Florence Mills

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Florence Mills (1920s)
Florence Mills (1923)
Florence Mills in Dover Street to Dixie in the London Pavilion (1923)

Florence Mills (* 1895 or 1896 in Washington, DC as Florence Winfrey; † November 1, 1927 in New York City ) was an African American singer and dancer, known as the "Queen of Jazz" and "Queen of Happiness". She was the first black star on the then white Broadway .

origin

Florence's parents John Winfrey (* 1858) and Nellie Winfrey (née Simon, * 1864) were born as slaves in Amherst County , Virginia . They worked in the tobacco industry in Lynchburg, Virginia and initially had two daughters: Olivia (* 1884) and Maud (* 1889). Economic difficulties in the tobacco industry led to the move with both daughters to Washington, DC There he worked and she worked in a laundry. Both were illiterate.

Florence was born in a Washington slum . Possible birthday:

  • January 25, 1896, as evidenced by her birth certificate
  • December 1895, as evidenced by a scan from the 1900 census
  • January 25, 1895 on a website published by the Washington, DC Library

Bill Egan, who runs a website under her name, uses the former date. However, the information on the gravestone also speaks for the year 1895.

biography

As a small child, Florence performed in dance competitions and for entertainment in 1900. In 1903 she sang for the first time in a stage show. A little later she moved around with a vaudeville troupe. Because of her childhood, she was arrested and sent to an education center. Her family moved to New York in 1905, where Mills attended regular school for some time.

From 1910 she was seen in shows with her two sisters under the name "The Mills Sisters". They toured large parts of the USA, most recently after Maude's marriage only with Olivia. Olivia retired from the stage and Florence Mills performed with Kinky Caldwell in 1915 until she got married. In 1916 she formed the "Panama Trio" with Bricktop and Cora Green, which celebrated success in Chicago .

In 1917 Mills became a member of the jazz group "The Tennessee Ten", whose dance leader Ulysses "Slow Kid" Thompson (1888-1990) became her partner. While Thompson had to do his military service in Europe, there was a successful reunion of the Panama Trio with Carolyn Williams instead of Bricktop. In 1919 Mills went back to the Tennessee Ten. She soon had her first successes as a soloist, and Kid Thompson became her manager. The two moved to New York in 1921 and got married. In 1921 she appeared in the first African-American musical Shuffle Along on Broadway.

In 1922, Florence Mills got her own Broadway show that made her a superstar. The show was also celebrated in London. The success continued in the following years. Her song I'm a Little Blackbird looking for a Bluebird is considered a barely veiled protest against racial discrimination , which Mills was constantly confronted with even as a star.

In 1926 Mills toured France and England with her show Blackbirds . Blackbirds mania broke out in London. The show has been performed over 250 times in London alone.

The heavy load of two shows a day, plus matinees and charity events, left Florence Mills exhausted and sick. A tour of England began in May 1927. In August 1927, after a performance in Liverpool, she was recommended by a doctor to stop the tour immediately, otherwise her life would be in danger. Exhausted, Mills and Thompson went to Baden-Baden for a cure in August 1927 . Then Florence flew to Berlin to support her friend Bricktop.

On September 27, 1927, she returned to the USA by ship. She was hailed as a successful star. Due to her mother's illness, she delayed her own medical treatment. She got tuberculosis . It wasn't until October 24 or 25 that Florence Mills went to the hospital for treatment. There she was operated on twice. After an appendectomy, she knew she was going to die. Her last words were, “I don't want anyone to cry when I die. I just want to make people happy, always. "

She died on November 1, 1927. 150,000 people attended her funeral in Harlem.

The New York house where Florence Mills would have lived from 1910 to 1927 was listed as a Historic Monument in 1976. In 2009 the monument protection was lifted because it turned out that this was the wrong house and the real one had since been demolished.

literature

  • Bill Egan: Florence Mills. Harlem Jazz Queen. Scarecrow Press et al., Oxford et al. 2004, ISBN 0-8108-5007-9 ( Studies in Jazz 48).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Walter Saller: The Black New York - Harlem Shuffle . In GEO epoch No. 33 (2008): New York 1625–1945. Pages 124-136.
  2. ↑ a b Florence Mills The black resistance, www.dclibrary.org, last Update 2003 (English)
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Bill Egan: Florence Mills website (English)
  4. ↑ a b Florence Mills on Find a Grave (English)
personal data
SURNAME Mills, Florence
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Winfrey, Florence (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION African American singer and dancer
DATE OF BIRTH 1895 or 1896
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1927
Place of death New York City