by Donald Bogle
Performers like Fredi Washington and the columnist Billy Rowe quickly came to Ethel’s defense, but her comments that her most “loyal followers are white people” had to draw the ire of her Black fans. When she had spoken on the Cleveland radio show, she most likely assumed most listeners were white, and she had been playing up to them. From her vantage point, she believed her Black followers—and critics—should understand her motives and actions. Obviously that was not the case. Mamba’s Daughters became all the more important to her. The play had to happen. Still, despite the press announcement, nothing was concrete. Vincente Minnelli, however, contacted her about a musical version of S. N. Behrman’s play Serena Blandish, based on Enid Bagnold’s novel A Woman of Quality. It told the tale of a young woman, Serena, who was lent “a diamond for a month by a jeweler and being introduced to society by an Auntie Mame countess so that she could make a good marriage.” “My approach would be349 somewhat different from the original,” said Minnelli. “Though I would stage the play as the same very elegant high comedy, it would be with an all-Black cast. To change the concept in any way because of the cast’s skin color struck me as condescension of the worst sort. I wanted to do a sophisticated Black show because I felt uneasy about the conventional stereotype of the Negro as simple, naïve, and childlike.”
A score had been partially written by George Gershwin, but when Gershwin died suddenly, in July 1937, Vernon Duke set out to complete it. For the role of the countess, Minnelli wanted Ethel. For the role of the young Serena, he considered such singers as up-and-coming Maxine Sullivan and Ruby Elzy but finally hoped to snag a former Cotton Club chorus girl who had begun establishing herself as a vocalist—until she married a young man named Louis Jones and went off to live with him in Pittsburgh. Minnelli had been advised by the Negro Actors Guild that he had to persuade the young woman—Lena Horne—to leave Pittsburgh and become one of the stars of his show. Minnelli also wanted Buck and Bubbles in the cast. So set was he on doing the musical that he had begun to think of set designs for the countess’s luxurious bedroom in which Serena Blandish was to open. To have a better chance of getting the production financed, he dropped Vernon Duke and replaced him with the incomparable Cole Porter.
Surely, for Ethel, Serena Blandish was something to be considered. How she might have felt playing a character role while the young Horne was cast in the title part was a matter Minnelli would have to consider. With his admiration of Ethel’s talents and his awareness of Horne’s relative inexperience in such a big production, no doubt he would have expanded the role of the countess. In the end, Serena Blandish could offer Ethel the kind of highly glamorous role rarely associated with Black women on Broadway. As she waited for Mamba’s Daughters to materialize, it was good to know there was a backup, just in case. But after months of negotiations, plans for Serena Blandish fell through. Yet Minnelli still held hopes, which he would soon carry with him to Hollywood, of working with Ethel again and of casting the young Horne in some production. For years, he kept the script of Serena Blandish, believing somehow that such a musical might be launched.
Another offer came to Ethel, from Lew Leslie of all people, who wanted her for a new edition of Blackbirds. Given their past history, that seemed out of the question, and when Leslie finally produced his Blackbirds of 1939, his star was the young Lena Horne.
Once Ethel had resumed her tour, she had to make yet another quick trip to New York for more talks about Mamba’s Daughters. A wire from the theatrical casting agents Liebling and Wood indicated that it looked as if the play was about to happen. Casting was actually beginning. Now set to produce was Maury Greenwood, whom Ethel knew from her Plantation Revue days in Chicago. In June, she walked into New York’s Barbizon Plaza Hotel for a meeting with DuBose Heyward, casting agent Bill Liebling, and potential investors. Assuming everything was ready to roll, she took one look at the group and knew otherwise. After much hemming and hawing by the various parties, Ethel was informed that the play still could not find financing. Producer Samuel Grisman liked the Heywards’ adaptation, but he had no confidence in Ethel’s ability to play Hagar. When the Heywards refused to do it without her, Grisman walked away. Now she learned that Maury Greenwald had also dropped plans to produce. Ethel was the production’s stumbling block.
Afterward, DuBose Heyward approached the director Guthrie McClintic, one of the leading figures in theater. McClintic, who was well respected and well connected, had directed such Maxwell Anderson dramas as High Tor and Winterset, both of which had won the New York Drama Critics Circle Awards. His 1935 production of Old Maid had won the Pulitzer Prize. Among the vast lineup of great theater stars he would direct at some point in his career were Ethel Barrymore, Judith Anderson, Burgess Meredith, Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and Mildred Natwick. Of the ninety-four productions he would ultimately direct in his long career, twenty-eight starred his wife, Katharine Cornell, the leading dramatic stage actress of the day. McClintic liked the Heywards’ adaptation but thought it was too long and needed to be cut. He also expressed his concern about the actress who would play Hagar. When DuBose Heyward said Waters’ name, Guthrie was intrigued. “DuBose arranged an appointment350, and I went down with him and had a talk with Guthrie McClintic,” Waters recalled. It didn’t take McClintic long to realize that Ethel, despite her dramatic inexperience, was absolutely the right choice for Hagar. In fact, it was an inspired choice. In her music, she was always able to tell a story, to know when a song reached its emotional highs as well as its emotional lows. In song, she had created characters. On those occasions when she talked as much as she sang, she provided a dramatic dialogue. She was also physically imposing. He agreed to direct and produce the play with Ethel as Hagar; his schedule was so tight, however, that he wouldn’t be able to stage it until the winter. Ethel and Heyward were willing to wait.
In July, she accepted two new offers that would keep her in New York. The first came from impresario Billy Rose to appear in a vaudeville-style revue called The Crazy Show, set to open at Rose’s club, Casa Manana. Also on the bill were Ben Blue, Lucille Page, Smith and Dale, and the Savoy Lindy Hoppers. Basically, she would sing many of her old hits. Not expecting much out of the production but glad to be working in New York, she went into rehearsals. But two days before the scheduled opening, Rose suddenly said he wanted her to sing “Frankie and Johnny.” “I nearly passed out351 when Billy Rose made that last minute call on me,” she told Carl Van Vechten. There were ten verses to learn. The song itself was the story of a woman done wrong by her man. In the end, she sought to give the song “a Miss Otis Regrets sort of twist.” Sexy, bluesy, show-tune-ish, “Frankie and Johnny,” which she later recorded, ended up as one of her more memorable numbers of this period.
But Ethel’s nerves were on edge, partly the result of waiting for word about the play, partly because of a new development involving Mallory’s wife or, as Ethel had assumed, his former wife, the dancer Florence Hill. Suddenly, Hill appeared and was making potentially explosive accusations about Ethel and Mallory. For a time, Waters managed to keep the other woman’s claims out of the public eye. One of the few people able to comfort her was Van Vechten, who wrote and called. Still, her anxiety grew to the point at which, so she told Van Vechten, she was under her doctor’s care “for a nervous rundown condition.”
Once she completed the Casa Manana engagement, she wrote Van Vechten, thanking him for his support and telling him that any time “you want me for anything, I’m at your disposal—in fact I think a good chat or better still a good cry on your understanding shoulder would do me a world of good. So let me know the time and the place.”
Not long afterward she returned to the Apollo with Eddie. By then, she was in the headlines in the Negro press. The situation with Mallory’s wife had now gone public. Hill charged that Mallory’s 1934 divorce from her was not valid in New York City. In 1935, Hill’s attorney had first filed suit questioning the legality of the Chicago divorce, but the suit had been dropped. Now, in early Sept
ember 1938, Hill was back in court. Hill stated that Mallory had given Ethel an “unbelievable” luxurious lifestyle. There was the spacious eight-room apartment, the country home in Pompton Lakes, the three cars, and everything else. Hill was suing for a $5,000 settlement and a legal New York divorce. Of course, everyone knew it wasn’t Eddie who was providing Ethel with a luxurious lifestyle—it was the other way around. If the suit were successful, the $5,000 would come mostly out of her pocketbook. Hill’s case, in essence, was that either Mallory was a bigamist or Ethel was his common-law wife. Both Ethel and Mallory were outraged by Hill’s actions. For Ethel, there was concern that other matters might be revealed to the public. Had Ethel—a woman of such high religious faith—actually never married Mallory? It was the same dilemma that had faced her with her supposed marriage to Earl Dancer. For Ethel, it was already another scandal. “Much mud will fly,” said columnist Billy Rowe.
Ethel informed Rowe that she wasn’t “disturbed at all by her name being written into the charges, and will stick by her husband, notwithstanding the claims of one whom she considers just an ex-wife.” Waters’ attorneys no doubt leaked information to the press about Miss Florence Hill, because soon details about Hill’s private life—her various love affairs—appeared. The case went through postponements—Hill herself returned to Chicago to visit her “ailing” mother—then the suit just disappeared from the news. No one could say for sure what had happened, but it was highly likely that the firm of Goldie and Gumm had worked out some arrangement with Hill. The last thing Ethel or anyone else wanted was to have Florence Hill talk some more to the press.
In the middle of the Hill mess, Ethel went back into the recording studio on November 9. Accompanied by Eddie on trumpet as well as by Shirley Clay, Tyree Glenn, Castor McCord, William Steiner, Charles Turner, Danny Barker, and Reginald Beane on piano, she recorded “You‘re Mine,” “They Say,” “Jeepers, Creepers,” and “Frankie and Johnny,” all for the Blue Bird label. Performing with Mallory did not seem to bring out anything particularly new in her voice or style. But Mallory was a skilled musician who knew how to work with her. At times, she sounded more mature, the voice in a lower key and range. On “Jeepers, Creepers,” she was playful and clear as a bell. It remains an underappreciated classic, perhaps overlooked because of Louis Armstrong’s popular version. On “Frankie and Johnny,” she seemed to relish the lyric, “He done her wrong.”
Since Pearl Wright’s death, Ethel had employed different accompanists, but rarely had she been fully satisfied until she worked with Beane. He fit the bill not only because of his skill as a musician—he was excellent—but also because of his personality. Attractive in an understated, distinctly nonflashy, non-show-businessy way, Beane was a sensitive, patient young man. “He was tall and slender352 and nice-looking,” recalled Jim Malcolm, who had known Beane. “He was mild-mannered. He was very good. He was also a very collaborative artist. I think he adored her.” He and Ethel had met at a party at Georgette Harvey’s in 1938. Having now worked with Ethel on her November recordings with Mallory, Beane was calm waters to her stormy seas. She felt fortunate to have found him, and he would accompany her for almost the rest of her career. Like Pearl, he would see her up close. Whether she initially intended to or not, she trusted and confided in him.
With Beane by her side, she also prepared for a two-day festival performing with the Hall Johnson Choir at Carnegie Hall. To play the prestigious concert hall where some of the world’s most prominent classical artists had performed was, despite her personal problems, too significant a career move to pass up. Johnson’s choir performed spirituals not only on concert stages around the world but also on Broadway and in such films as The Green Pastures. The group had been praised for having “validated” the spiritual, showing it could be high art. Marian Anderson had done the same. For Ethel, the Carnegie Hall appearance marked an opportunity as well as a challenge to perform these tributes to the Lord. She would also sing some of her great hits, which some critics considered jazz. During rehearsals, she knew she had to maintain her discipline—no thoughts about Florence Hill could make her lose her focus. As could be expected, there was the general “nervousness,” but this engagement revealed Waters at her most artistically fearless. Having already moved out of her initial comfort zones with “Eli Eli” and Broadway shows, she still refused to settle neatly into one area of accomplishment and never leave it.
On the evening of Sunday, November 20, the hall was packed with well-dressed, cultured concertgoers. The performance opened with the Hall Johnson Choir “solemnly clothed” as it sang the spirituals that the audience had come to hear. Conducting the group was Leonard De Paur. There was a rustle of excitement when Ethel “appeared wearing a vermillion gown, a golden girdle and a broad smile. From her right hand fell a long vermillion scarf, at the end of which followed her trio of accompanists.” On trumpet was Mallory; on vibraphone, Tyree Glenn; on piano, Reginald Beane. She began with “Sleepy Time Down South.” Afterward she performed “I Ain’t Gonna Sin No More” and “Supper Time.” She also joined the choir for “Fix Me” and “I Can’t Stay Here by Myself.” As an encore, she was full blast with “Frankie and Johnny.”
The critics were aware that “it was difficult to353 accept [some of the material] as jazz.” Nor did Ethel’s delivery—some of the music was performed “half-conversationally, half-dramatically, with little attempt at rhythmic singing”—have much to do with jazz. But in the end, the critics had to accept Ethel on her terms. “Since Miss Waters is354 quite a law unto herself, she disarms Fifty-seventh Street criticism, which depends on hallowed traditions and long-established criteria,” wrote the critic for the New York Times. “Briefly, she was pretty much herself, though for a while she appeared not quite cozy in the solemn air of uplift and propriety that exudes from the red plush seats and pseudo-Greek proscenium of Carnegie Hall. Ultimately, it was dispelled by moanings of ‘that man of mine that ain’t comin’ home no more,’ of the tragic fate of Frankie, and of sundry aspirations for salvation. . . . Everybody in the house seemed quite at home and happy.” Though she would always be at her grandest with her popular material—which indeed was a bridge to jazz but not jazz itself—and with music that afforded her the opportunity to dramatize, the critics often overlooked the fact that she could also meaningfully deliver music sung for her God. There was a sincerity and beauty in her religious songs that clearly came from the heart.
Following Carnegie Hall, she participated in an all-star gala to benefit the Negro Actors Guild at the Forty-sixth Street Theatre. Performing that night was an impressive array of stars: Marian Anderson, Louis Armstrong, the Nicholas Brothers, George Jessel, Eddie Duchin, the Hall Johnson Choir, Cab Calloway, Ben Bernie, Eddie Cantor, Noël Coward, Benny Goodman, Beatrice Lillie, the Radio City Rockettes, Mayor Jimmy Walker, Sophie Tucker, and the guild’s honorary president, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
The gala raised $8,500 to benefit the guild’s charitable work and help unemployed Black actors. But an incident backstage between Ethel and Bill Robinson raised eyebrows. Between the two, one word led to another until “a bitter word-battle” ensued. Robinson became so angry that he threatened to resign from the guild because of Ethel. “Well, go the hell ahead and resign” may have been her choice of words that night. Of course, no one was to talk to Bojangles like this, especially some goddamned woman.
Chapter 13
Mamba’s Daughters, at Last
FINALLY, ETHEL WAS ABLE TO CHANNEL all her energies into Mamba’s Daughters. Rehearsals had begun in November—precisely when Ethel was in rehearsals at Carnegie Hall and precisely when she was in the middle of that nasty business with Eddie’s previous wife.
The Heywards had pared down DuBose’s novel by eliminating or minimizing the white characters. Instead there was a tight focus on Mamba, Lissa, and especially Hagar, who now stood front and center. In the play, following the death of Bluton, Hagar has a tender scene with Lissa and then commits suicide—offstage.
>
Later generations might not fully understand the significance of Mamba’s Daughters, but for its time the drama was a startling, bold venture. Here was a Broadway play that dramatized the tensions, conflicts, and aspirations of three generations of African American women. The Great White Way had never seen such a drama before, and it would be years before other such examinations as A Raisin in the Sun and For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf would appear on Broadway.
Director Guthrie McClintic gathered an impressive cast. For the role of Mamba, he selected Georgette Harvey, an acclaimed actress who had appeared in such productions as Stevedore, Runnin’ Wild, Porgy, and Porgy and Bess. She and Ethel had long been friends. For the part of Lissa—delicate, sensitive, vulnerable—there seemed to be but one actress around who could play the role: Fredi Washington. Light-skinned with keen features, straight hair, and piercing green-blue eyes, Washington had appeared onstage opposite Paul Robeson as the light-skinned girl who passes for white in Black Boy; had worked again with Robeson in the 1933 film version of The Emperor Jones; and then had stunned moviegoers as Peola, the young woman who again crosses the color line, in the 1934 version of Imitation of Life. The latter film had been a huge hit, a classic tear-jerker and one of Hollywood’s few Depression-era movies to even suggest there was a race problem in America. For the role of Gilly Bluton, Willie Bryant was selected. Ethel had brought Bryant, a band leader and master of ceremonies at the Apollo, to the attention of McClintic. Also in the cast were the young Canada Lee, fresh off his success as Banquo in Orson Welles’ Black-cast version of Macbeth; Anne Wiggins Brown; José Ferrer as the young white Southern who becomes embroiled in the lives of Mamba’s family; J. Rosamond Johnson; and Ethel’s old friend, Alberta Hunter. “I just walked into355 producer Guthrie McClintic’s office, read the role, and was signed,” said Hunter. “Simple as that.” Ethel even saw to it that Reggie Beane was hired for the role of Slim. The cast, however, had been meticulously scrutinized by McClintic and would shape up as one of the best on Broadway that season.