Bill “Bojangles” Robinson

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid black entertainer in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology. His career began in the age of minstrel shows and moved to vaudeville, Broadway theatre, the recording industry, Hollywood films, radio, and television.

According to dance critic Marshall Stearns, "Robinson's contribution to tap dance is exact and specific. He brought it on its toes, dancing upright and swinging," adding a "hitherto-unknown lightness and presence." His signature routine was the stair dance, in which he would tap up and down a set of stairs in a rhythmically complex sequence of steps, a routine that he unsuccessfully attempted to patent. He is also credited with having popularized the word ''copacetic'' through his repeated use of it in vaudeville and radio appearances.

He is famous for his dancing with Shirley Temple in a series of films during the 1930s, and for starring in the musical '' Stormy Weather'' (1943), loosely based on his own life and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. He used his popularity to challenge and overcome numerous racial barriers. Robinson was one of the first minstrel and vaudeville performers to appear as black without the use of blackface makeup, as well as one of the earliest Black performers to perform solo, overcoming vaudeville's two-color rule. Additionally, he was an early black headliner in Broadway shows. Robinson was the first black performer to appear in a Hollywood film in an interracial dance team (with Shirley Temple in '' The Little Colonel'', 1935), and the first black performer to headline a mixed-race Broadway production.

Robinson came under heavy criticism for his apparent tacit acceptance of racial stereotypes of the era, with some critics calling him an Uncle Tom. He strongly resented this, and his biographers suggested that critics were underestimating the difficulties faced by black performers engaging with mainstream white culture at the time, and ignoring his many efforts to overcome racial prejudice. In his public life, Robinson led efforts to persuade the Dallas Police Department to hire its first black policeman; lobby President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II for equal treatment of black soldiers; and stage the first integrated public event in Miami, a fundraiser which was attended by both black and white city residents.

Robinson was a popular figure in both black and white entertainment worlds of his era, and is remembered for the support that he gave to fellow performers, including Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne, Jesse Owens and the Nicholas Brothers. Sammy Davis Jr. and Ann Miller credited him as a teacher and mentor, Miller saying that he "changed the course of my life." Gregory Hines produced and starred in a biographical movie about Robinson for which he won the NAACP Best Actor Award.

Despite being the highest-paid black performer of the time, Robinson died penniless in 1949, his funeral paid for by longtime friend Ed Sullivan. In 1989, Congress designated Robinson's birthday of May 25 as National Tap Dance Day.

Early life

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was born Luther Robinson in Richmond, Virginia on May 25, 1878, to Maxwell, a machinist, and Maria Robinson, a church choir director. He and his younger brother William were raised in Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood. His grandmother Bedelia Robinson, formerly enslaved, raised him after both of his parents died tragically in 1884: his father died from chronic heart disease and his mother from unknown causes. Details of his early life are known only through legend, much of it perpetuated by Robinson himself. He claimed that he was christened Luther, a name that he did not like. He proposed to his younger brother William that they should exchange names, and they eventually did.
His brother subsequently adopted the name of Percy and achieved recognition as a musician under that name.

Career

Early days

At the age of five, Robinson began dancing for small change, appearing as a "hoofer" or busker in local beer gardens and in front of theaters for tossed pennies. A promoter saw him performing outside the Globe Theater in Richmond and offered him a job as a "pick" in a local minstrel show. At that time, minstrel shows were staged by white performers in blackface. Pickaninnies were cute black children at the edge of the stage singing, dancing, or telling jokes.

In 1890, at the age of 12, Robinson ran away to Washington, D.C., where he did odd jobs at Benning Race Track and worked briefly as a jockey. In 1891, he was hired by Whallen and Martel, touring with Mayme Remington's troupe in a show titled ''The South Before the War'', performing again as a pickaninny, despite his age. He travelled with the show for over a year before growing too mature to play the role credibly. He later teamed up with a young Al Jolson, with Jolson singing while Robinson danced for pennies or to sell newspapers.

In 1898, he returned to Richmond where he joined the United States Army as a rifleman when the Spanish–American War started. He received an accidental gunshot wound from a second lieutenant who was cleaning his gun.

Vaudeville

On March 30, 1900, Robinson entered a buck-and-wing performance contest at the Bijou Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, winning a gold medal and defeating Harry Swinton, star of the show ''In Old Kentucky'' and considered the best dancer of his day. The resulting publicity helped Robinson to get work in numerous travelling shows, sometimes in a troupe, more frequently with a partner, though not always as a dancer (Robinson also sang and performed two-man comedy routines).

Robinson was a partner in a tap-dancing and comedy duo with George W. Cooper from 1902, booked on both the Keith and Orpheum Circuit, with their final performance together in 1916. Vaudeville performer Rae Samuels, who had performed in shows with Robinson, convinced him to meet with her manager (and husband), Marty Forkins. Under Forkins' tutelage, Robinson matured and began working as a solo act, increasing his earnings to an estimated $3,500 per week. Forkins accomplished this by inventing an alternate history for Robinson, promoting him as already being a solo act. This technique succeeded, making Robinson one of the first performers to break vaudeville's two-coloured rule, which forbade solo Black acts.

When the U.S. entered World War I, the War Department set up a series of ''Liberty Theatres'' in the training camps. The Keith Circuit and Orpheum Circuit underwrote vaudeville acts at reduced fees, but Robinson volunteered to perform gratis for thousands of troops, in both black and white units of the expeditionary forces, receiving a commendation from the War Department in 1918.

Throughout the early 1920s, Robinson continued his career on the road as a solo vaudeville act, touring throughout the U.S. and most frequently visiting Chicago, where Marty Forkins, his manager, lived. From 1919 to 1923, he was fully booked on the Orpheum Circuit and was signed full-time by the Keith Circuit in 1924 and 1925. In addition to being booked for 50 to 52 weeks (an avid baseball fan, he took a week off for the World Series), Robinson did multiple shows per night, frequently on two different stages. In 1926 Robinson made a short tour of UK variety theatres, headlining at the Holborn Empire and, during the week of July 19, the Brighton Hippodrome.

Tap Dance Style

As mentioned, the chapter of Stearns' ''Bill Robinson: Up on the Toes'' titled ''Jazz Dance'' (1966) describes how Robinson introduced dancing "up on the toes" to tap dance. This was a new addition to King Rastus Brown's popular "flat-footed wizardry." Moving primarily from the waist down, Robinson maintained impressive control of his body. Pete Nugent is said to have remarked "Robinson was the absolute tops in ''control''." That Robinson infrequently dropped his heels marked a significant change in popular tap technique. Due to his adroit ability to be both light on his feet and distinct in his percussive taps, Robinson was called the "Father of Tapology."

In 1918 at the Palace Theatre in New York, Robinson performed the stair dance. Claims regarding the origin of the stair dance were highly disputed; however, Robinson was widely credited with the dance because he made it popular. The dance involved "a different rhythm for each step each one reverberating with a different pitch and the fact that he had a special set of portable steps enhanced his claim to originating the dance." The popularity of the stair dance led Robinson to file for a patent through the U.S. Patent Office in Washington D.C., ultimately to no avail; however the lack of a patent did not diminish Robinson's professional command of the stair dance. The entertainment community began to associate the stair dance exclusively with Robinson as the routine became a standard part of his performances in 1921. Haskins reports that dancer Fred Stone sent Robinson a check for having performed the routine.

Robinson's talents transcended his famous stair dance. The steps were not essential to Robinson's performances; rather, Robinson would naturally shift into "a little skating step to stop-time; or a scoot step, a cross-over tap" or many other tap steps involved in his particular movement. Robinson changed rhythmic meter and tap steps and syncopated breaks seamlessly. Often Robinson would talk to his audience, share anecdotes, and act as if he were surprised by the action of his feet. His amusing personality was essential to his performances and popularity. Robinson is said to have consistently performed in split-soled wooden shoes, handcrafted by a Chicago craftsman.

Broadway

In 1928, a white impresario, Lew Leslie, produced ''Blackbirds of 1928'' on Broadway, a black revue for white audiences starring Adelaide Hall and Bill Robinson along with Aida Ward, Tim Moore and other black stars. The show originally did not include Robinson; only after three weeks of lukewarm reception did Leslie add Robinson as an "extra attraction." The show then became a huge success on Broadway, where it ran for over a year to sell-out performances. On stage, Adelaide Hall and Robinson danced and sang a duet together, captivating their audiences. From then on, Robinson's public role was that of a dapper, smiling, plaid-suited ambassador to the white world, maintaining a connection with the black show-business circles through his continuing patronage of the Hoofers Club, an entertainer's haven in Harlem. So successful was Adelaide Hall's collaboration with Bojangles, that they appeared together on stage at the prestigious Palace Theatre (Broadway) before they were teamed up together again by Marty Forkins (Robinson's manager) to star in another Broadway musical titled, " Brown Buddies," that opened in 1930 at the Liberty Theatre, where it ran for four months before commencing a road tour of the States.

In 1939, Robinson returned to the stage in '' The Hot Mikado'', a jazz version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. The show opened at the Broadhurst Theatre, with Robinson cast in the role of the Emperor. His rendition of ''My Object All Sublime'' stopped the show and produced eight encores. After Broadway, the show moved to the 1939 New York World's Fair, and was one of the great hits of the fair. August 25, 1939, was named ''Bill Robinson Day'' at the fair.

Robinson's next Broadway show, ''All in Fun'' (1940), was with an all-white cast. Despite having Imogene Coca, Pert Kelton, and other stars, the show received poor reviews at out-of-town tryouts in New Haven and Boston. When the white stars and co-producers Phil Baker and Leonard Sillman withdrew, Robinson became the star, the first time an African-American headlined an otherwise all-white production. Although the reviewers were enthusiastic about Robinson, they panned the show, and it failed to attract audiences. ''All in Fun'' closed after four performances.

Robinson's next foray on Broadway was the musical comedy ''Memphis Bound'', which opened in May 1945. This production used an all-Black cast, including Robinson (who had top billing), Avon Long, Billy Daniels, Ada Brown, and Sheila Guyse. Robinson played the boat pilot and then Sir Joseph Porter in the play-within-a-play of ''H.M.S. Pinafore''. Critics widely praised Robinson's performance and especially his dancing, with his stair dance cited as a high point of the show.

Film career

After 1932, black stage 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.

Early films

Robinson's film debut was in the 1930 musical ''Dixiana''. RKO was formed in part by a merger of the Keith and Orpheum theater circuits, with whom Robinson had performed as a headliner for many years. He was cast as a specialty performer in a standalone scene. This practice, customary at the time, permitted Southern theaters to remove scenes containing black performers from their showings of the film. ''Dixiana'' was followed by Robinson's first starring role, in ''Harlem Is Heaven

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