|
Ethel Waters (1896 - 1977)
Because of the circumstances under which she was conceived, Ethel was never really acknowledged or loved by her mother, and bore her father's surname as a cruel reminder of her parentage. Adopted by her maternal grandmother, Ethel spent most of her childhood moving from town to town and living with various aunts and uncles, most of whom were alcoholics and lived in red light districts and slums. Raised in poverty, surrounded by drunks, prostitiutes, and other inhabitants of the streets, Ethel was often hungry and learned to survive by any means necessary, including stealing. By her own admission, she "ran wild." After two years in a Catholic school, Ethel converted to the Methodist faith during a revival at age eleven. Despite her conversion, Ethel maintained something of a wild side until the 1950s, when she underwent a second spiritual conversion. The barriers of anger, hate, suspicion, and defensiveness which she built up as a means to survive her childhood, though mellowed in later years, would remain a part of her personality for life, and sharply limit the number of close friends she had. Ethel first performed on the stage in a church program as Baby Star when she was five years old. At thirteen she quit school, was married against her will to the 23-year-old, abusive Merritt Purnsley, whom she divorced after only one year, and began working as a domestic. Her professional singing career began in 1917, when she began performing on the black vaudeville circuit as Sweet Mama Stringbean, a name inspired by her tall, slender figure. Her popularity and appeal proved so great that within a year she became the first female performer to make the transition from the black vaudeville circuit to "the white time." In 1919, she settled in Harlem, where she made her first recordings for Cardinal Records, Black Swan and Columbia, and became one of the great performers of the Harlem Renaissance. During the 1920s and 1930s, Waters made definitive recordings of such later standards as "Dinah" and "Stormy Weather," the latter having been composed specially for her by Harold Arlen, and helped introduce blues and jazz to white audiences. While many singers of the time were still singing in a quasi-operatic manner conducive to music halls and theaters, Waters had a singing style more suited for the microphone which was more conversational in tone and diction. This style, emulated by Bing Crosby and others, in time set the mood for modern singers up to the present time. Also during this time, Waters became the first African-American woman to perform in a Broadway play, Africana, in 1920. One of the songs from this revue, "Supper Time," a song about lynching which anticipated Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit," was written specifically for Waters by Irving Berlin. Ethel Waters' debut in films came with On With the Show (1929), one of the first sound films and also one of the first musical films. Other films she performed in included Rufus for President (1933); Gift for Gab (1934); Talesof Manhattan (1942); Cabin in the Sky (1943); and Pinky (1949), for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination and won the New York Critics Best Actress Award. In what many consider her best performance, she played Bernice Sadie Brown in the 1952 film version of Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding. Her portrayals in these films marked a transition from the domestic and submissive "Mammy" role for older black women to that of the wise and loving Earth Mother. Her origination of the title role in the television version of "Beulah" in 1950 is considered a milestone for African-American actors, despite the domestic nature of her character. Her first autobiography, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, was written in 1952. By 1957, Ethel Waters had undergone a second religious conversion and largely abandoned blues and jazz in favor of gospel stylings. She began touring with evangelist Billy Graham, and continued doing so until ill health forced her off the stage in 1976. Her second autobiography, It's All Wonderful to Me, was written in 1972. The last year of Ethel Waters' life was spent in the Chatsworth, California home of a devoutly Christian family she had befriended, where she spent most hours watching television. On 1 September, 1977, Ethel Waters died from advanced heart disease. Despite her enormous talent and pioneering
efforts, Ethel Waters' professional and personal life were both sharply
curtailed by her notorious temper, particularly as her advancing age and
increasing weight made her more sensitive to and also jealous
and paranoid of the attention paid to younger performers. When Billie
Holiday arrived at Columbia Records in 1933 to make her first commercial
recordings, Waters was introduced to the young songstress and took an instant
disliking to her, resulting in a life-long and bitter rivalry. That
Holiday herself had a reputaion for being short-tempered and sensitive
certainly did not help matters. Jealous of what she perceived as
special treatment being afforded Lena Horne during the filming of Cabin
in the Sky, Waters exploded in an anti-Semtiic tirade against Busby
Berkeley which resulted in a six year ban from films. Waters' friendship
with Alberta Hunter essentially ended after the two performed in Mamba's
Daughters and Waters believed Hunter was receiving more applause
from the audience. While Ethel Waters may have had affairs with many
of the female architects of the Harlem Renaissance, including Bessie
Smith, Ma
Rainey, and Jackie
"Moms" Mabley,
because of her jealouises and fits of temper, her actual friendships with
women were few and often short-lived.
|
