by Donald Bogle
***
Her $119 monthly Social Security check could be stretched only so far. To earn money, Ethel began singing at various churches, where she was paid $50 as an honorarium and sometimes given an additional “love offering.” She always paid $25 to the pianist who accompanied her. At such events, she also sold the religious album she had recorded. She charged $3; of that amount, she had paid $1.89 for each copy, which meant she profited $1.11 on each album she sold. Not like the big bucks days. But the appearances and sales brought in something. Her work with the Crusades continued. But all this took a toll on her fragile health. In March 1962, she collapsed while performing at a Youth for Christ event and spent time afterward recuperating.
Yet while many looked on sympathetically at the great Ethel Waters, so pathetically down on her luck, and while some might have found satisfaction in being able to pity her, there was another Ethel with another life that most were unaware of.
Chapter 25
Life Away from the Team
AS MUCH AS ETHEL had her bouts of loneliness, there were occasions when she was anything but lonely. Not long after moving to Pasadena, she had become friendly with a younger woman named Joan Croomes. Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Croomes had settled in Los Angeles, married, and performed mainly as a dancer in films. Appearing in Cabin in the Sky, she had seen Ethel’s treatment of Lena Horne. Years later, their paths crossed again when Croomes worked in a television movie starring Ethel. Working as Ethel’s stand-in was a feisty veteran named May Johnson. On the set, some found it hard to believe Johnson was the stand-in for Ethel because the women looked nothing alike. Johnson was “slim trim637.” One day Johnson pulled Joan Croomes aside and asked if she would be willing to replace her as Ethel’s stand-in. She wanted to get off the production. “I have something else, and I’m sick of this bitch,” Johnson told Croomes. But Croomes was also slender. “Honey, a shadow would do,” Johnson said. “The studio doesn’t care. They want to get her out of here.” “So I took the job,” Croomes recalled. When Ethel later saw her on the set, she asked Croomes what she was doing there. “Well, I think I’m here to work.” “Well, then, what are you going to do?” Ethel asked her. Once Croomes explained that she would be her new stand-in, Ethel told the director, “Here’s another girl. That other girl left.”
Happy to have another Black woman working on the picture and perhaps relieved that Johnson was no longer around, she confided in Croomes. Frankly, she didn’t “like the way they did my hair. They got a lot of spray on it. Would you wash my hair for me?” Surprised by Waters’ request, Croomes said she’d try. “So I went in and washed her hair and put some rinse on it. She was very pleased about that.” “Where do you live?” Ethel asked her. Once she heard the address, she said, “Well, I’ve got to stop by your place.” True to her word, Ethel arrived at Croomes’ home in Los Angeles. Looking around, Ethel told her, “That entry space . . . a nice portrait of me would look nice there.” Croomes couldn’t understand what Ethel meant. “She kept talking,” said Croomes. “I thought the woman was mental.”
“Do you have a room to rent?” Ethel asked. “Because I live in Pasadena. And I need something closer.” As it turned out, Ethel wanted a place right in Los Angeles so it would be easier to get back and forth to the studios for work that might turn up. As Croomes later realized, she also seemed to want some breathing space, to spend time on her own and possibly away from the family she lived with. “I’m selling my house on Sugar Hill,” she told Croomes. “And I’m getting rid of a lot of things. My painting would look good right there as you enter the door.”
“She wanted her painting put in the entry hall. And then she looked at the bottom of the stairway.” Waters told Croomes: “I have a bust that would look real good on the top level of the stairway. I want you to come to my house.” Once Croomes arrived at the home on Hobart, Ethel pointed to a beautiful chandelier. “Like that?” she asked. “You can have that. Girl, what else in here do you need? I got to get out of this place.” Ethel had also given away other items from her home. In some respects, so Croomes believed, she had been taken advantage of. One actor friend of Ethel’s had “cleaned it out,” said Croomes.
Soon afterward—as Croomes was in the process of converting part of her home into apartments to be rented out—Ethel became a tenant, “taking the best apartment” on the second floor. “Upstairs I had my quarters,” said Croomes. Those quarters became Ethel’s. “I had two bedrooms, two baths, and I had a sun deck in the back. She later covered it up and made a library out of it. A nice living room. A kitchen. And a small dinette.” That marked the beginning of a friendship between the two women. Croomes became privy to a side of Ethel that generally was not on public view.
People were often in and out of the place. “I gave her a party while she was living there,” said Croomes. “It was beautiful.” No matter her circumstances, Ethel still lived like a star. A woman came regularly to clean her apartment, but Ethel proved demanding. “She’s killing me,” the woman told Croomes. Ethel insisted that she “move the furniture around everything she cleaned. Clean. Clean. Clean.” Finally, the woman said she had to quit. Contrary to the grandmotherly housedresses that she wore when interviewed by the press, she could still be stylish. “Oh, she was a dresser. She had a lady that came to the house and measured her garments. She didn’t care what they cost. Measured her garments and made them for her,” said Croomes. “I thought she was pretty even though she was fat. . . . She took care of her skin. Sometimes I had to help her into the bathtub. And stuff like that. I did all of those things for her. I think that’s why I have no back now. . . . I was pretty young. I could help her. I didn’t feel any pain. . . . Her face was still pretty. And she had magnificent hair. She did let her hair go white. I took care of her hair after she moved here. But she had bought a piece of false hair and put it up here [on the top of her head], and she wore a scarf all the time. And she stopped having me shampoo her hair. And so one day I saw her, and her hair had gotten bald right in the front. So she had a piece that she stuck on there. But the idea was long, long hair, pretty long hair.”
Sometimes Ethel took pleasure in preparing meals. “She could cook. Sometimes she’d cook white beans. Oh, boy, could she cook that. I could always eat some of that,” said Croomes. “The best memories I have of her is when she would cook something and you enjoyed it,” recalled Croomes. “Oh, girl, I can cook, can’t I?” Ethel would say. Other times she enjoyed taking Croomes to her favorite buffet-style restaurant in Pasadena, where the two women would chat and laugh. “The place was called the Beetle,” Croomes recalled. “They had good fish out there. I never cared that much for fish. But, honey, she’d get it. I’d get it. She’d sit down and I’d bring her hers. I’d get in the line. And she’d say, ‘Get some more of that. Get you some more of it. Get some more of that.’ I didn’t want it. And then when I started eating, I’d kind of push the plate back. ‘Girl, eat all that food. You need that food. You and your skinny self.’ ” Usually, Ethel urged her, “Loosen up your belt, girl. . . . You can’t leave this food on your plate. Eat all this food.” “She wanted me to eat as much as she did. I couldn’t hold it,” said Croomes.
Still, Croomes cherished the times she spent with Ethel. The self-deprecating humor, the witty asides, the shrewd observations on people and places—all the old hallmarks of Ethel’s personality had not been dimmed or diminished by the years or her poor health. She still liked a good hearty laugh. “Her facial appearance was always beautiful. And when she smiled, you had to smile with her. She had it going on. She had a personality like nobody else, really. She was the Ethel Waters. Really.”
In time, Ethel confided details about her earlier life and her tangled relationships with family members. Even now, “She sent money every week to her sister Genevieve and her mother. ’Cause her mother was kind of senile. And she paid the rent. She sent the rent religiously every month. And she sent money for food. And her lazy sister, as she called her, ‘didn’t
do nothing.’ ” Touchingly, Croomes saw that Ethel never deserted her mother, never stopped caring for her, never stopped loving her. As for other family members, “She didn’t like them. She didn’t really like her relatives. Yet she took care of them. And she would fuss about it. But she still sent money. She said her sister was a slut.” It’s doubtful that she ever spoke in such an open way about her family with members of the Graham team. Perhaps Ethel’s easy rapport with Croomes grew partly out of the fact that Croomes was African American, someone with the same cultural bearings and outlooks as herself. With Croomes, there was never anything she had to explain. They spoke the same language, had the same cultural references. Much as she had done with Floretta Howard and her Black female friends in the past, she often began a sentence with “Girl, you better . . .” or “Girl, you gotta hear this . . .”
It’s also doubtful that she ever spoke openly with members of the Graham team about another matter. Waters was candid—and rather nonchalant—about her sexuality in general. “She was a lesbian,” said Croomes. “She told me that she was the best that ever did it. She told me that.” Once she showed Croomes a picture of herself “dressed in men’s clothes,” said Croomes. “She had on pants and a jacket, and she had short hair.” “This was when I was a boy,” said Ethel. Happily married, Croomes sometimes wondered if Ethel had an interest in her. “She used to sit and watch me when I took a bath. I was scared of her sometimes. Not really. She was a big woman.” Clearly, Ethel had no guilt or hang-ups about her sexuality. Nor did it conflict with her religious beliefs. That, as far as she was concerned, was who she was. Her Lord understood.
Yet Ethel, as always, could never be put fully into a sexual category. With Croomes, she also spoke of the man she had loved so intensely, Pretty Eddie. Even now, the thought of him could make her “shiver.” “She liked him to her dying day,” said Croomes. “Ethel said he was the only man she ever loved.” While she stayed in the apartment at Croomes’ home, she became very friendly with a young white man, then in his thirties. Croomes questioned the man’s motives, but Ethel didn’t. “I think that was another reason she . . . moved to my house, so she could have Tom there,” said Croomes. But how did she keep that hidden from the Billy Graham people? “Easy,” said Croomes. “He knew when to come. She had two phone numbers. And he had all kinds of stuff. And they would talk. And there comes Tom maybe in the middle of the night sometime. But she was secure up here because nobody entered unless she allowed them to. So she and Tom could be very private when they wanted to be. I never used my key. I never would go up unless I called her because I don’t do that.” But Ethel did not seem to care what anyone thought—at least not in the Croomes household.
Afterward when the press chronicled Ethel’s financial woes, Croomes felt they got it all wrong. “She was never broke. Never a day in her life was she broke,” said Croomes. “She sold some property in New York.” Perhaps that was the “nest egg” Ethel referred to when speaking to reporters. “She had money of her own,” said Croomes. “When she would go on those Crusades trip . . . honey, when she’d get back . . . sometimes she’d stay a week at a time . . . but when she got back, there was money for everybody. She was generous. But Ethel was never broke. Ethel could sell one piece of jewelry and get quite some money. She never sold any of it.”
***
In the Spring of 1962, Ethel flew to Chicago for a Crusade and then on to Philadelphia, where she was honored at the Philadelphia Arts Festival. She agreed to make the trip, it seemed, primarily because the Arts Festival paid her travel expenses. Thus she had a chance to visit her ailing mother. Her mental state frightened Ethel. Momweeze suffered even more from disorientation and possible dementia. “They had to keep her mother kind of isolated . . . not isolated but in a second-story building,” said Croomes, “because she sang long and loud, and it would disturb other people.”
Leaving Philadelphia, she stopped in New York on a Saturday where she spent time with Reggie Beane and all of her godchildren, more than twelve of the kids she had cared for so many years ago. By now, she and Beane had patched up their differences. The next day she performed at Soldier Field for Graham, and then it was off to Dallas. Hard as the traveling was on her—there were still problems getting into and out of seats on airplanes, still problems maneuvering her way around airports, usually in wheelchairs, still days when she had no energy—she kept it up. For the Crusades, her traveling expenses were taken care of, and she also received what she called “a small fee638.” But the question on the minds of some must have been if she was subtly pressured into these engagements. Apparently, she remained a drawing power at the Crusades. People still loved seeing her, still were moved by her rendition of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” When she traveled to Nassau, in the Bahamas, for a Crusade, over nine thousand people attended the service. But with all said and done, surely someone should have encouraged her to rest more—and perhaps also make financial arrangements so that she received not “a small fee” but a more substantial one. For her part, Ethel was at least momentarily invigorated by the Crusades. The huge crowds, the applause, the enthusiasm. In time, she had a standard way of greeting the audiences by walking onto the stage, looking out at the sea of faces, and energetically saying, “Hi!” She also wrote the song “Partners with God” with Eddy Stuart. No matter what, she was still an entertainer, and nowhere else would she now be able to sing for thousands in huge arenas.
In October 1962, she opened at a Detroit nightclub. No drinking or smoking were permitted. Patrons just listened to Ethel perform sacred music and religious monologues. Not very exciting nightclub fare. Her birthday was spent at another Crusade in Texas. On November 8, she left for Charlotte, North Carolina, followed by a return to Philadelphia in early December; this gave her another chance to spend time with her mother. She also recorded an album of mostly sacred music, Ethel Waters Reminisces.
Her performances at churches for a $50 fee continued. In February 1963, she appeared on Steve Allen’s television program and later performed on Ed Sullivan’s anniversary show. Then she was signed for another television movie, the “Go Down Moses” episode of the series Great Adventure, in which she worked with Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, and Brock Peters. A dramatization of Harriet Tubman’s experiences on the Underground Railroad as she led some three hundred slaves to freedom, Go Down Moses starred Dee as Tubman, a character Ethel must have yearned to play. Instead she was cast as Tubman’s mother.
Devastating news came from her sister in Philadelphia on September 24. Their mother had been rushed to the hospital. Now Ethel was being asked to give her consent for the amputation of one of her mother’s legs. Ethel agreed to the operation, and the next day Genevieve called again to say she had just left the hospital. The operation had been performed and their mother was still under sedation. Another call came on September 26. “Well, she’s gone639,” said Genevieve. Ethel was in a state of shock. Her mother’s death had been the last thing she had expected. No doubt, she held Genevieve responsible for not having informed her earlier that her mother’s leg had become infected. Now she had to pay for her mother’s funeral. Fortunately, her salary for “Go Down Moses” had added to her nest egg. There was also money from her various church recitals.
“She took it very badly,” said Croomes. Ethel debated whether or not she should attend the funeral. “Should I go? Should I stay?” she asked. Finally, she told Croomes, “Well, I just sent $2,000 back there. That’ll take care of everything. I can’t make it.”
In some respects, Ethel was thankful the death had occurred. Never had she wanted Momweeze to outlive her. Who then would have cared for her mother? Then, too, had her mother recovered from the operation, she might have suffered and been unable to accept the amputation. Her mother’s funeral was on October 2. The next day Ethel performed at one of the churches. Her belief was that God had worked everything out in the best way. Yet nothing could alleviate her sorrow.
Throughout her entire life, there had been but two p
eople she had loved without holding back, her grandmother Sally and her mother, Louise. Telling their stories in some way or another had been at the heart of her greatest performances, as Hagar and Berenice, and to another extent, Dicey in Pinky. She had not been able to tell their stories in her music. But acting had enabled her to reach deep inside herself and lift out the pain and torment and oddly triumphant moments of otherwise very ordinary lives.