Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates (October 11, 1907 – December 6, 1998) was an African-American entertainer from

Fountain Inn, South Carolina Fountain Inn is a city in Greenville and Laurens counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 10,416 at the 2020 census, up from 7,799 in 2010. It is part of the Greenville-Mauldin-Easley Metropolitan Statistical Area. ...

, United States.

Life and career

Early life

Peg Leg Bates was born Clayton Bates on October 10, 1907, in

, the son of Rufus and Emma W Stewart Bates. His mother was a sharecropper. By the age of five, Bates was dancing on the streets of Fountain Inn for pennies and nickels; he lost a leg at the age of 12 in a

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

accident. His uncle, Wit, made his crude first "

peg leg A peg leg is a prosthesis, or artificial limb, fitted to the remaining stump of a human leg, especially a wooden one fitted at the knee. Its use dates to antiquity. History By the late 19th century, prosthetics vendors would offer peg legs as c ...

" after returning home from World War I and finding his nephew disabled. Bates subsequently taught himself to

tap dance Tap dance (or tap) is a form of dance that uses the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion; it is often accompanied by music. Tap dancing can also be performed with no musical accompaniment; the sound of the taps is its ow ...

with a wooden

. By the time he was 15, Bates was again adept enough at dancing to enter amateur talent shows, working his way up to employment through the

Theater Owners Booking Association Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though about a third of them had black owners. These included the restored Morton Theat ...

, which booked entertainers for African-American theaters in the US.

Career

5412-Peg Leg Bates Performing at Denver MD Marathon

At 20, Bates was dancing on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street ** Broadway Theatre (53rd Stre ...

. In the early 1940s, at the Paradise Club in

Atlantic City, New Jersey Atlantic City, sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., is a Jersey Shore seaside resort city (New Jersey), city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Atlantic City comprises the second half of ...

, his "Jet Plane" finale, in which he leaped over the stage, landed on his wooden leg, and then executed a series of backward hops accompanied by trumpet blasts from the band, saw his leg puncture the wooden stage floor. It took half an hour to pull him out. After that, the stage floor was reinforced with metal sheeting. Bates performed on ''

The Ed Sullivan Show ''The Ed Sullivan Show'' is an American television variety show that ran on CBS from June 20, 1948, to March 28, 1971, and was hosted by New York City, New York entertainment columnist Ed Sullivan. It was replaced in September 1971 by the ''CB ...

'' at least 22 times, and had two command performances before the King and Queen of the United Kingdom in 1936 and then again in 1938. During a

USO The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed F ...

hospital tour, he partnered with

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

tap dancer Dixie Roberts, who said "he danced better with one leg than anyone else could with two." He was part of the first

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...

tour of Britain in the mid-1950s.

Peg Leg Bates Country Club

He owned and operated the Peg Leg Bates Country Club in Kerhonkson, New York, from 1951 to 1987, along with his wife Alice E. Bates. This made Bates the first black resort owner in Ulster County in the Catskill Mountains, the famous

Borscht Belt The Borscht Belt, or Yiddish Alps, is a region which was noted for its summer resorts that catered to Jewish vacationers, especially residents of New York City. The resorts, now mostly defunct, were located in the southern foothills of the Catski ...

of Jewish resorts, hotels, and bungalow colonies. He began with four rooms at his country club resort; by 1985, there were 110 units for guests. He leased the resort in 1989, due to the death of his wife in 1987.

Later life

Though Bates retired from show business in 1989, he still performed for various groups, including senior citizens, children and disabled individuals. He was also active in the local Ellenville

Lions Club Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization, currently headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo clubs, Leo) in more than 200 ge ...

, and during the last 10 years of his life he traveled regularly to schools, senior citizen centers, and nursing homes showing a video about his life and talking about his life experiences. He also helped found a local Senior Citizens Center in the Ellenville / Kerhonkson area. Bates was the subject of the 1992

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

''The Dancing Man: Peg Leg Bates'', produced by Hudson West Productions, directed by Dave Davidson, and broadcast on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Death

He collapsed on December 6, 1998 (at the age of 91) on his way to church. He had performed at an award ceremony in his honor at Hillcrest High School and received the Order of the Palmetto.

Family

Bates had a wife, Alice E., and a daughter, Melodye Bates-Holden.

Legacy

The citizens of Fountain Inn erected a life-size statue that can be viewed in front of the city hall and Robert Quillen's library. There are signs at the entrance of the city saying "Peg Leg Bates' home town." U.S. Route 209 in

Ulster County, New York Ulster County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is situated along the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 181,851. The county seat is Kingston, ...

has been named the "Clayton Peg Leg Bates Memorial Highway". He was the subject of the children's book ''Knockin' On Wood: Starring Peg Leg Bates'', written and illustrated by Lynne Barasch, and published in 2012.Lynne Barasch's promotional webpage for ''Knockin' On Wood: Starring Peg Leg Bates''
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Honors

In 1991, Bates was awarded the Flo-Bert Award for being an outstanding figure in the field of tap dancing. In December 1998, Bates performed at an award ceremony at Hillcrest High School in his honor for receiving the Order of the Palmetto, the highest civilian awarded by the state in his hometown of Fountain Inn, South Carolina. Bates was inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2005.

References

External links

*
Statue of Peg Leg Bates, Fountain Inn, SC
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Peg Leg 1907 births 1998 deaths 20th-century American dancers African-American dancers American amputees American tap dancers People from Ulster County, New York People from Ellenville, New York People from Fountain Inn, South Carolina American wheelchair users 20th-century African-American businesspeople 20th-century American businesspeople Dancers with disabilities