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LOOK at this FACE!
I guess I STILL have a crush on her! Yummy.
It was on the movie set of "Porgy and Bess" (1958) that Bailey won an early skirmish for black civil rights by demanding the elimination of "undignified and unnatural" Negro dialect from the George Gershwin folk drama. "There's a lot of people out there waiting for a dialect, so let's talk the way we really talk, without the 'dems, doeses and deses,'" she told reporters. "We don't talk like that. Maybe we did 50 years ago, but not now."
..Hollywood Star
Though Bailey had a storied career—singing and dancing in black nighclubs in the 1930s, appearing on Broadway and in films in the ’40s and ’50s, marrying white jazz drummer Louie Bellson—she’s probably best remembered by D.C. audiences for her 1968 renaissance in Hello Dolly, where she was brought in to head an all-black cast (with Cab Calloway) and revitalize a then-tired show. The company played at the National Theater prior to Broadway, and at the height of the Civil Rights era, it made national headlines when Lyndon Johnson dropped by for a matinee performance and Bailey crooned a chorus of his campaign song (“Hello Lyndon”) to him at the curtain call.
..Washington City Paper
OMG! I just stumbled on the MOST INTERESTING bit of history: West Las Vegas.
Seems the first Blacks in 'Vegas were ten guys who were hired to work on the Hoover Dam. Soon, there were 150 Black residents. They had their own side of town and guess what?
They built a night club, called the Moulin Rouge, for Black patrons! I was looking at a video, "The Hidden Las Vegas" and I saw a photo of people standing outside a diner. There was a sign that said, "Only" Couldn't read the rest: White? Black? I'm guessing Black.
Bailey and a BUNCH of other Black entertainers performed there. It became very popular with white performers, who'd hang out there "after hours." Sammy Davis, Jr. turned the Rat Pack on to it.
The Rat Pack connection with Bailey explains the support to be a Republican, in addition to family history.
She's not from the Dakotas; she's from VA and her daddy was a Holy Roller.
Man, I want to watch the rest of those videos on Hidden Las Vegas. It's really interesting! Hot Dog! Never heard of THAT before!!!
Here's a link on the Moulin Rouge:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-sterling/las-vegas-moulin-rouge-a_b_200649.html
May, 2009
The Moulin Rouge burned down in Las Vegas on Thursday.
When I interviewed R&B legend Ruth Brown five years ago, she talked about the first time she came to Las Vegas in 1952. She came here to work and spend some time seeing entertainers like Sammy Davis, Jr., Nat Cole and Pearl Bailey perform. Pretty much all Brown knew about the city came from its nicknames like "Glitter Gulch" and "The Diamond in the Desert." Only, when she was told she couldn't enter the casinos where these performers were playing, she learned another nickname Las Vegas had earned, "The Mississippi of the West."
The black entertainers were quite welcome to play the casinos on The Strip. But otherwise -- to eat, sleep, see shows or gamble -- they were not welcome. Brown said, "It didn't matter how famous you were, you had to stay on the west side of the city, in boarding houses."
I've got to get Miss Pittman started and then guess what I'm gonna do? This stuff is PRICELESS! Hot dog!
