Bill “Bojangles” Robinson

b. 25 Might 1878, Richmond, Virginia, USA, d. 25 November 1949. As a kid Robinson worked well in race stables, medical a desire to become jockey. He danced for fun as well as for the entertainment of others, 1st showing up on stage at age eight. 3 years later on he made the decision that dance was more likely to show a more profitable profession than horse riding. He became well-known on the dark vaudeville circuit and in addition made an appearance in white vaudeville like a “choose”, from pickaninny, where his dance skills offered a patina of quality to occasionally second-rate white functions. As his status grew so do his prominence in showbusiness. In 1921 while operating in the Palace in NY, he danced along the stairways leading from your stage towards the orchestra pit and out of the developed his popular “stair dance”. Although Robinson had not been the first ever to dance on stairways, he processed the regular until it had been probably one of the most magnificent events in the wonderful world of vernacular dance. Towards the finish of the 10 years, though he was right now 60-years-old, he was an enormous achievement in the smash-hit creation of Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds Of 1928. In the middle-30s he made an appearance at nightclubs in revues, musical comedies and additional stage displays, amongst that was Warm Mikado. He was therefore energetic in these years that he occasionally played different displays in various theatres on a single night. Robinson experienced no uncertainties that he was the very best at what he do, a self-confidence that some required to become arrogance and that was blended with a occasionally brooding depressive disorder at the actual fact that, because he was dark, he had to hold back until he is at his sixties before he could benefit from the popularity and fortune directed at much less talented white dancers. Actually, he has been a remarkably ample man and likewise to his substantial work-load, he under no circumstances refused to seem at an advantage for those performers who were much less effective or ailing. It’s been approximated that in a single year he made an appearance in an astounding 400 benefits. In 1930 Robinson experienced produced a film, Dixiana, nonetheless it had not been until he visited Hollywood in the center of the 10 years that he produced a breakthrough with this moderate. He danced inside a string of well-known movies, including some with Shirley Temple. By 1937 Robinson was generating $6,600 weekly for his movies, a strikingly high amount for a dark entertainer in Hollywood at that time. In 1943 he performed his 1st leading part in Stormy Climate, an all-black musical where he starred reverse Lena Horne. Despite becoming in his early seventies when he produced the film he performed his stair dance as well as if he was outclassed from the Nicholas Brothers, his was an extraordinary performance. Furthermore to dance, Robinson also sang inside a light, ingratiating way, memorably documenting “Doin’ THE BRAND NEW Low-Down” in 1932 with Don Redman And His Orchestra. Although his high income designed that he was approximated to have gained a lot more than $2 million during his profession, Robinson’s generosity was in a way that when he passed away in November 1949 he was broke. Half of a million people lined the funeral path of the person who was simply known with some justification as the Mayor of Harlem. In 1993, a display entitled Bojangles, having a publication by Douglas Jones and a rating by Charles Strouse as well as the past due Sammy Cahn, had been workshopped in a variety of provincial theatres.