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Sunday October 12th 2008 |
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Sunday October 12th 2008 |
a non-profit education organization | |
October 31
Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, Waters came to New York City in 1919 after singing and dancing on the East Coast and the Southern vaudeville and cabaret circuit. Due to her slender appearance, she was billed as Sweet Mama String-bean. In 1921 she cut two songs for Cardinal Records and became the first artist to release a blues record on the black-owned Black Swan label, recording "Down Home Blues" and "Oh Daddy.” With smooth, well-defined phrasing and a meticulous sense of timing, the singing style of Ethel Waters rated with the best of the era's vocalists. By the mid-'20s Waters had stopped singing the blues. Her style changed to that of a successful pop singer. Waters performed in a number of revues, including Africana, Paris Bound, and The Ethel Waters Broadway Revue. In 1929 she landed her first acting role in the film On with the Show. She appeared in Pinky in 1949, which won her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. On Broadway Ethel Waters appeared in Mamba's Daughters, though her greatest theatrical achievement was in 1950 when she played a cook in the play The Member of the Wedding and won the New York Drama Critics Award for best actress. She penned two autobiographies, His Eye Is on the Sparrow and To Me It's Wonderful. Ethel Waters also toured with evangelist Billy Graham from 1957 until her death in 1977. Reference: Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York ISBN 0-926019-61-9
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The African American Registry®, The African American Registry® Copyright 2005, 2006
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