The cover of the theater program was a little off-putting, but the photo tucked inside was adorable.
The cover showed a caricature of a male dancer with red lips and black face mimicking the look ascribed for years to African Americans. The 1939 show, “Hot Mikado,” featured Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, whom most knew as the black actor who starred with Shirley Temple in several Hollywood movies.
The 11×14 photo, though, showed Robinson laughing it up with three children on a sidewalk.
I bought the program, the photo and several other photos of performers and dancers exactly like ones that I had picked up a year or two ago at this auction house. Unfortunately, the photo was not signed by Robinson, but there was a notation on the back: “Bill Robinson – 1946 – N.Y.C.”
The photo also was not signed by the photographer, but I recognized the style and handwriting. It was the work of Hans Knopf, a well-known magazine photographer.
“Hot Mikado” was a musical with an all-black cast produced by Michael Todd and directed by Hassard Short. It opened at the Broadhurst Theater on Broadway on March 23, 1939, and closed three months later after a successful run of 85 performances. It was then moved to the 1939 New York World’s Fair, where it stayed until September. The show was popular with fair-goers but it lost money.
It was based on a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera called “The Mikado,” which takes place in Japan but whose story obliquely satirizes British politics and conventions. Todd and Short’s Broadway musical was a jazzy version – more dynamic, colorful and over the top.
In the title role of the Emperor, Robinson was bedecked in a gold suit, gold shoes, gold derby and gold cane. The show offered chorus girls, a lavish stage and theatrics, including a 40-foot-tall waterfall of soap bubbles, a volcano that erupted when actor Rose Brown as Katisha came on stage, a bakelite stage covering that reflected Robinson’s tapping and a talking moon that sang along with Yum-Yum, played by Gwendolyn Reyde, according to the program.
“From the minute the curtain rises on the dancing dragon to the final tap of Bill Robinson, song and step stir the ‘Hot Mikado’ into the hottest show the ol’ town ever saw,” stated the program. “… Here have assembled the peaches of Harlem, the cream of the colored crop, the sirens of Sepialand. And there are sixty of these girls, sixty serenading sugarplums.”
By the time he was cast, Robinson was 61 years old, and had made a name and a lot of money for himself. The program boasted that he had finally arrived when Tiffany “gave him credit on his own recognizance” for a watch he had purchased from the jewelry store.
“The watch, a gift from the company to Hassard Short and inscribed, ‘In appreciation from the ‘Hot Mikado’ company, March 23, 1939,’ had been handpicked by Robinson that afternoon. When it came time to pay for it the dancer discovered he hadn’t enough cash. ‘That’s perfectly all right, Mr. Robinson,’ said the salesman. ‘We’ll charge it to you. Of course take it with you.’
“‘Success at last,’ (Robinson) whispered to Sammy Lambert, the stage manager, as he paused in the wings during the storm of applause (later at the show). ‘Yeah,’ said Sammy, ‘it’s the prettiest watch I ever did see. I’ll keep my eye on it while you murder ’em out there.'”
“At sixty-one Bojangles Bill Robinson has arrived.”
Robinson was born in in 1878 in Richmond, VA, and raised by his grandmother. He was the best-known and highest-paid African American entertainer during the early part of the 20th century. As a vaudeville actor, he refused to wear blackface as many other blacks were forced by circumstances to do and was the first to appear solo while black entertainers had to work in pairs. Later in his career, though, he was accused of being an Uncle Tom in the roles he played with Shirley Temple.
He appeared on Broadway in the musical “Blackbirds of 1928,” which featured an all-black cast and where he performed his stair dance. The show and the dance made him a star. He had performed it for the first time in 1918.
In the stair dance, Robinson tapped down a staircase in a series of rhythmical steps. He tried to patent it, according to the theater program, but the patent office refused to grant it. He apparently received royalties from those who copied the dance.
There are two versions of where the dance came from, according to the program: Robinson dreamed that he had been knighted by the king and queen of England, and danced up the stairs to get the award and then danced down them. Or he was so happy when his manager of 30 years gave him more money that he danced down the steps from the man’s office, and the manager told him to put it into his act. “Both make sense,” Robinson said. “Take your choice.” He tapped in the “Hot Mikado” but without the stairs.
Robinson was a co-founder of the New York Black Yankees baseball team in 1936, which was around until Major League Baseball opened up to black players and the Negro Leagues folded. He was said to have given to many charities.
He was also well-known from his appearance with Lena Horne in “Stormy Weather” in 1943, his final film. He died broke in 1949 of heart failure, and friend Ed Sullivan is said to have paid for and arranged his funeral arrangements.
