in the Sky . The show did a national tour, after which the Dunham dance company settled in Los Angeles. They began to appear in Hollywood films such as the Warner Bros. short Carnival of Rhythm in 1941 and the Paramount musical Star Spangled Rhythm in 1942. The Nicholas Brothers—Fayard (1914–2006), born in Mobile, Alabama, and Harold (1921–2000), born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina—grew up in Philadelphia in a show business family. The duo began performing as children, with Fayard teaching himself and his siblings how to sing and dance. In 1932, the Nicholas Brothers landed in Harlem at the Cotton Club, where they were spotted by movie producer Samuel Goldwyn, who invited them to appear in Kid Millions (1934), their first Hollywood film. After appearing in various Broadway shows, the Nicholas Brothers moved to Los Angeles, working regularly in films and television, on Broadway and worldwide tours. Today, family members of the Nicholas Brothers operate a dance studio for all ages in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
government wanted to send to the public? • What would such a public relations campaign look like today? SYNOPSIS The story of Stormy Weather is loosely based on the experiences of Bill Robinson coming up as an entertainer. The film starts with Robinson’s character Bill Williamson reminiscing with neighborhood children about his World War I experience and how it led to a career in show business. As Williamson’s tale progresses, the audience is introduced to his love interest Selina Rogers (Horne) and his crafty pal Gabe Tucker (Wilson). Through Gabe, Williamson is introduced to Selina’s manager Chick Bailey (Wallace). The rest of the film follows the characters’ journey to show business success. The 78-minute film showcases twenty musical performances.
worked his way up the show business ladder starting in MINSTREL SHOWS and becoming a favorite in VAUDEVILLE, Broadway theater, movies, radio, and television. All the while, he faced the indignities to which Black traveling performers were subjected under JIM CROW LAWS, such as segregated audiences, hotels, and restaurants. After moving to Harlem in the 1920s, Robinson found success on Broadway, becoming the highest paid Black entertainer in the world at the time. Hollywood producers and directors took notice and hired him. His most successful films were made by Twentieth Century Fox starring alongside the popular child actress Shirley Temple. In his roles with Temple, Robinson played servants and butlers to comply with the MOTION PICTURE PRODUCTION CODE. The Code forbade certain images and storylines on screen; for instance, interracial romance (“miscegenation”) was taboo. But Fox believed that the Robinson-Temple dance duets avoided controversy by presenting an older Black male servant with a little white girl as innocent entertainment. Robinson worked steadily and resisted stereotypical roles as much as possible. His last film was Stormy Weather , and he died a few years later. In 1942, Arthur “Dooley” Wilson (1886–1953) appeared as Sam in the classic film Casablanca performing the iconic theme song “As Time Goes By.” In 1943, the film won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz), and Best Screenplay (Julius Esptein, Philip Epstein, and Howard Koch). When Stormy Weather came out, Wilson was already a known performer- actor, drummer, and singer who had worked his way up in the Black theater scene. Born in 1886 in Tyler, Texas, he started earning money as a performer when he was eight years old. He worked in Black theater companies in Chicago and New York. He later joined James Europe’s ragtime band (Europe is portrayed by Ernest Whitman in Stormy Weather ). Then Wilson formed his own band and toured overseas in Europe during the 1920s. In the 1930s, he was part of the Federal Theatre Project, a New Deal program established during the Great Depression to employ artists, writers, directors, and theater workers. The program established specific chapters, including one dedicated to Black artists called the Negro Theatre Unit. Wilson performed in the Broadway production of Cabin in the Sky , a breakthrough role that earned him a contract with Paramount Pictures. The film adaptation was produced by MGM, and Wilson was not invited to reprise his role.
Throughout his career, he was often cast as a servant.
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Jazz musician and prolific composer Fats Waller (1904–1943) was at the peak of his fame when the film Stormy Weather was released. Born Thomas Wright Waller in New York City in 1904, he started playing piano at the age of six. He was a student of famed pianist James P. Johnson (credited as the pioneer of stride piano and influence on jazz greats Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Art Tatum). Waller started recording for the company that eventually became RCA Victor in 1926 and toured the United States and Europe. He composed the hit Broadway musical Early to Bed in 1943 (the first Black person to do so) and copyrighted some 400 songs, including “Honeysuckle Rose,” “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” “Two Sleepy People,” “Your Feet’s Too Big,” “The Sheik of Araby,” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.” Stormy Weather would be his last film appearance. Sadly, Waller passed away from pneumonia in December 1943 at the age of thirty-nine. Cab Calloway (1907–1994) was a known entertainer and movie-screen presence in 1943. He was born Cabell Calloway III in Rochester, New York, in 1907. Calloway had been featured in several short films by Paramount Studios through the early 1930s. In 1930, his orchestra filled in for the touring Duke Ellington at Harlem’s Cotton Club. That led to a permanent gig at the club, performing twice a week on radio broadcasts on NBC. Calloway was the first Black performer with a nationally syndicated radio show. In 1931, he recorded “Minnie the Moocher,” his most famous song. In 1935, Lena Horne made her film debut in Paramount’s Cab Calloway’s Jitterbug Party as a dancer. Calloway wrote his autobiography Of Minnie the Moocher & Me in 1976 and performed the eponymous song in the film The Blues Brothers , released in 1980. Katherine Dunham (1909–2006) was born in Chicago in 1909. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1936, earning a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. She was offered a grant to continue her studies after graduation but chose to pursue a career in dance. Like Dooley Wilson, Dunham worked with the Federal Theatre Project as the dance director of the Chicago Negro Theatre Unit throughout the 1930s. In 1940, after many successful performances in various stage shows, she and her dance company were brought on to perform in the Broadway production of Cabin
BIOGRAPHIES OF KEY PERFORMERS
Born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Lena Horne (1917–2010) was at the beginning of her illustrious career during the making of Stormy Weather . In the early 1930s, she worked in Harlem’s world-famous Cotton Club. Throughout the decade, she sang, recorded, and toured with various big bands. Horne was brought to Los Angeles by Felix Young, who had run the Trocadero nightclub on the Sunset Strip, to perform at the Little Troc in 1942. That same year, she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and began to appear in films. During the World War II era, the NAACP encouraged the film industry to offer more contracts to Black entertainers, and Horne was the first Black musical star to be placed under contract at the studio. She starred in MGM’s Cabin in the Sky . Impressed with that film’s success, Twentieth Century Fox developed a vehicle, Stormy Weather , to showcase their famous Black entertainer, Bill Robinson. MGM lent Horne out to Twentieth Century Fox (a common practice among studios) for the co-starring role. Horne’s contract represented new possibilities for Black entertainers of her generation. She was a lifelong member of the NAACP, signed up when she was just two years old by her grandmother, and remained a passionate advocate for racial justice throughout her life. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878–1949), born in post–Civil War Richmond, Virginia, was a veteran entertainer by 1943. He served in the Spanish-American War, then
Explore: Group discussion
• When you read through the abbreviated biographies, what are some things you can deduce about what life was like for Black performers at this time? • Many of these performers had experienced some form of success before joining the production of Stormy Weather . What do you imagine the experience to be among such a variety of performers? How would the experience of Lena Horne compare to the experience of Bill Robinson, for example. Activity: Write your future biography Imagine and write a biography of your life. Describe who you are now, and then imagine your future achievements and accomplishments. The biography should be around 5–7 sentences. THEME AND QUESTIONS One of the essential questions of the exhibition Regeneration is “What is Black cinema?” While there is no definitive answer to this question, Stormy Weather suggests one possibility. A theme of the
*Words set in ALL CAPS are defined in the Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts (section F of this guide).
*Words set in ALL CAPS are defined in the Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts (section F of this guide).
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