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

by Camille Forbes

Book Overview

It is not hard to argue that every black performer in show business owes something to Bert Williams. Discovered in California in 1890 by a minstrel troupe manager, Williams swiftly became a regular... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465024793
• ISBN13: 9780465024797
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Basic Civitas Books
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A must read for anyone in the entertainment field

Anyone of any race who wishes to go into the entertainment field should read this book. The author,Camille Forbes has done her homework and done it well. Although it deals with the entertainment scene at the turn of the twentieth century the rules for survival in the "dog eat dog" world of show business still apply today. A fascinating account of Vaudeville's first black star(he was West Indian, not African-American) and the struggles and humiliations(Jim Crow) he had to endure it make it to the top. The book is thick(330+pages)but well worth the time spent reading it. Recommended.

Camille Forbes's Brave Biography of Bert Williams

Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star Camille Forbes's Brave Biography of Bert Williams This big book is densely packed with information, yet so clearly organized and well written it is a delight to read. Framing her comprehensive overview of Bert Williams's career in the context of American theatre and race relations from the 1890s to the 1920s, Camille Forbes illustrates Williams's extraordinary talent and the challenges he faced as a black comedian. In a 400-page biography that is fully researched, meticulously documented, and refreshingly jargon-free, Professor Forbes provides a story that is as entertaining as it is scholarly. She is most effective in re-telling Williams's songs, jokes, monologues, skits, films, and musical productions - many of which had me alternately laughing out loud or crying, sometimes both. In her Preface, Forbes explains that while her archival searches yielded rich details about Bert Williams's performances, she found little about the private life of this man who generally kept his own counsel. Promising to "remain loyal" to the facts she found (p. xii), she relies on detailed examinations of Bert Williams's public life, along with his scant remarks about himself and some comments by those who knew him, to explore the man behind the burnt cork. The result is that this biography sustains an organic integrity that an exposé of the private man's inner life would not. Forbes found plenty about Williams the performer to pack into her book, and just enough about Williams the man to flesh out his complexities. He was, for instance, a loyal husband and doting father but a careless chain smoker and a heavy drinker; a man who enjoyed socializing with other black men but was offended when black entertainers would drop by his dressing room uninvited; a man who dreamed of furthering "mutual understanding between the races" (p. 225) by developing a serious Negro character in a major production but failed to respond when "opportunity knocked" (pp. 224-226); a light-skinned Bahamian who identified with the African American community long before becoming a U.S. citizen but had by then alienated a large number of African Americans by remaining the only black in the all-white Ziegfeld Follies. As with her promise to let her materials speak for themselves, Professor Forbes maintains an implicit contract to present them objectively, without becoming didactic or pedantic. Carefully tracing Williams's career, she provides extensive background information, examines the layers of meaning in his character portrayals, quotes conflicting reviews by critics both black and white, and addresses the complex racial issues of the time. Following Williams from his first public appearances as a shy teen-aged barker at a medicine show in Riverside, California, to his days performing in minstrel shows in San Francisco and his rise to national stardom with his partner, George Walker, Forbes descr