Bill Robinson
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- For the baseball player, see: Bill Robinson.
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949) was a pioneer and pre-eminent African-American tap dance performer.
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[edit] Childhood and Early Career
Born in Richmond, Virginia on May 25, 1878, to Maxwell Robinson, a machine-shop worker, and Maria Robinson, a choir singer, Bill Robinson was brought up by his grandmother after the death of his parents when he was still a baby. He was christened Luther, a name he did not like, so he suggested to his younger brother Bill that they should exchange names. When Bill objected, Luther applied his fists, and the exchange was made! (The new 'Luther' later adopted the name Percy and became a well-known drummer.) The details of Robinson's early life are known only through legend, much of it perpetuated by Bill Robinson himself.
At the age of six he began dancing for a living, appearing as a "hoofer," or song-and-dance man, in local beer gardens. At age 7, Bill dropped out of school to pursue dancing. Two years later in Washington, DC, he toured with Mayme Remington's troupe. In 1891 (Ed: another source-1892), at the ripe age of 12, he joined a traveling company in The South Before the War, and in 1905 (Ed: another source 1902) worked with George Cooper as a vaudeville team. He gained great success as a nightclub and musical comedy performer, and during the next 25 years became one of the toasts of Broadway. Not until he was fifty did he dance for white audiences, having devoted his early career exclusively to appearances on the black theater circuit.
In 1908 in Chicago he met Marty Forkins, who became his lifelong manager. Under Forkins' tutelage, Robinson matured and began working as a solo act in nightclubs, increasing his earnings to an estimated $3500 per week. The publicity that gradually came to surround him included the creation of his famous "stair dance" (which he claimed to have invented on the spur of the moment when he was receiving some honor--he could never remember exactly what-- from the King of England. The King was standing at the top of a flight of stairs, and Bojangles' feet just danced up to be honored), his successful gambling exploits, his prodigious charity, his ability to run backward (he set a world's record of 8.2 seconds for the 75-yard backward dash) and to consume ice-cream by the quart, his argot--most notably the neologism copacetic--and such stunts as dancing down Broadway in 1939 from Columbus Circle to 44th St. in celebration of his 61st birthday.
Because his public image became preeminent, little is known of his first marriage to Fannie S. Clay in Chicago shortly after World War I, his divorce in 1943, or his marriage to Elaine Plaines on January 27, 1944, in Columbus, Ohio.
Toward the end of the vaudeville era a white impresario, Lew Leslie, produced Blackbirds of 1928, a black revue for white audiences featuring Robinson and other black stars. From then on his public role was that of a dapper, smiling, plaid-suited ambassador to the white world, maintaining a tenuous connection with the black show-business circles through his continuing patronage of the Hoofer's Club, an entertainer's haven in Harlem. Consequently, blacks and whites developed differing opinions of him. To whites, for example, his nickname "Bojangles" meant happy-go-lucky, while the black variety artist Tom Flatcher claimed it was slang for "squabbler." Political figures and celebrities appointed him 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 Robinson's dancing style.
After 1930 black revues waned in popularity, but Robinson remained in vogue with white audiences for more than a decade in some fourteen motion pictures produced by such companies as RKO, 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. Most of them had musical settings, in which he played old-fashioned roles in nostalgic romances. His most frequent role was that of an antebellum butler opposite Shirley Temple in such films as The Little Colonel (1935), The Littlest Rebel (1935), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938) and Just Around the Corner (1938), or Will Rogers in In Old Kentucky. Rarely did he depart from the stereotype imposed by Hollywood writers. In a small vignette in "Hooray For Love" (1935) he played a mayor of Harlem modeled after his own ceremonial honors; in One Mile From Heaven (1937), he played a romantic lead opposite the singer Lena Horne after Hollywood had relaxed its taboo against such roles for blacks. Audiences enjoyed his style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug. In contrast, Robinson always remained cool and reserved, rarely using his upper body and depending on his busy, inventive feet and his expressive face. He appeared in one film for black audiences, Harlem Is Heaven (1931), a financial failure that turned him away from independent production.
In 1939 he returned to the stage in The Hot Mikado, a jazz version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta produced at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair, and was one of the greatest hits of the fair. His next performance, in All in Fun (1940), failed to attract audiences. His last theatrical project was to have been "Two Gentlemen From The South" with James Barton, in which the black and white roles reverse and eventually come together as equals, but the show did not open. Thereafter he confined himself to occasional performances, but he could still dance in his late sixties almost as well as he ever could, to the continual astonishment of his millions of admirers. He explained this extraordinary versatility--he once danced for more than an hour before a dancing class without repeating a step--by insisting that his feet responded directly to the music, his head having nothing to do with it.
Robinson died of a chronic heart condition at Columbia Presbyterian Center in New York City in 1949. His body lay in state at an armory in Harlem; schools were closed, thousands lined the streets waiting for a glimpse of his bier, and he was eulogized by politicians, black and white--perhaps more lavishly than any other African American of his time. "To his own people", wrote Marshall and Jean Stearns, "Robinson became a modern John Henry, who instead of driving steel, laid down iron taps." He was buried in the cemetery of the Evergreens in New York City.
[edit] Note
- The previous biographical article is from the International Tap Association Newsletter May/June 1993. The biographical material was extrapolated from The American Dictionary of Biography and Webster's American Biographies.
[edit] Racism and Robinson's rise to fame
However, overcoming even a part of the racism that existed took a long time. At a point in history when racial segregation was the accepted norm in the United States, Robinson initially was made to perform for white audiences in blackface. However, his popularity led to a tour of Canada where he could appear without having to hide behind make-up. Nevertheless, at home, Robinson performed almost exclusively for black audiences until a Broadway producer in need of something different to help arrest the decline in popularity of vaudeville acts hired him for a revue called "Blackbirds of 1928." The all-white audiences loved the show and the then 50-year-old Robinson soon became much in demand, said to be the highest paid black performer of the time. Acclaimed for his innovative and complex dance style, he personified the happy-go-lucky image of a dapper gentleman, often appearing on stage in tails and top hat while swinging a cane.
[edit] Film career
Whether he was performing in a small town theater or a grand Broadway playhouse, Robinson gave his best and his national popularity became such that he was invited by studio executive Darryl F. Zanuck to come to Hollywood to appear in motion pictures, albeit limited to stereotypical roles. In all, he appeared in more than a dozen films but is best remembered for a number of 1930s film performances with the child star Shirley Temple including director Allan Dwan's very successful 1938 production of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
[edit] Partial filmography
- Harlem Is Heaven (1932)
- The Little Colonel (1935)
- The Littlest Rebel (1935)
- In Old Kentucky (1935)
- Hooray For Love (1935)
- One Mile From Heaven (1937)
- Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938)
- Cotton Club Revue (1938)
- Stormy Weather (1943)
[edit] Other notable performances
In 1939 Robinson returned to the New York stage to take on the lead role in The Hot Mikado, a jazz version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. The much-loved performer brought his show great publicity when in his sixties, he danced his way backwards down Broadway from Columbus Circle to 44th Street. Robinson had spoken out against being stereotyped by Hollywood and in 1943 he went back there to star opposite Lena Horne and Cab Calloway in the quality film musical, Stormy Weather.
[edit] Legacy
Robinson was dogged by lifelong personal demons, enhanced by having to endure the indignities of racism that, despite his great success, still limited his opportunities. A notorious gambler and a high liver but with a big heart, he was a soft touch for anyone down on their luck or with a good story. During his lifetime Robinson spent a fortune but his generosity was not totally wasted and his haunting memories of surviving on the streets as a child never left him. In 1933, while in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia, he saw two children risk speeding traffic to cross a street because there was no stoplight at the intersection. Robinson went to the city and provided the money to have a safety traffic light installed. In 1973, a statue of "Bojangles" was erected in a small park at the intersection.
Bojangles 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.
[edit] Other Uses
To this day Mr. Bojangles lives in our hearts and on our tongues. You can often hear him in commonly used phrases like this: "I was just Bojangling" - Ms. Hines - meaning to waste time doing nothing with a slight reference to dancing out of boredom or for self amusement.
[edit] Death
In 1949, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson died penniless in New York City at the age of 71 from heart disease. Television host Ed Sullivan is said to have personally paid for the funeral. More than half a million people lined the streets when Robinson's funeral procession made its way through Harlem and down Broadway to Times Square on its way to his interment in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn.
[edit] Mr. Bojangles memorialized
- There is a statue of Bill Robinson sculpted by Jack Witt in Richmond, Virginia at the intersection of Adams and West Leigh Streets.
- Fred Astaire paid tribute to Bill Robinson in the tap routine Bojangles of Harlem from the 1936 classic Swing Time. In it he famously dances to three of his shadows. Duke Ellington composed 'Bojangles (A Portrait of Bill Robinson)', a set of rhythmic variations as a salute to the great dancer.
- Bill Robinson's biography was published in 1988 and a made-for-television film titled Bojangles was released in 2001. The film earned the NAACP Best actor Award for Gregory Hines' performance as Bill Robinson.
- Bill Robinson's character was, in effect, memorialized in Jerry Jeff Walker's 1968 folk song "Mr. Bojangles" that was later recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Harry Nilsson, King Curtis, Bob Dylan, Harry Belafonte, Arlo Guthrie, Nina Simone, John Denver, David Bromberg, Neil Diamond, Sammy Davis, Jr, Tom T. Hall, John Holt, Robbie Williams and David Campbell. The song, however, is not about Robinson himself. It is apparently about an obscure imitator, one of several reported, who danced for tips. In a sense, his influence passed into the "folk culture" by inspiring talented, but poor, individuals to dance, thus sharing in his legacy.
- In Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005), the character "Bonejangles" may have been named after him.
[edit] References
Haskins, James; Mitgang, N. R, Mr. Bojangles: the biography of Bill Robinson (New York: William Morrow, 1988) ISBN 0-688-07203-8
