The Beyond Black History Month Person of the day is Bill Bojangles Robinson (May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949) was an American tap dancer and actor, the best known and most highly paid African American entertainer in the first half of the twentieth century. His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology, starting in the age of minstrel shows, moving to vaudeville, Broadway, the recording industry, Hollywood radio, and television. According to dance critic Marshall Stearns, “Robinsons contribution to tap dance is exact and specific. He brought it up on its toes, dancing upright and swinging,” giving tap a “…hitherto-unknown lightness and presence.”:pp. 186–187 His signature routine was the stair dance, in which Robinson would tap up and down a set of stairs in a rhythmically complex sequence of steps, a routine that he unsuccessfully attempted to patent. Robinson is also credited with having introduced a new word, copacetic, into popular culture, via his repeated use of it in vaudeville and radio appearances. A popular figure in both the black and white entertainment worlds of his era, he is best known today for his dancing with Shirley Temple in a series of films during the 1930s, and for starring in the musical Stormy Weather (1943), loosely based on Robinsons own life, and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Robinson used his popularity to challenge and overcome numerous racial barriers, becoming: one of the first minstrel and vaudeville performers to appear without the use of blackface makeup one of the earliest African American performers to go solo, overcoming vaudevilles two colored rule a headliner in the first African-American Broadway show, Blackbirds of 1928 the first African American to appear in a Hollywood film in an interracial dance team (with Temple in The Little Colonel),the first African American to headline a mixed-race Broadway production. During his lifetime and afterwards, Robinson also came under heavy criticism for his participation in and tacit acceptance of racial stereotypes of the era, with critics calling him an Uncle Tom figure. Robinson deeply resented such criticism, and his biographers suggested that critics were at best incomplete in making such a characterization, especially given his efforts to overcome the racial prejudice of his era. In his public life Robinson led efforts to: persuade the Dallas police department to hire its first African American policemen lobby President Roosevelt during World War II for more equitable treatment of African American soldiers stage the first integrated public event in Miami, a fundraiser which, with the permission of the mayor, was attended by both black and white city residents Despite being the highest-paid black performer of the era, Robinson died penniless in 1949, and his funeral was paid for by longtime friend Ed Sullivan. Robinson is remembered for the support he gave to fellow performers, including Fred Astaire, Lena Horne, Jesse Owens, and the Nicholas brothers. Both Sammy Davis, Jr. and Ann Miller credit him as a teacher and mentor, and Miller credits him with having “changed the course of my life.” Gregory Hines produced and starred in a biographical movie about Robinson for which he won the NAACP Best actor Award. In 1989, the U.S. Congress designated May 25, Robinsons birthday, as National Tap Dance Day. Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia and raised in its Jackson Ward neighborhood. His parents were Maxwell, a machine-shop worker, and Maria Robinson, a choir singer. His grandmother raised him after both parents died in 1885 when he was seven years old—his father from chronic heart disease and his mother from natural causes. Details of Robinsons early life are known only through legend, much of it perpetuated by Robinson himself. He claimed he was christened Luther—a name he did not like. He suggested to his younger brother Bill that they should exchange names. Eventually, the exchange between the names of both brothers was made. The brother subsequently adopted the name of “Percy” and under that name achieved recognition as a musician. At the age of five, Robinson began dancing for small change, appearing as a hoofer or busker in local beer gardens and in front of theaters for tossed pennies. A promoter saw him performing outside the Globe Theater in Richmond and offered him a job as a pick in a local minstrel show. At that time, minstrel shows were staged by white performers in blackface. Pickaninnies were cute black children at the edge of the stage singing, dancing, or telling jokes: p. 39–40 In 1890, at the age of 12, Robinson ran away to Washington, DC, where he did odd jobs at Benning Race Track and worked briefly as a jockey. He teamed up with a young Al Jolson, with Jolson singing while Robinson danced for pennies or to sell newspapers: p. 42 In 1891 he was hired by Whallen and Martel, touring with Mayme Remingtons troupe in a show titled The South Before the War, performing again as a pickaninny, despite his age. He travelled with the show for over a year before growing too mature to play the role credibly. In 1898 he returned to Richmond where he joined an army unit as a drummer when the Spanish–American War broke out. He received an accidental gunshot wound from a second lieutenant who was cleaning his gun. On March 30, 1900, Robinson entered a buck-and-wing dance contest at the Bijou Theater in Brooklyn, NY, winning a gold medal and defeating Harry Swinton, star of the show In Old Kentucky and considered the best dancer of his day.[5] The resulting publicity helped Robinson to get work in numerous traveling shows, sometimes in a troupe, more frequently with a partner, though not always as a dancer (Robinson also sang and performed two-man comedy routines).[2]:pp. 50, 53 In 1905 Robinson worked with George Cooper as a vaudeville team, replacing Coopers partner on short notice, and performing under the name Cooper & Bailey for several months until the existing booking contracts were completed. In January, 1903, the team was renamed Cooper & Robinson, and was one of only six black acts signed by the Keith Circuit, which catered to white vaudeville audiences. Cooper and Robinson was a comedy act, with Robinson playing the buffoon to Coopers straight man, and Robinson did little dancing in the act. The Keith circuit paid $100 / week, with 26 weeks guaranteed, boosting Robinsons income significantly. By 1912, Robinson was a full partner in the duo, which had become primarily a tap dancing act, booked on both the Keith and Orpheum Circuits. The team broke up in 1914, and vaudeville performer Rae Samuels, who had performed in shows with Robinson, convinced him to meet with her manager (and husband), Marty Forkins. Under Forkins tutelage, Robinson matured and began working as a solo act, increasing his earnings to an estimated $3,500 per week. Forkins accomplished this by inventing an alternate history for Robinson, promoting him as already being a solo act. This technique succeeded, making Robinson one of the first performers to break vaudevilles two colored rule, which forbade solo black acts]:pp. 943–944 When the U.S. entered World War I, the War Department set up a series of Liberty Theaters in the training camps. The Keith and Orpheum Circuits underwrote vaudeville acts at reduced fees,[6] but Robinson volunteered to perform gratis for thousands of troops, in both black and white units of the Expeditionary Forces, receiving a commendation from the War Department in 1918.[2]:p. 98 Throughout the early 1920s, Robinson continued his career on the road as a solo vaudeville act, touring throughout the country and most frequently visiting Chicago, where Marty Forkins, his manager, lived. From 1919–1923 he was fully booked on the Orpheum Circuit, and was signed full-time by the Keith in 1924 and 1925. In addition to being booked for 50–52 weeks (an avid baseball fan, he took a week off for the World Series), Robinson did multiple shows per night, frequently on two different stages. Little is known of Robinsons first marriage to Lena Chase in 1907. They had no children before they separated in 1916, and the marriage ended in 1922. His second wife was Fannie S. Clay whom he married shortly after his divorce from Chase. They divorced in 1943. His third marriage was in 1944 to Elaine Plaines in Columbus, Ohio, and they remained together until Robinson’s death in 1949. There were no children from any of the marriages. Political figures and celebrities appointed Robinson an honorary mayor of Harlem, a lifetime member of policemens associations and fraternal orders, and a mascot of the New York Giants major league baseball team. Robinson reciprocated with open-handed generosity and frequently credited the white dancer James Barton for his contribution to his dancing style.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 01:35:45 +0000
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