by Donald Bogle
In April, the show business trade paper Billboard published the results of a cross-section poll it had conducted that listed the nation’s all-time greatest performers, past and present. Topping the list were John Barrymore, Charlie Chaplin, Helen Hayes, Paul Muni, and Enrico Caruso. Also listed were such stars as Clark Gable, Rudolph Valentino, Orson Welles, and Disney’s Donald Duck. Significantly, the names of six African Americans appeared: Bert Williams, Marian Anderson, Bill Robinson, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, and Ethel Waters. Among those selecting the performers were critic Brooks Atkinson and producer George Abbott, as well as performers who voted for their peers or sometimes themselves. The results indicated the strides Black performers had made in mainstream entertainment, especially from the days of minstrelsy, even though many doors remained closed to the Negro entertainer. Considering those Black entertainers whose names had not appeared on the list—Florence Mills, Cab Calloway, and, surprisingly, Duke Ellington—the inclusion of Ethel Waters and others was all the more impressive.
On March 23, Mamba’s Daughters reopened for a limited engagement at the Broadway Theatre. Ethel welcomed this opportunity to reach audiences that perhaps could not afford to see the play the first time around. The original top ticket price of $3.50 was now $1.65, but the play failed to bring in large crowds and ran only a few weeks. Alberta Hunter, however, said it was Ethel’s “meanness” that shut it down. Nor would the play go to Los Angeles, as Ethel had hoped.
Yet Ethel clung to the role of Hagar. When she agreed to play the Apollo in early May, she announced that not only would she sing but she would perform two scenes from Mamba’s Daughters with Willie Bryant and José Ferrer. Her idea was to bring Hagar to her people—those who did not venture down to Broadway. A dramatic sequence from a play was hardly typical Apollo fare, but the theater’s owner, Frank Schiffman, wanted Ethel badly enough that he agreed. “I couldn’t do the398 whole play because they give five shows a day there,” she recalled. “So I used the letter scene and the one of the killing of Willie. Those people out in front sat dead still, and ate it up.” Afterward there was brief talk of bringing the entire production to the Apollo.
By now, she and Eddie frequently went their separate ways. Ethel remained absorbed in her career, while Eddie pursued other interests, which no doubt included other women. Yet they were still seen around town as a couple. Still not prone to much self-reflection—there rarely was time—she nonetheless tried to understand what was going wrong. Though she wanted and needed affection and tenderness, she admittedly could not show it herself. “Something prevents me399 from handing it out,” she said. Always “a woman with normal physical appetites,” she was “also cold-natured. I never could learn to fuss over any man, sweet-talk him, and say, ‘I love you!’ and all the rest of that stuff.” She still was distrustful of most men who, as she once said, seemed to carry a baseball bat with them. The very problems she had backstage with other performers, always on guard, rarely letting her softer side show, had clearly extended to her home life—though it took her a long time to accept that fact. It also took her a long time to let go of Eddie. Still harboring a dream of the kind of settled domestic life she had never experienced as a child, she wanted desperately for the relationship to work. She also turned to her faith for answers.
Chapter 15
On the Run
IN THE MEANTIME, she was back at work and before the public eye, still the only way that she found some semblance of security, direction, and, perhaps not unsurprisingly, meaning in her life—still the only way of revealing emotions without safeguards, without being dominated by her own fears and doubts. In July, she performed with Louis Armstrong at the Paramount. That month she was honored again, as one of forty-one African Americans whose names were inscribed on a Wall of Honor at the New York World’s Fair. She was also one of eighteen women honored at the fair by the National Council of Negro Women.
Harold Gumm kept her abreast of the progress of the proposed musical fantasy Little Joe. The producers were negotiating with Cab Calloway for the lead role. A score was being composed with music by Vernon Duke and lyrics by John LaTouche, neither of whom, as Ethel would be quick to say, was chump change. The composer of “April in Paris,” Duke had been born Vladimir Dukelsky, the scion of an old family of imperial Russia. Under his real name, he wrote music for ballet and symphonies. Virginia-born LaTouche, age twenty-four, was the author of award-winning verse and the “Ballad for Americans.” Boris Aronson was designing the sets and costumes and Albert Lewis would direct the dialogue. The entire production would be under the direction of Russian émigré master choreographer George Balanchine.
Balanchine and Duke, who had known each other for fifteen years, had been brought together in Europe by the choreographer Serge Diaghilev. Having long wanted to work together on a Broadway musical, both were excited by the cultural possibilities of a Negro musical and of creating a piece in another musical or dance idiom. Previously, Balanchine had worked with the Nicholas brothers on Broadway’s Babes in Arms. Now there was the possibility of working with Ethel. The production also came to mean much to him because “after having lived prosperously400 for several years,” Balanchine was “stone broke and having to borrow money from Larry Hart to live on.” He needed a hit show. “He tried to persuade Sam Goldwyn and others to back it, and he himself sank several thousands dollars, his savings, into it,” said Balanchine biographer Bernard Taper. “Balanchine put more of himself into Cabin in the Sky [originally titled Little Joe] than any other show that he did.” In hopes of capturing “the authentic groove of Negro life and folklore . . . in the music, the choreography, the scenery and the show’s general atmosphere,” Balanchine, along with Duke, LaTouche, and Aronson, had spent time in Virginia.
Impressive as such talents were, the troublesome issue for Ethel was the very conception and perspective of the play. She bristled at the depiction of religion in the play—and the fact that the character Petunia, whom she was to portray, was in essence wasting herself on such a worthless fellow. In the fantasy, a Negro heaven and a Negro hell would fight for the soul of Little Joe—while Petunia prayed endlessly for his salvation. “Do you think I’d401 pray to God, that’s been so good to me, for a rascal like this Joe—the way you’ve made him in the story?” she told the producers. “Why, it wouldn’t be fair to God. I don’t mind the wrong things Joe does, if there’s just some little good in him somewhere.” Also on Ethel’s mind was the fact that this play was her follow-up show to Mamba’s Daughters. “I was in a spot, though, when it came to finding a show I’d go into after that. It had to be something I could care about. That was one reason I was so stubborn about Little Joe and the way Petunia was going to pray for him. I wanted it to be true. I wasn’t stubborn for myself: I was stubborn for God. Because I’ve got ideas about praying, and I wouldn’t stand for giving the audience what I didn’t believe in. Petunia couldn’t just pray for a man’s carcass; it is Little Joe’s soul she’s got to pray for.”
Ethel’s high-mindedness must have baffled the producers. True, her staunch religiosity was known in the theater world, but so were her contradictions. After all, this was the woman who had built a career singing “Shake That Thing” and “My Handy Man.” Now she was sounding sanctimonious.
The frustrated producers put out the word that they were considering white blues singer Mildred Bailey, who some thought was African American, but that was just an idle threat. Ethel was always their only choice. Finally, the writer, Lynn Root, beefed up the role of Petunia and cleaned up some of Little Joe’s antics. The producers then went back to Ethel. By then, Cab Calloway had withdrawn from the production, which was probably fine with Ethel. She wouldn’t have to fight for attention with that prima donna. Finally, Ethel agreed to do the role. The play was later retitled Cabin in the Sky, and in the end the musical she had taken so long to commit to would be a major production for her. Not since Berlin’s As Thousands Cheer had she had such a fine selection of songs. She would perform
“Taking a Chance on Love,” “Savannah,” “My Old Virginia Home on the Nile,” and the title song, “Cabin in the Sky.” The best numbers were hers.
Cabin in the Sky drew a top-notch cast. Choreographer-dancer Katherine Dunham was signed to play the temptress Georgia Brown, who tries to lure Little Joe away from Petunia. Coming from Illinois, Dunham had burst on the New York scene in an entirely unprecedented way for an African American dancer and choreographer. Forming her own troupe and perfecting what was known as the Dunham technique, she developed a series of dance recitals titled Tropics and Le Jazz Hot. “Her performance with her402 group,” dance critic John Martin would write, “may well become a historic occasion, for certainly never before in all the efforts in recent years to establish the dance as a serious medium has there been so convincing and authoritative an approach.” The critics and public had also responded to Dunham’s sensuality—she was a very sexy woman—and Dunham’s dance company would also appear in Cabin in the Sky. All the talk about the remarkable Dunham may have given Ethel pause, but it didn’t scare her.
Playing Joe was Texas-born Dooley Wilson, a veteran of vaudeville who had recently appeared in the stage drama Of Mice and Men. Within two years after the opening of Cabin in the Sky, Wilson would make a big splash in Hollywood when he played Sam, the man who sings “As Time Goes By” in Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Signed to play heaven’s archangel was Todd Duncan, who had played Porgy in Porgy and Bess. Having studied at Butler University and Columbia, Duncan headed the music department at Howard University. Rex Ingram, a handsome, serious theater veteran who had also portrayed De Lawd in the movie version of The Green Pastures, was contracted to play the leader of the devil’s henchmen, Lucifer Jr. Also in the cast were J. Rosamond Johnson with his choir and Georgia Burke.
Cabin in the Sky immediately drew buzz within the theater community and certainly within Black theater circles. In the September 14, 1940, edition of the Chicago Defender, Fredi Washington wrote an article, under the title “Actors’ Guild Head Sees Slow Season Ahead for Performers.” “The question uppermost in the mind of Negroes of the theatre right now,” said Washington, “is what does the coming season offer by way of employment? As things stand now I am afraid the prospect is not very encouraging.” Her article noted the changes that had come about in show business for African Americans thus far in the twentieth century. Vaudeville, which had given employment to many in the past, “has long been dead.” The old floor shows that had enabled stars like Florence Mills and Ethel Waters to reach a new audience, also seemed “a thing of the past.” Radio continued “to keep its doors sealed against colored artists with a few exceptions and this is a condition which should be delved into.” She criticized the advertisers on radio, often the cigarette companies. “The revenue received from Negroes is not so small that it could be laughed off. These companies, Chesterfield and Luckies particularly, spend thousands of dollars advertising through radio but not one cent for Negro Talent.”
Washington also pointed out the “few small cafes scattered here and there employing performers and in most cases at ridiculously low salaries, long hours and undesirable working conditions.” Though the big bands fared better, they were still faced with difficulties in securing bookings. Band members also suffered through a debilitating “traveling condition such that is undermining to their health, coupled with the white manager code.” “Sum up these facts (which are by no means all),” she wrote, “and you can readily see, our future at least for this season, is indeed dark.”
Washington had succinctly summed up what Ethel and so many others considered the state of the contemporary African American performer. Ethel also was aware that iridescent Fredi by all rights should have been a leading lady besieged with offers. That hadn’t happened. Producers still found it “hard” to cast the light-skinned, green-eyed Washington, which strangely enough may have made Waters more sympathetic and sensitive to her.
Cabin in the sky was set to open in late October at the Martin Beck Theatre. Originally, there was to be an out-of-town tryout in Boston, but Boris Aronson’s scenery was too heavy and intricate to move at this point. Instead previews would begin in New York during the week of October 14. That meant everything now was hurried. Rehearsals. Costume fittings. Set designs. Publicity stills. That also meant tempers were short. Ethel’s demands seemed unreasonable. The slightest thing was fodder for a tantrum. If an actor missed a cue, she would glare. If an actor seemed about to upstage her—this was clearly in her imagination, for who would dare?—she was ready to curse, cuss, scream. If a costume did not fit right, recriminations and outbursts would follow. Ironically, now, more than ever, everything simply had to be done with an eye to the heavens for the Lord’s approval. Stories about Ethel’s behavior were leaked to the newspapers. “Ethel Waters’ Cabin in the Sky,” the Negro press reported, “is being watched with interest because of the feud between the star and other members of the cast.” Ethel seemed to be fighting with almost everyone. “Anybody who could make403 Katherine Dunham cry had to be one very tough customer,” said Lena Horne’s daughter, Gail Buckley.
One cast member who struck up a friendship with Ethel was Archie Savage, a member of Katherine Dunham’s troupe. By all accounts, he was a brilliant dancer, with a bronze, godlike physique. “I used to dance with Archie many, many moons ago,” recalled Ethel’s friend Joan Croomes. “He had a body that anybody would fight for. A beautiful body. A beautiful man. And he could move every muscle in his body. He was something to be proud of.” He was handsome and sensual and very smooth. When he turned his suggestive smile and bedroom eyes on someone, he seemed to have sex on his mind. Savage, who could be calculating and manipulative, gravitated toward strong, powerful women. How he got close to Ethel is anybody’s guess, but he probably knew how to reassure her after one of her outbursts: he understood why she was so upset, even if no one else did. But Savage had to be guarded in his attentions toward Ethel: he was rumored to have an intense relationship with Katherine Dunham, who would not have tolerated for a moment Archie landing in Ethel’s camp. Both Dunham and Savage also knew that her troupe was his bread and butter. So if he soothed Miss Waters, he had to do so when Madame Dunham was not around. But despite these intrigues, Savage had other things on his mind. The very sexy, very ingratiating Archie, so exciting to some ladies, was far more interested in the fellows. “Oh, everybody knew Archie404 was gay,” said actor Lennie Bluett, who met Savage during his later Hollywood period. “He looked so masculine and all,” said Joan Croomes. “I really liked Archie. But I knew that he was gay. And he didn’t really deny it.”
As for dealing with the temperaments of his stars, Balanchine himself was no shrinking violet. Sometimes at rehearsals, Balanchine, Duke, and Aronson had heated discussions in Russian. It drove Ethel to distraction. What were they talking about? she wanted to know.
But it was apparent that Ethel was especially tense. Did she feel she had more at stake with this play because of its quasi-religious theme? “We gave a preview405 the night before our opening,” said Ethel. ‘You know how it is when you open cold—it always seems there are so many things that could be better if you had more time. Here in my dressing room I said, ‘Lord, the curtain is going up, and I know it wouldn’t go up if it wasn’t Your will. So please, Lord, just put it in my mouth to do all right.’ I went on, and He put it in my mouth.”
On October 21, the night that Cabin in the Sky opened, “while the orchestra was playing the overture,” Ethel recalled, “some of us backstage were singing hymns.” “Everybody was scared,” said Ethel, “so we just started singing spirituals. You should have seen some of those girls in the choir—how their faces looked and their eyes shone. They’re happy when they sing. That worked off a lot of nervousness.” Indeed it did. The critics loved the show.
“Exciting up to the406 final curtain,” wrote Richard Watts in the New York Herald Tribune. “Miss Waters is one583 of the great women of the American stage.” Richar
d Lockridge in the New York Sun called it, “Joyful . . . imaginative and gay. Miss Waters has never been more engaging. Miss Dunham’s dancers are something to watch.” “About the most genuine Negro dancing this side of the hot countries. A Swell show,” wrote Arthur Pollock in the Brooklyn Eagle. But the comments that probably pleased Ethel most came from Brooks Atkinson in the New York Times. “Ethel Waters has never407 given a performance as rich as this before. This theatergoer imagines that he has never heard a song better sung than ‘Taking a Chance on Love.’ She stood that song on its head and ought to receive a Congressional Medal by way of award.” First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt came to see the play. This “light and amusing408” play, she wrote in her column “My Day,” had been a “delightful evening” with “one or two songs Miss Waters sings which haunt you afterward.”
Life ran a spread on the play, and interviews appeared in the New York Times, the New York Post, and the New York Herald Tribune. Ethel remained determined to control the interviews, to gild her image and promote her glamorous lifestyle. When the reporter for the New York Times arrived at her apartment for the interview, everything had been set up to present Waters in high-diva style. Her maid Laura ushered the reporter into her apartment, leading him through “a spotless white kitchen and the adjacent breakfast room into the bullet-shaped, elegantly appointed parlor.” “The Venetian blinds were409 down,” wrote Sidney Shalett, “and you sat on the rich, gold sofa in the almost dark room.” As he waited for Ethel to appear, he noted the baby grand piano with a picture of Eddie sitting on it. “There was plenty of comfortable furniture; an oval coffee table with a heavy marble top; a couple of ash stands, each designed in the figure of a graceful nude.” Then he saw that “on the walls everywhere were pictures of Miss Waters—Miss Waters in an ermine wrap, as she appeared in her Harlem Cotton Club days; a full-length, tinted one of Miss Waters in ‘At Home Abroad,’ and then, right over her favorite chair, striking character studies of the Negro actress in her revered role of Hagar in Mamba’s Daughters.”