Introducing Bert Williams : Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star （Reprint）

Forbes, Camille F.

Basic Civitas Books（2010/03発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 404 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780465018116
• DDC分類 790

Full Description

According to critics of his time, Bert Williams was the Greatest Comedian on the American Stage." A black Bahamian immigrant, Williams made his start as a barker advertising the rough-and-tumble medicine shows" that dotted the Wild West at the end of the nineteenth century. Not long after joining a minstrel troupe and donning the burnt- cork makeup of blackface, he teamed up with African American George Walker in a sixteen-year partnership that would take them from rural western mining towns to the bright lights of Broadway. In Introducing Bert Williams , historian Camille Forbes reveals a fascinating figure, initiating the reader into the vivid world of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century popular entertainment. Williams's long and varied career is a whirlwind of drama, glamour, and ambition,nothing less than the birth of American show business.

Contents

1 THE EARLY YEARS 1. Growing Up 2. An Unlikely Performer? 2 THE WILLIAMS AND WALKER YEARS 3. Big City, Bright Hopes 4. Rolling into Black Musical Theater 5. From Broadway to London: In Dahomey 6. First Class All Ziegfeld's Follies 9. Opportunity Knocks 10. War at Home and Abroad 11. Dance of Indecision 12. A Fresh Start 13. A "Legitimate" Star