Bert Williams

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Photo portrait of Bert Williams

Bert Williams in blackface

Bert Williams (November 12, 1874 – March 4, 1922) was the pre-eminent African American entertainer of his era.

Williams was born Egbert Austin Williams on the island of Antigua, then part of the British West Indies. In 1888 his family moved to Los Angeles, California. He began his entertainment career in 1892 in San Francisco.

Bert Williams became one of Vaudeville's top artists, both as a solo performer and as part of the successful double-act "Williams & Walker" with partner George Walker. Together they popularized the Cakewalk. Williams was also famous for his performances in blackface. After Walker's death he for some years performed with Eddie Cantor; he also performed with the Ziegfeld Follies.

Bert Williams was a key figure in the development of African American music. In an age when racial inequality and stereotyping were an 'accepted' part of life, he became the first black American to take a lead role on the Broadway stage, and did much to push back the racial barriers during his career. His songs (mostly self-written and displaying a dry wit and observational humor) such as "Nobody" and "All Going Out And Nothing Coming In" proved popular with audiences of all races, paving the way for future generations of black artists. Fellow vaudevillian W.C. Fields described Williams as "the funniest man I ever saw—and the saddest man I ever knew."

In 1915, the Biograph Company made history by being the first movie company to give complete creative control to Bert Williams as a filmmaker, who produced, directed and starred in the Biograph films "Fish" 1915, and "Natural Born Gambler" 1916.

Williams collapsed on stage on February 25, 1922 while singing "Under The Bamboo Tree". He died a week later in the hospital.

Besides the Biograph shorts, he made a series of audio recordings for Columbia Records, both on phonograph cylinders and disc records. The Archeophone label has collected and released all of Williams' recordings on three CDs.

In a memorable turn on a Boston Pops TV special, Ben Vereen performed a tribute to Williams, complete with appropriate makeup and attire, and reprising Williams' high-kick dance steps, to such classic vaudeville standards as Waitin' for the Robert E. Lee.

[edit] Quotes about Bert Williams

• "He has done more for our race than I have. He has smiled his way into people's hearts; I have been obliged to fight my way."
  • Booker T. Washington

• "Funniest man I ever saw, saddest man I ever knew."
  • W. C. Fields

[edit] External links

• Songwriters Hall of Fame, biography of Bert Williams
• DuBois Learning Center, biography
• Bert Williams and George Walker
• Williams and Walker
• interview with Caryl Phillips about Williams: KUOW's The Beat presents a 28-minute interview with Phillips, available in RealAudio.
• interview with Caryl Phillips: "Dancing in the Dark" (Knopf): WAMU's The Diane Rehm Show, a one-hour interview with Phillips, available in RealAudio and Windows Media Player.
• Bert Williams cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
• Bert Williams at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] Further reading

• Phillips, Caryl, Dancing in the Dark, a novel about Bert Williams. Knopf, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4396-4.