Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
| Bill "Bojangles" Robinson | ||
 Robinson in 1933 | ||
| Background information | ||
| Born as: | Luther Robinson | |
| Born | May 25, 1878 Richmond, Virginia, U.S. | |
| Died | Nov 25, 1949 - age 70 New York City, New York, U.S. | |
| Spouse(s): | Lena Chase (1907 - 1922) divorced Fannie S. Clay (1922 - 1943) divorced Elaine Plaines (1944 - - ) | |
| Occupation: | Dancer, actor, activist | |
| Years active: | 1900–1943 | |
Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles (born Luther Robinson; ✦May 25, 1878 – †November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology. His career began in the age of minstrel shows and moved to vaudeville, Broadway theatre, the recording industry, Hollywood films, radio, and television.
According to dance critic Marshall Stearns, "Robinson's contribution to tap dance is exact and specific. He brought it up on its toes, dancing upright and swinging," adding a "hitherto-unknown lightness and presence." His signature routine was the Stair Dance, in which he would tap up and down a set of stairs in a rhythmically complex sequence of steps, a routine that he unsuccessfully attempted to patent. He is also credited with popularizing the word 'copacetic' through his repeated use of it in vaudeville and radio appearances.
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 his own life and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. He used his popularity to challenge and overcome numerous racial barriers. Robinson was one of the first minstrel and vaudeville performers to appear as "Black" without the use of blackface makeup, as well as one of the earliest Black performers to perform solo, overcoming vaudeville's two-colored rule. Additionally, he was an early Black headliner in Broadway shows. Robinson was the first Black performer to appear in a Hollywood film in an interracial dance team (with Shirley Temple in The Little Colonel, 1935), and the first Black performer to headline a mixed-race Broadway production.
Robinson came under heavy criticism for his apparent tacit acceptance of racial stereotypes of the era, with some critics calling him an 'Uncle Tom'. He strongly resented this, and his biographers suggested that critics were underestimating the difficulties faced by Black performers engaging with mainstream White culture at the time, and ignoring his many efforts to overcome racial prejudice. In his public life, Robinson led efforts to persuade the Dallas Police Department to hire its first Black policeman; lobby President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II for more equal treatment of Black soldiers; and stage the first integrated public event in Miami, a fundraiser which was attended by both Black and White city residents.
Robinson was a popular figure in both the Black and White entertainment worlds of his era, and is remembered for the support that he gave to fellow performers, including Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne , Jesse Owens, and the Nicholas Brothers. Sammy Davis Jr. and Ann Miller credited him as a teacher and mentor, Miller saying that he "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.
Despite being the highest-paid Black performer of the time, Robinson died penniless in 1949, his funeral paid for by longtime friend Ed Sullivan. In 1989, Congress designated Robinson's birthday of May 25 as National Tap Dance Day.
Early life
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was born Luther Robinson in Richmond, Virginia, on May 25, 1878, to Maxwell, a machinist, and Maria Robinson, a church choir director. He and his younger brother William were raised in Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood. His grandmother Bedelia Robinson, a former slave, raised him after both of his parents died tragically in 1884: his father died from chronic heart disease, and his mother from unknown natural causes. Details of his early life are known only through legend, much of it perpetuated by Robinson himself. He claimed that he was christened Luther, a name that he did not like. He suggested to his younger brother William that they should exchange names, and they eventually did. His brother subsequently adopted the name of Percy and achieved recognition as a musician under that name.
Career
Early days
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.
In 1890, at the age of 12, Robinson ran away to Washington, D.C., 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. In 1891, he was hired by Whallen and Martel, touring with Mayme Remington's troupe in a show titled The South Before the War, performing again as a pickaninny, despite his age. He traveled 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 the United States Army as a rifleman when the Spanish–American War broke out. He received an accidental gunshot wound from a second lieutenant who was cleaning his gun.
Vaudeville
On March 30, 1900, Robinson entered a buck-and-wing dance contest at the Bijou Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, winning a gold medal and defeating Harry Swinton, star of the show In Old Kentucky and considered the best dancer of his day. 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).
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 vaudeville's two-colored rule, which forbade solo Black acts[Note 1].
When the U.S. entered World War I, the War Department set up a series of Liberty Theatres in the training camps. The Keith and Orpheum Circuits underwrote vaudeville acts at reduced fees. Still, 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.
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 until 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.
Tap Dance Style
As mentioned above, the chapter of Stearns' Bill Robinson:
- Up on the Toes entitled Jazz Dance (1966) describes how Robinson introduced dancing "up on the toes" to tap dance. This was a new addition to King Rastus Brown's popular "flat-footed wizardry." Moving primarily from the waist down, Robinson maintained impressive control of his body. Pete Nugent is said to have remarked, "Robinson was the absolute tops in control." That Robinson infrequently dropped his heels marked a significant change in popular tap technique. Due to his adroit ability to be both light on his feet and distinct in his percussive taps, Robinson was called the "Father of Tapology."
In 1918 at the Palace Theatre in New York, Robinson performed the 'Stair Dance'. Claims regarding the origin of the Stair Dance were highly disputed; however, Robinson was widely credited with the dance because he made it popular. The dance involved "a different rhythm for each step – each one reverberating with a different pitch – and the fact that he had a special set of portable steps enhanced his claim to originating the dance." The popular sensation of the Stair Dance led Robinson to try to secure a patent on the routine through the U.S. Patent Office in Washington D.C., ultimately to no avail; however, the lack of a patent did not diminish Robinson's professional command of the Stair Dance. The entertainment community began associating the Stair Dance exclusively with Robinson as the routine became a standard part of his performances in 1921. Haskins reports that dancer Fred Stone sent Robinson a check for performing the routine.
Robinson's talents transcended his famous Stair Dance by far. The steps themselves were not essential to Robinson's performances; rather, Robinson would naturally shift into "a little skating step to stop-time; or a Scoot step, a cross-over tap" or many other tap steps involved in his particular movement quality. Robinson changed rhythmic meters and tap steps and syncopated breaks seamlessly. Often Robinson would talk to his audience, share anecdotes, and act as if he were surprised by the action of his feet. His amusing personality was essential to his performances and popularity. Robinson is said to have consistently performed in split-soled wooden shoes, handcrafted by a Chicago craftsman. Personal life and death Little is known of Robinson's first marriage to Lena Chase in 1907. 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 policemen's 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.
Despite being the highest-paid Black performer of the first half of the 20th century, earning more than US$2 million during his lifetime, Robinson died penniless on November 25, 1949, from heart failure. His funeral was arranged and paid for by longtime friend and television host Ed Sullivan. Robinson lay in repose at the 369th Infantry Regiment Armory in Harlem, where an estimated 32,000 people filed past his open casket to pay their last respects. The schools in Harlem were closed for a half-day so that children could attend or listen to the funeral, which was broadcast over the radio. Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Sr. conducted the service at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, and New York Mayor William O'Dwyer gave the eulogy.[32][33] Robinson is buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens, Brooklyn, New York.
Legacy
Robinson was successful despite the obstacle of racism. A favorite Robinson anecdote is that he seated himself in a restaurant and a customer objected to his presence. When the manager suggested that it might be better if Robinson left. He smiled and asked, "Have you got a ten-dollar bill?" Politely asking to borrow the manager's note for a moment, Robinson added six $10 bills from his own wallet and mixed them up, then extended the seven bills together, adding, "Here, let's see you pick out the colored one." The restaurant manager served Robinson without further delay.
Robinson co-founded the New York Black Yankees baseball team in Harlem in 1936 with financier James "Soldier Boy" Semler. The team was a successful member of the Negro National League until it disbanded in 1948 after Major League Baseball was desegregated.
In 1989, a joint U.S. Senate/House resolution declared "National Tap Dance Day" to be May 25, the anniversary of Bill Robinson's birth.
Robinson was inducted into the National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in 1987.
Popular myths, legends, and misconceptions
There are several commonly cited anecdotes about Robinson that are likely the result of conflicting stories put out by Robinson's second wife, Fanny, or his manager, Marty Forkins, or by various show business associates of Robinson. There are also numerous documented instances in which Robinson gave conflicting stories to news reporters at different times.
According to his biographer, Robinson had previously served in the Spanish–American War, where he sustained an accidental gunshot wound. He was 36 when the U.S entered World War I, and received a letter of commendation from the War Department for his work during the war in boosting morale at training camps in the United States, not overseas.
It has further been claimed that, along with serving in the trenches in World War I, Robinson was also the drum major for the 369th Hellfighters Band and led the regimental band up Fifth Avenue on the 369th's return from overseas.
While numerous sources repeat the claim of Bill Robinson's appointment as drum major in the 369th Regiment Band, this is not mentioned in either Mr. Bojangles, the Bill Robinson biography by Jim Haskins and N. R. Mitgang, or "A Life in Ragtime", the biography of James Reese Europe, the leader of the 369th regimental band.
The origin of the nickname "Mr. Bojangles"
Tales about the origin of Robinson's nickname even varied across the color line, a consequence of differing opinions of him by Black and White people. To Whites, for example, his nickname "Bojangles" meant happy-go-lucky, while the Black variety artist Tom Fletcher claimed it was slang for "squabbler." Robinson himself said he got the nickname as a child in Richmond, which is the most commonly-accepted version.
Copacetic
Robinson is given credit for having popularized the word 'copacetic' and claimed to have invented it while still living in Richmond. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the origins of the word as unknown and documents the earliest written use of the word in 1919, by the newspaperman and author Irving Bacheller, in his serialized book, "A Man for the Ages"; this was followed by uses in 1926 by Carl Van Vechten in his novel "Nigger Heaven", in 1934 in Webster's New International Dictionary, and by John O'Hara in his novel Appointment in Samarra. Haskins' biography of Robinson includes, "Bill was shelling peas at the Jefferson Market, a New York Daily Mirror reporter asked him how he was, and the reply just popped into his head: 'I'm copasetic.'" The word was not popularized until Robinson used the term as an opening for his vaudeville and radio performances. The word was used in films Robinson made with Shirley Temple in the 1930s.
The song "Mr. Bojangles"
Jerry Jeff Walker's 1968 folk song "Mr. Bojangles" has been misinterpreted as a song about Robinson; it indirectly references Robinson through the lead character's use of his nickname "Bojangles," a reference to both being adept at tap dance. According to Walker, a street performer in the New Orleans first precinct jail who called himself "Bo Jangles" was the subject of the song. In the song, the street performer is a heavy drinker with a dog that died; Walker also noted that the street-performer Bo Jangles was white. By Robinson's own account and those of his friends, he neither smoked nor drank (although he was a frequent and avid gambler), and he never had a dog.
- Wikipedia article: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
Filmography
- Wikipedia article: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Career
- Wikipedia article: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Filmography
- Wikipedia article: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson Controversies
Notes
- ↑ vaudeville's two-colored rule, which forbade solo Black acts
External links
- Bill "Bojangles" Robinson @ Find A Grave
- Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at the Internet Broadway Database
- Bill "Bojangles" Robinson at the Internet Movie Database
- Bojangles at the Evergreens Cemetery
 |
Note: Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was a volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen |
Chat rooms • What links here • Copyright info • Contact information • Category:Root