said Ethel. An estimated 842,000 p
eople had attended the Graham Crusade in New York.
For Ethel, the sixteen weeks of the Crusade had been an exhilarating experience, but she soon prepared to return to Los Angeles to look into the sale of her home. She had postponed her trip for too long. “Three times I made621 reservations back to Los Angeles and each time I canceled.” But Floretta Howard had written to tell her it was imperative to return to Los Angeles: there was a buyer for her home. A sprawling urban center that was called “72 suburbs in search of a city,” Los Angeles had been undergoing a major transformation with the construction of a vast system of freeways—the Pasadena, Hollywood, San Bernardino, Santa Ana, and Terminal Island—which unified the metropolitan area. Now, ambitious plans were under way for the Santa Monica Freeway, which would cut into Sugar Hill. Many of the great homes of the Black elite were being bought, later to be torn down to make way for the new freeway. Though she was grateful for the prospect of a buyer, she had loved the home on Hobart and hated to see it go.
But before her Los Angeles plans were finalized, she was contacted by another member of the Graham team, George Wilson. While en route to Los Angeles, could she stop in Minneapolis for a Youth for Christ event? Never having heard of Wilson, she was annoyed by his calls. “I was getting a622 little hot under the collar.” Finally, she told him she would do no such thing. No doubt that team member saw flashes of Ethel’s formidable temper that day. Finally, Wilson “had to call Billy623 long distance and get him to call me,” she said, “and tell me it was all right before I’d stop over and sing at Youth for Christ.”
A call from Graham was not an everyday occurrence. Those who had read press accounts and seen pictures of Ethel at the Crusades often assumed that she and Billy Graham had become close friends, but while her admiration for him was and would remain unfaltering, she did not know Graham personally. Nor had she actually met his musical director, Cliff Barrows. “I hadn’t met either624 of them,” she said. “That was the funny part. Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away from that Crusade because I felt so much love and as though everybody was my friend, but I’d never met most of the main ones. . . . I still had only nodded at Billy.” Graham’s ministry kept him constantly on the go. He respected Waters and was moved by her faith, but, frankly, it appeared as if he rarely had time for significant new personal relationships. The same was true no doubt of his wife, Ruth. For her part, Ethel must not have expected to be chummy with Graham. His message was far more important than socializing. Yet the public perception would always be that they were the closest of friends.
Ethel attended the Youth for Christ session in Minneapolis. She also appeared with the Crusade in San Francisco. Over eighteen thousand people attended.
In September 1957, Ethel surprised many when she flew with Lillian Gish, Burgess Meredith, Eileen Heckart, James Daly, playwright Thornton Wilder, and other American artists to West Berlin. All were participants in a festival of seven one-act plays by Eugene O’Neill, William Saroyan, Tennessee Williams, and Wilder. It was her first trip outside the country since her visit to Paris and London in the late 1920s. Considered an important cultural exchange in this era of the cold war, the dramas were performed at West Berlin’s new $5 million Congress Hall, which had been constructed under the auspices of the United States and Germany. The opening program was a performance by modern dance’s Martha Graham, with Virgil Thomson conducting the RIAS Orchestra of Berlin. Ethel agreed to appear in two one-act plays by Wilder—Bernice and The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden. The plays teamed Ethel with a young generation of African American actors such as Bill Gunn, Vinnie Burrows, Billie Allen, and Richard Ward. Despite her health problems—shortness of breath, difficulty in walking and maintaining her balance, a familiar fatigue and weariness—the entire experience gave Ethel the opportunity to stretch her talents. Her participation also suggested that she was not yet ready to forsake her career. Perhaps all she really needed now were solid, challenging roles to play. Upon returning to the States, she also appeared on television in the “Sing for Me” episode of Matinee Theatre in October.
But during 1958, her work with the Graham organization once again became her primary focus. The rallies. The revivals. The telecasts. The interviews with the press. When Reverend Graham gave a compelling sermon at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, in which he said that the church must speak out on the issues of race, alcoholism, and mental illness, Ethel informed the press that she had come to the Bay Area “because my child needs625 me, so I came out here to smile at him and let him know he was on the right track.” The press reported that Waters’ “appearance in the huge626 arena, swelled the crowd to the largest total in twenty-three days. Seventeen thousand five hundred overflowed the place and doubled the previous high.”
She also appeared in the Graham organization’s Christian movie The Heart Is a Rebel. A deeply religious nurse named Gladys, Waters’ character is instrumental in helping the mother of a boy with a heart condition cope with his illness through faith. Ultimately, both parents must rededicate themselves to prayer and their religious convictions as their son recovers. Once again, she played a nurturing Black woman making it her business to help the whites around her. She also sang in the film, and though the writing was far from the complex beauty of The Member of the Wedding, Ethel somehow made the character Gladys believable and likable. Premiering at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on June 3, 1958, The Heart Is a Rebel had a series of one-night showings in forty cities, followed by screenings in local churches, clubs, and auditoriums. Though Ethel agreed to help publicize the film, the promotion tour often was hard on her physically. When she arrived at the Toronto opening where she was to speak to an audience of three thousand, there was a foul-up in the request to have a large chair onstage for her. By now, Ethel weighed 350 pounds. After Ethel sat uncomfortably in a regular-size chair, she rose to leave. But the chair stuck to her, and two men had to come onstage to remove it. Ethel handled it all graciously, but obviously it was an embarrassing moment. On June 4, her film Carib Gold finally had a Los Angeles opening at the RKO Hillstreet Theatre. But it soon vanished from sight. Later she was briefly seen in the documentary of the 1957 New York Crusade called Miracle in Manhattan.
She still took work wherever she could find it. In July, she arrived in Flint, Michigan, to appear in a local production of The Member of the Wedding at Flint Junior College. How this engagement came about is anyone’s guess. She performed with students from Flint Junior College. Cast as her foster brother, Honey, the student Clisson Woods didn’t recall being particularly nervous about working with her. Somehow he knew she was important, but years later, he admitted he didn’t really comprehend what a major talent she was. During the brief rehearsals, he never saw any signs of the Waters temperament. Mainly, she seemed grandmotherly to him, and frankly, he thought she was just old. One afternoon he received a message requesting that he come to her hotel room to speak to her. “When I got there,” he said, “she sat me down and told me that my English was too proper for the character of Honey. She said, ‘Child, you’ve got to drop the consonants at the end of your words. Drop those ‘g’s and ‘t’s. Say goin’, not going.’ ” He thought she had a point. He did as she instructed and everything was fine. At the end of the production’s brief run at the college, she signed his copy of the play.
During this period, she appeared at other colleges. Jim Malcolm recalled her appearance at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, in the early 1960s, where he was a professor. “It was a church-related628 school,” said Malcolm. Arrangements for her to come had been made through Reginald Beane, whom Malcolm had contacted in New York. “She arrived at the airport. And I remember that students met her there and gave her flowers. She agreed to come only because of Beane,” recalled Malcolm. That evening she performed. “Her voice wasn’t what it had once been. But she had command of her effects. The only song I remember her singing was ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow.’ It was a very large auditorium. Actually, a chapel that could have easily held over a thou
sand. She was very good-natured and sweet, but she had requirements. I can’t remember what they were. But the wife of the college president made it her business to make sure Waters was comfortable in the guest house.”
Surprisingly, Hollywood approached her again. Briefly, a producer launched new plans for a movie about her life. Pearl Bailey hoped to play the lead. Ethel’s demands, however, killed the project once more. Actress Juanita Moore recalled that when there were plans to remake Imitation of Life, originally the producers thought of doing it as a musical, with Ethel as the self-sacrificing mother whose daughter passes for white. Eventually, Moore played the mother in the 1959 movie version for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress.
The offer, however, that Ethel considered important came from producer Jerry Wald at Twentieth Century Fox for the plum role of Dilsey in the screen adaptation of William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Her appearance in the television version a few years earlier had been the most memorable thing about it. With Martin Ritt set to direct, producer Wald gathered A-list stars for this Technicolor presentation. Cast as the wayward Quentin was Joanne Woodward, still aglow after her Oscar win a few years earlier for The Three Faces of Eve. Playing Jason was another Oscar winner—for The King and I—Yul Brynner. British actress Margaret Leighton was cast as the lost and doomed Caddy. Sexy Southern dramas suddenly seemed in vogue. At MGM, Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman had starred as Maggie and Brick in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. At Fox, Newman and Woodward had joined Orson Welles, Lee Remick, and Anthony Franciosa in The Long Hot Summer, directed by Martin Ritt. With all the heat and steam in The Sound and the Fury, some may have questioned how Ethel accepted the role. Was there God in this drama? No matter: she knew an A-list movie when she saw one, and she was signed.
