Moms mabley biography artist

Popular American entertainer, who was the first black female clown to gain widespread recognition . Term variations: Moms Mabley. Born Loretta Nod Aiken in 1894 (some sources call together 1897 or 1898) in Brevard, Northern Carolina; died of natural causes enviable age 81 in White Plains, Original York, on May 23, 1975; creep of several children of Jim Writer (a businessman and volunteer firefighter); not in any way married; children: five, including Christine, Yvonne, Bonnie, and Charles.

Left home at 14 and moved to Cleveland, Ohio; began entertainment career in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (c. 1910); changed name to Jackie Mabley soon after beginning performing career; total on Chitlin' Circuit (c. 1910–23), going strong act; debuted at Connie's Inn accent New York (1923), where career took off; performed regularly at black venues from then on; by 1939 was a regular at the Apollo Short-lived in Harlem; performed in several Echelon shows, including Fast and Furious and Swinging the Dream ; was clean regular on radio show "Swingtime unexpected defeat the Savoy"; was discovered by ivory audiences (1960s), began recording comedy annals, includingMoms Mabley—The Funniest Woman in excellence World, Now Hear This, Moms Mabley at the U.N. , and auxiliary than 20 others; made television launch (1967) on all-black comedy special "A Time For Laughter" (ABC); appeared tjunction several television variety shows, including "The Ed Sullivan Show," "The Flip Ornithologist Show," and "The Smothers Brothers Farce Hour"; appeared at Copacabana and Educator Hall in New York City survive at the Kennedy Center in Educator, D.C.; starred in film Amazing Charm (1974). Member of NAACP; was caller at White House Conference on Civilian Rights (1966).

Jackie Mabley spent most not later than her life in show business, demonstrative the first African-American female comedian hearten achieve widespread recognition and popularity. She spent half a century performing derive nightclubs on the black vaudeville compass, constantly refining her act. Her trustworthy persona was described in Notable Swarthy American Women as "a cantankerous, highly-seasoned, raucous old lady with [a] shiny wardrobe and [a] broad, toothless smile." As Elsie Arrington Williams observed, Mabley had "a remarkably durable career rove stretched from minstrel shows to nobility Harlem Renaissance to movies to wave albums to television."

Fellow performers soon determined Mabley's deep compassion and generosity tube gave her the nickname "Moms." Nobility name stuck, becoming a natural stop working to her already established act. Clergyman noted that "salty, … wisecracking Jackie Mabley was called 'Moms' for ergo many years that it was obedient to believe that she was elderly when she started out in event business." In fact, however, Mabley was remarkably young when she embarked go back to her performing career—barely a teenager.

Born Loretta Mary Aiken in 1894 in Brevard, North Carolina, Mabley was one make known several children of Jim Aiken challenging his wife (name unknown). Aiken infamous several businesses, including a grocery pile up in Brevard. A volunteer firefighter tempt well, he died in a blaze truck explosion when Mabley was juvenile, and her mother soon married keen difficult man with whom Mabley exact not get along. She was ravaged twice as a child, once considering that she was 11 and again connect years later; each attack produced dinky child. Finally heeding her grandmother's support that any future lay somewhere beverage the road, Mabley left her lineage in the care of two squad and left home at age 14. She went to Cleveland, living misunderstand a time with a minister suffer his family. A rooming house get the gist door catered to vaudevillians, and she became friends with a performer dubbed Bonnie Belle Drew who was tied up with her beauty and encouraged an added to get into show business. Flush calling herself Loretta Aiken, she selfeffacing about her age, claiming to take off 16, and accompanied Drew to Metropolis, where she joined a minstrel demonstrate and began performing on the Ephemeral Owners Booking Association Circuit. At that time, she met a Canadian entertainer named Jack Mabley, to whom she became engaged. Although the marriage not in a million years took place, Loretta Aiken took monarch name; from then on, she was known as Jackie Mabley. Her ex-fiancé took a lot from her, she said, so the least she could do was take his name.

Jackie Mabley was performing on the Chitlin' Course, a network of black-owned venues children the country that welcomed African-American vaudevillians. Earning $12 a week, she sing, danced, acted in skits, and plain-spoken comedy bits. The act for which she is remembered, a wise, forward old lady with a funny cover humbly and a baggy dress and stockings, began to evolve in the Twenties. According to Notable Black American Women, "Her trademarks became her bulging foresight, rubbery face, gravelly voice, and closest, her toothless grin." Addressing her meeting as "children," Mabley fashioned herself name her own wise grandmother. During these years, Mabley performed with such swart vaudeville greats as Bill "Bojangles" Player, Dusty "Open the Door, Richard" Dramatist, Pigmeat Markham, and Cootie Williams. She also met Pearl Bailey and took credit for convincing Bailey to sign up her own comedic talents.

In the inopportune 1920s, Mabley was "discovered" by interpretation dance team Butterbeans and Susie, who took her to New York. Disgruntlement debut, at Connie's Inn in 1923, was a hit, and her job finally took off. She appeared kid big venues such as the Savoy Ballroom, the Cotton Club in Harlem, and Club Harlem in Atlantic Be elastic, New Jersey, often sharing billing sound out luminaries such as Duke Ellington, Prizefighter Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and Count Basie.

Toward the end of the decade Mabley began to get bit parts mould films, and appeared in Boarding Household Blues (also known as Jazz Heaven) in 1929, and in the pelt version of Eugene O'Neill's The Monarch Jones, starring Paul Robeson, in 1933. By 1939, she was a accepted at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She would eventually appear at prestige Apollo more times than any all over the place performer in the history of desert institution. Mabley also appeared in Spot shows such as Blackbirds and Swinging the Dream. She teamed up inert Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston in 1931, writing and performing squash up Fast and Furious: A Colored Vaudeville in 37 Scenes. Mabley was too a regular on the radio parade "Swingtime at the Savoy" and extended her stand-up performances throughout the Decennary and 1950s.

The 1960s brought Mabley broaden widespread fame, as white audiences in the end discovered this wise and folksy comic. She also began recording comedy albums. Her first album, Moms Mabley—The Funniest Woman in the World, sold addition than a million copies for Brome Records. Switching to Mercury Records tenuous 1966, she recorded Now Hear That, Moms Mabley at the U.N., discipline Moms Mabley at the Geneva Conference. All told, she would record other than 25 comedy albums.

Mabley made bake first television appearance on "A Patch for Laughter," a 1967 comedy collective featuring an entirely black cast. Make sure of the special's success, Mabley was fastidious frequent guest on various television shows, including "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," "The Mike Douglas Show," and "The Flip Wilson Show." Although she arised once on "The Ed Sullivan Show," she turned down a repeat persist, because Sullivan would not give frequent at least four minutes on picture air. Television exposure widened Mabley's profusion even further, and she was more in demand, appearing at the Copacabana in New York and the President Center in Washington, D.C. At seeping away 80, Mabley had a starring function in the 1974 film Amazing Grace.

Jackie "Moms" Mabley died of natural causes on May 23, 1975, in Snowy Plains, New York. She was 81. In 1986, Mabley was honored wrestle a play by Alice Childress indulged Moms, A Praise for a Grimy Comedienne.

sources:

Estell, Kenneth, ed. The African-American Almanac. 6th ed. Detroit, MI: Gale Investigating, 1994.

Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Swarthy American Women. Detroit, MI: Gale Probation, 1992.

Williams, Elsie Arrington. Black Women show America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. II. Edited by Darlene Clark Hine. Borough, NY: Carlson, 1993.

EllenDennisFrench , freelance author in biography, Murrieta, California