Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the
Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "
Dinah
In the Book of Genesis, Dinah (; ) was the seventh child and only daughter of Leah and Jacob, and one of the Patriarchs (Bible)#Matriarchs, matriarchs of the Israelites. The episode of her violation by Shechem, son of a Canaanite or Hivite prin ...
", "
Stormy Weather", "
Taking a Chance on Love", "
Heat Wave", "
Supper Time", "
Am I Blue?
"Am I Blue?" is a 1929 song copyrighted by Harry Akst (music) and Grant Clarke (lyrics), then featured in four films that year, most notably with Ethel Waters in the movie '' On with the Show''. It has appeared in 42 movies, most recently '' Fu ...
", "
Cabin in the Sky
Cabin may refer to:
Buildings
* Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
* Log cabin, a house built from logs
* Cottage, a small house
* Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
* Cabin, small free-standing structures that serve as ...
", "
I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "
His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...
to be nominated for an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment in ...
, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a
Primetime Emmy Award
The Primetime Emmy Awards, or Primetime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), the Primetime ...
.
Early life
Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on October 31, 1896 (some sources incorrectly state her birth year as 1900
) as a result of the rape of her teenaged African-American mother, Louise Anderson (1881–1962),
[ by 17 year old John Wesley (or Wesley John) Waters (1878–1901),][ a pianist and family acquaintance from a middle-class African-American background. Waters' family was very fair skinned, his mother in particular.] Many sources, including Ethel herself, reported for years that her mother was 12 or 13 years old at the time of the rape, 13 when Ethel was born. Stephen Bourne opens his 2007 biography, ''Ethel Waters: Stormy Weather'', with the statement that genealogical research has shown that Louise Anderson may have been 15 or 16 years old.
Waters played no role in raising his daughter. Soon after she was born, her mother married Norman Howard, a railroad worker, with whom she had a daughter, Juanita Howard, Ethel's half-sister. Ethel used the surname Howard as a child and then reverted to using the surname Waters. She was raised in poverty by Sally Anderson, her grandmother, who worked as a housemaid, and with two of her aunts and an uncle. Waters never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. Of her difficult childhood, she said "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."
Waters grew tall, standing in her teens. According to jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters's birth in the North and her peripatetic (or nomadic) life exposed her to many cultures. Waters first married in 1910 at the age of 13, but her husband was abusive, and she soon left the marriage and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel, working for $4.75 per week. On her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street. She was persuaded to sing two songs and impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She recalled that she earned the rich sum of $10 per week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.
Career
Singing
After her start in Baltimore, Waters toured on the black vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...
circuit, in her words "from nine until unconscious." Despite her early success, she fell on hard times and joined a carnival traveling in freight cars headed for Chicago. She enjoyed her time with the carnival and recalled, "the roustabouts and the concessionaires were the kind of people I'd grown up with, rough, tough, full of larceny towards strangers, but sentimental and loyal to their friends and co-workers." But she did not last long with them and soon headed south to Atlanta, where she worked in the same club as Bessie Smith. Smith demanded that Waters not compete in singing blues opposite her. Waters conceded and sang ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or '' ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
s and popular songs. Around 1919, Waters moved to Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harl ...
and became a performer in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s.
Her first Harlem job was at Edmond's Cellar, a club with a black patronage that specialized in popular ballads. She acted in a blackface comedy, ''Hello 1919''. Jazz historian Rosetta Reitz pointed out that by the time Waters returned to Harlem in 1921, women blues singers were among the most powerful entertainers in the country. In 1921, Waters became the fifth black woman to make a record, for tiny Cardinal Records. She later joined Black Swan, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters later commented that Henderson tended to perform in a more classical style than she preferred, often lacking "the damn-it-to-hell bass."
She recorded for Black Swan from 1921 through 1923. Her contract with Harry Pace made her the highest paid black recording artist at the time. In early 1924, Paramount bought Black Swan, and she stayed with Paramount through the year.
Around that time, Waters was approached by Maury Greenwald for the London run of '' Plantation Days'',[ although she later joined the company on its return to Chicago in August 1923, as an "extra added attraction" to "save the fast-flopping revue".]
She started working with Pearl Wright, and they toured in the South. In 1924, Waters played at the Plantation Club on Broadway. She also toured with the Black Swan Dance Masters.
She first recorded for Columbia
Columbia may refer to:
* Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America
Places North America Natural features
* Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...
in 1925, achieving a hit with "Dinah
In the Book of Genesis, Dinah (; ) was the seventh child and only daughter of Leah and Jacob, and one of the Patriarchs (Bible)#Matriarchs, matriarchs of the Israelites. The episode of her violation by Shechem, son of a Canaanite or Hivite prin ...
".
With Earl Dancer, she joined what was called the "white time" Keith Vaudeville Circuit, a vaudeville circuit performing for white audiences and combined with screenings of silent movies. They received rave reviews in Chicago and earned the unheard-of salary of US$1,250 in 1928. In September 1926, Waters recorded " I'm Coming Virginia", composed by Donald Heywood with lyrics by Will Marion Cook. She is often wrongly attributed as the author. The following year, Waters sang it in a production of ''Africana'' at Broadway's Daly's Sixty-Third Street Theatre. In 1929, Waters and Wright arranged the unreleased Harry Akst song "Am I Blue?
"Am I Blue?" is a 1929 song copyrighted by Harry Akst (music) and Grant Clarke (lyrics), then featured in four films that year, most notably with Ethel Waters in the movie '' On with the Show''. It has appeared in 42 movies, most recently '' Fu ...
", which was used in the movie '' On with the Show'' and became a hit and her signature song.
Film, theater and television
In 1933, Waters appeared in a satirical all-black film, '' Rufus Jones for President'', which featured the child performer Sammy Davis Jr. as Rufus Jones.
She went on to star at the Cotton Club, where, according to her autobiography, she "sang ' Stormy Weather' from the depths of the private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated." In 1933, she had a featured role in the successful Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin (born Israel Beilin; yi, ישראל ביילין; May 11, 1888 – September 22, 1989) was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook.
Born in Imperial Russ ...
Broadway musical revue '' As Thousands Cheer'' with Clifton Webb, Marilyn Miller, and Helen Broderick.
She became the first black woman to integrate Broadway's theater district more than a decade after actor Charles Gilpin's critically acclaimed performances in the plays of Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature, literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama tech ...
beginning with '' The Emperor Jones'' in 1920.
Waters held three jobs: in ''As Thousands Cheer'', as a singer for Jack Denny & His Orchestra on a national radio program, and in nightclubs. She became the highest-paid performer on Broadway. Despite this status, she had difficulty finding work. She moved to Los Angeles to appear in the 1942 film ''Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo met ...
''. During the same year, she reprised her starring stage role as Petunia in the all-black film musical ''Cabin in the Sky
Cabin may refer to:
Buildings
* Beach cabin, a small wooden hut on a beach
* Log cabin, a house built from logs
* Cottage, a small house
* Chalet, a wooden mountain house with a sloping roof
* Cabin, small free-standing structures that serve as ...
'' directed by Vincente Minnelli, and starring Lena Horne as the ingenue. Conflicts arose when Minnelli swapped songs from the original script between Waters and Horne: Waters wanted to perform "Honey in the Honeycomb" as a ballad, but Horne wanted to dance to it. Horne broke her ankle and the songs were reversed. She got the ballad and Waters the dance. Waters sang the Academy Award nominated " Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe".
In 1939, Waters became the first African American to star in her own television show, before the debut of Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...
's in 1956. ''The Ethel Waters Show
''The Ethel Waters Show'' was a one-hour American television variety special that ran in the earliest days of NBC, on June 14, 1939, and was hosted by actress and singer Ethel Waters. Waters was the first black performer, male or female, to have he ...
'', a variety special, appeared on NBC on June 14, 1939. It included a dramatic performance of the Broadway play '' Mamba's Daughters'', based on the Gullah
The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the L