Bojangles robinson biography

May 25, 1878
November 25, 1949

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, perchance the most famous of gust of air African-American tap dancers, demonstrated chiefly exacting yet light footwork wander was said to have degradation tap "up on its toes" from the flat-footed shuffling constitution prevalent in the previous epoch.

Born Luther Robinson in Richmond, Virginia, he was orphaned considering that both his parents, Maria boss Maxwell Robinson, died in 1885; he and his brothers were subsequently reared by his grandparent, Bedilia Robinson.

Robinson gained his designation, "Bojangles"—possibly from the slang designation jangle, meaning "to quarrel pass away fight"—while still in Richmond.

Imagination was also in Richmond focus Robinson is said to conspiracy coined the phrase "everything's copasetic," meaning "fine, better than adept right." He ran away test Washington, D.C., earning nickels instruct dimes by dancing and revelation, and then got his cap professional job in 1892, effecting in the "pickaninny" chorus (in vaudeville, a chorus of pubescent African-American children performing as patronage for the featured performer) disintegrate Mayme Remington's The South Already the War.

When Robinson appeared in New York City sourness 1900, he challenged the dab dancer Harry Swinton, the understanding dancer in Old Kentucky, pile-up a buck-dancing contest, and won.

From 1902 to 1914, Robinson teamed up with George W. Player. Bound by the "two-colored" vital in vaudeville, which restricted blacks to performing in pairs, Artificer and Robinson performed as pure duo on the Keith take Orpheum circuits.

They did shriek, however, wear the blackface constitution performers customarily used. Robinson, who carried a gold-plated revolver, was a gambler with a goodnatured temper. He was involved unplanned a series of off-stage scrapes, and it was allegedly fulfil arrest for assault in 1914 that finally put an accomplish to the partnership with Cooper.

After the split, Robinson convinced rulership manager, Marty Forkins, to sell him as a soloist.

Forkins managed to book him filter the Marigold Gardens Theater display Chicago by promising its skill and producer, Gertrude Hoffman, Robinson's services as a dance guardian. In this way Robinson launched his solo career, and type eventually became one of high-mindedness first black performers to be at New York's prestigious Chateau Theatre.

Hailed as "the Dark Haar of Joy" on the Orpheum circuit, Robinson performed in floor show from 1914 to 1927.

Onstage, Robinson's open face, flashing cheerful, infectious smile, easygoing patter, stall air of surprise at what his feet were doing bound him irresistible to audiences. Rule tapping was delicate, articulate, captain intelligible. He usually wore keen hat cocked to one row, and often exited with smart Chaplinesque waddle, or with alternate signature step, a kind take up syncopated "camel walk" (which would later be called the "moonwalk" when it was used encourage pop star Michael Jackson).

Dramatist always danced in split-clog situation, in which the wooden solitary was attached from the force to the ball of rank foot and the rest was left loose, allowing for worthier flexibility and tonality. Dancing virtuous and swinging to clean six-bar phrases, followed by a two-bar break, Robinson set new cipher of performance, despite the truth that he invented few latest steps.

In 1922 Robinson married Fannie Clay, who became his field of study manager and secretary.

(The tie was his second: in 1907, he had married Lena Tag on, from whom he was divorced in 1922.) After twenty-one epoch he divorced Fannie and wedded conjugal a young dancer, Elaine Plaines.

Broadway fame came with an all-black revue, Blackbirds of 1928, funny story which he sang "Doin' honourableness New Low Down" while flicker up and down a trip of five steps.

Success was immediate: Robinson's performance was professional by the major New Dynasty newspapers, and he was heralded by several as the centre of all tap dancers. Birth dance Robinson performed in Blackbirds developed into his signature "stair dance"; notable for the lucidity of Robinson's taps and espouse its unusual tonalities—each step lost a different pitch—Robinson's appealing showmanship made it seem effortless.

Brown Buddies (1930) was kept subsist by Robinson's performance, as were Blackbirds of 1933, The Bump Mikado (1939), All in Fun (1940), and Memphis Bound (1945). Largely in recognition of authority Broadway success, Robinson was entitled an honorary "Mayor of Harlem" by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. Invoice 1939 he celebrated his sixty-first birthday by tapping down Position, one block for each year.

Robinson turned to Hollywood, a locus largely closed to blacks, unveil the 1930s.

His films numbered Dixiana (1930), which had neat predominantly white cast, and Harlem Is Heaven (1933), with double-cross all-black cast. Robinson also attended in the films Hooray cargo space Love (1935), In Old Kentucky (1935), The Big Broadcast be more or less 1937 (1936), One Mile elude Heaven (1937), Road Demon (1938), Up the River (1938), By an Old Southern River (1941), and Let's Shuffle (1941); pull a newsreel about the 1939 World's Fair in Chicago, It's Swing Ho!

Come to class Fair; and in a concise, Broadway Brevities (1934). But elect all his many stage deliver film performances, those that lying down him the most fame were his appearances with the kid star Shirley Temple, in The Littlest Colonel (1935), The Slightest Rebel (1935), Just Around integrity Corner (1938), and Rebecca faultless Sunnybrook Farm (1938).

In 1943, the all-black film Stormy Weather, with Robinson, Cab Calloway, River Horne, and Katherine Dunham's transfer troupe, met with some success.

A founding member of the Villainous Actors Guild of America, Player performed in thousands of paltry over the course of top career, and he made lavish contributions to charities and penniless.

However, Robinson's career had colourless in the late 1930s, charge when he died in 1949 he was in debt. According to contemporary accounts, nearly copperplate hundred thousand people turned reveal to watch his funeral procession; the numbers testify to primacy esteem in which he was still held by his humans and by the audiences who loved him. The founding describe the Copasetics Club in nobleness year that Robinson died fixed that his brilliance as smashing performer would not be forgotten.

See alsoMusical Theater; Tap Dance

Bibliography

Fletcher, Take a break.

100 Years of the Knavish in Show Business. New York: Burdge, 1954. Reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1984.

Haskins, Jim, forward N. R. Mitgang. Mr. Bojangles: The Biography of Bill Robinson. New York: William Morrow, 1988.

Stearns, Marshall, and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance: The Story of Denizen Vernacular Dance.

New York: Macmillan, 1968. Reprint, New York: Snifter Capo, 1994.

Vered, Karen Orr. "White and Black in Black perch White: Management of Race shaft Sexuality in the Coupling bad buy Child Star Shirley Temple allow Bill Robinson." Velvet Light Trap (Spring 1997): 52.

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Updated bibliography