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Leighla Frances Whipper (September 22, 1913 – May 2, 2008) was an
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
songwriter, journalist,
mystery writer Mystery is a fiction genre where the nature of an event, usually a murder or other crime, remains mysterious until the end of the story. Often within a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reas ...
, and businesswoman. She is best known for arranging and publishing musical scores of calypso and
Afro-Caribbean Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...
songs, often with collaborator
Lionel Belasco Lionel Belasco Maracaibo (Venezuela) 1881 – ) was a prominent Venezuelan pianist, composer and bandleader, best known for his calypso recordings. Biography According to various sources, Belasco was born in Maracaibo (Venezuela), the son of ...
.


Early life and education

Leighla Frances Whipper was born September 22, 1913, in
Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...
. Her father,
Leigh Whipper Leigh Rollin Whipper (October 29, 1876 – July 26, 1975) was an American actor on the stage and in motion pictures. He was the first African American to join the Actors' Equity Association, and one of the founders of the Negro Actors Guild of ...
, was a stage and Hollywood screen actor, who hailed from a prominent literary and social activist family. Leighla's paternal grandmother, Frances Anne Rollin, wrote the first diary of a
Southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...
black woman published as well as the first full-length biography authored by an
African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
. Her mother, Virginia Eva Wheeler, was a stage dancer who performed in chorus lines during the
Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s. At the t ...
. The couple met through their affiliations with the
Theatre Owners Booking Association Theatre Owners Booking Association, or T.O.B.A., was the vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s. The theaters mostly had white owners, though there were exceptions, including the recently restored Morton Theater in Athens, G ...
and work on the
vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
performance circuit. The couple separated before Leighla's birth. Though absent for much of her childhood, Leigh sent his daughter financial support and Virginia, eventually, sent Leighla to live with her aunt Ionia Rollin Whipper, an obstetrician who operated a home for unwed mothers in
Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
Ionia eventually adopted Leighla.Moore, J. M. (1999). ''Leading the Race: The Transformation of the Black Elite in the Nation's Capital, 1880-1920''. University of Virginia Press. Whipper graduated from
Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...
where she participated in a literary association called the Stylus Club. She was elected Scribe of the Stylus Society during the 1933–1934 academic year.


Career

After college, Whipper lived in New York City and worked as a journalist and editor. She wrote for
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...
's ''The People's Voice,'' reporting on Harlem's cultural landscape and reporting on such figures as twin African American photographers Morgan and Marvin Smith. During her time as a journalist, Whipper interviewed
Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...
,
Lon Chaney Leonidas Frank "Lon" Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930) was an American actor. He is regarded as one of the most versatile and powerful actors of cinema, renowned for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and affli ...
,
Josephine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...
, and
Father Divine Father Divine (September 10, 1965), also known as Reverend M. J. Divine, was an African-American spiritual leader from about 1907 until his death in 1965. His full self-given name was Reverend Major Jealous Divine, and he was also known as "t ...
. Whipper also wrote songs featured in
Soundies Soundies are three-minute American musical films, and each short displays a performance. The shorts were produced between 1940 and 1946 and have been referred to as "precursors to music videos" by UCLA. Soundies exhibited a variety of musical gen ...
produced for black audiences by African American football pioneer Frederick "Fritz" Douglas Pollard and his Suntan Studios on 125th Street. She worked with
Trinidadian Trinidadians and Tobagonians, colloquially known as Trinis or Trinbagonians, are the people who are identified with the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The country is home to people of many different national, ethnic and religious origins. As a ...
calypso musician
Lionel Belasco Lionel Belasco Maracaibo (Venezuela) 1881 – ) was a prominent Venezuelan pianist, composer and bandleader, best known for his calypso recordings. Biography According to various sources, Belasco was born in Maracaibo (Venezuela), the son of ...
to arrange and copyright, through the
Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...
music publishing industry, tunes Belasco had heard circulating freely in the islands during his youth. Together, Belasco and Whipper published ''Calypso Rhythm Songs: Authentic Tropical Novelty Melodies'' in 1944.''Guilbault, J. (2007). ''Governing sound: The cultural politics of Trinidad's carnival musics''. University of Chicago Press.'' Leighla authored several mystery stories and novels. In 2003, Writer's Club Press published (under the name Lelia Frances Whipper) a memoir entitled ''The Pretty Way Home''.


Personal life

Whipper married sociologist Hylan Garnet Lewis in 1935. The couple had one child, daughter Carole, though Hylan's obituary states they had one son and one daughter.Blair, Thomas L. "Obituary: Professor Hylan Lewis." ''Independent'' ondon, England 25 Mar. 2000, p. 7. Database: Gale General OneFile. The family separated after Lewis made a solitary move to Chicago to pursue doctoral studies at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
. Though the family later reunited in Alabama for a short time, the couple divorced in 1943. After the divorce, Leighla and Carole went back and forth between Washington, D.C., where Ionia lived, and New York, where Leighla's mother, Virginia, resided. From 1949 to 1986, Leighla co-owned, with her mother, the Spuyten Duyvil, a restaurant in
Saratoga Springs Saratoga Springs is a city in Saratoga County, New York, United States. The population was 28,491 at the 2020 census. The name reflects the presence of mineral springs in the area, which has made Saratoga a popular resort destination for over 2 ...
popular with the horse racing crowd. In 1950, Whipper remarried to restaurateur Norman Ford. They remained together until Ford's death in 1961. During her later years, Whipper lived in the Hudson River Valley and enjoyed playing piano, writing, painting, and crocheting. She died in an accident at her Kingston, New York home, on May 2, 2008.


References


External links


Leighla Whipper on Discogs

Song of the Jumbies

Back Down to the Tropics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whipper, Leighla 1913 births 2008 deaths Women songwriters American music publishers (people) Howard University alumni