singer; actress; writer
Personal Information
Born Pearl Mae Bailey, March 29, 1918, in Newport News, VA; died August 17, 1990, in Philadelphia, PA; daughter of Joseph James (a minister) and Ella Mae Bailey; married four times, including: John Randolph Pinkett, Jr., 1948 (divorced 1952); and Louis Bellson (a jazz drummer), 1952; children: Tony and DeeDee, both adopted with Bellson.
Education: Georgetown University, BA, 1985.
Career
Singer and actress, 1933-1990; appeared with numerous cabaret and big band acts, 1933-1940; toured with U.S.O., 1941-43; became featured soloist at major New York City nightclubs, 1944; joined Cab Calloway's band as a stand-in, 1945; made Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman, 1946; appeared on Broadway in House of Flowers, 1954, and Hello Dolly!, 1967. Film appearances include Isn't It Romantic?, 1948; Carmen Jones, 1954; St. Louis Blues, 1957; Porgy and Bess, 1959; All the Fine Young Cannibals, 1960; The Landlord, 1970; Norman, Is That You?, 1976; The Member of the Wedding, 1983; and Peter Gunn, 1989. Starred in television series The Pearl Bailey Show, 1971; appeared in television series Silver Spoons, 1982-85; numerous guest appearances on television variety shows.
Life's Work
Every now and then, a show business personality appears on the scene whose personal magnetism and warmth completely overshadow her talent as an entertainer. Usually, these love affairs with the public fizzle and die relatively quickly. Not so with Pearl Bailey. Bailey's fully-requited romance with people all over the world lasted from her emergence as a vaudeville performer in the 1930s, through stardom on Broadway and in America's biggest nightclubs, until her death in 1990 at the age of 72. Along the way, she provided a welcome dose of sincerity and authentic good nature in the all-too-often superficial world of entertainment. So deep was the public's affection for Bailey that she was asked by President Richard Nixon to be the "U.S. Ambassador of Love."
Pearl Mae Bailey was born on March 29, 1918 in Newport News, Virginia, the same year and town that produced the legendary jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. Her father, Joseph James, was an evangelical minister, and from an early age Bailey was singing and dancing in his church. Bailey's parents divorced when she was four years old, and she moved with her mother and three older siblings-- two sisters and a brother--first to Washington, D.C., and later to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In Philadelphia, Bailey was bitten by the show-biz bug. Her brother Willie was a professional tap dancer, having learned his art from the legendary Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. At the age of 15, Bailey entered and won a talent contest at the theater in which Willie was performing. Part of the prize was a two-week engagement at the club. Although the establishment closed down before she could collect her money, Bailey immediately gave up her childhood plan of becoming a schoolteacher and launched the first phase of her long and successful entertainment career.
After winning another amateur contest, this one at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, Bailey went to work on the small-time cafe circuit of central Pennsylvania, where she sang and danced with vaudeville troupes in the coal-mining towns of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and Pottsville. Before long, she was performing in the better black nightclubs of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. As her singing skills developed, she moved into featured vocalist roles with a number of big bands, including those of Cootie Williams and Edgar Hayes.
Bailey rose to prominence in the 1940s. After further honing her skills while entertaining troops with the U.S.O. during World War II, she made her debut as a solo performer at New York's Village Vanguard nightclub in 1944. Bailey began to loosen up on stage and engage in playful banter with audiences at the suggestion of the Vanguard's owner. She evolved what gradually became her trademark "throwaway" style of presentation. Later that year, she started an eight-month engagement at the Blue Angel, a high-class nightclub on the east side of Manhattan. There she continued to forge her unique stylistic approach. Bailey's Blue Angel gig was very well received, and she became a big hit on the nightclub circuit.
In 1945 Bailey began a 20-week run with Cab Calloway and his orchestra at the popular Zanzibar nightclub on Broadway. She and Calloway remained close friends for the rest of her life. Bailey made her Broadway theatrical debut the following year in St. Louis Woman, an all-black musical by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen. Her two numbers, "A Woman's Prerogative" and "Legalize My Name," highlighted the show. In his review for the New York Herald Tribune, Harold Barnes wrote that "Pearl Bailey pulls the show up by its shoestrings every time she makes an entrance." Her performance earned her the Donaldson Award as best newcomer on Broadway for that year.
With nightclubs and theaters under her belt, Bailey next tried her hand at film acting. Her first movie was the 1947 Paramount film Variety Girl, in which she introduced the song "Tired," which became one of her signature numbers. She made another film for Paramount, Isn't It Romantic?, a year later before returning to Broadway. In 1952 Bailey married jazz drummer Louis Bellson. She and Bellson--her fourth husband--stayed married for the rest of her life and adopted two children together.
Bailey turned in one of her most memorable stage performances in 1954, as the West Indian bordello operator Madame Fleur in the Truman Capote-Harold Arlen musical House of Flowers. Meanwhile, she remained active in motion pictures as well, playing important roles in the two all-black, major studio musicals of the 1950s. In Carmen Jones (1954) an updated, African American version of Bizet's opera Carmen, Bailey played Frankie, a member of a boxing champion's entourage. In 1959 she played Maria, the cook shop woman, in the film version of Porgy and Bess. She also appeared in the Bob Hope vehicle That Certain Feeling (1956) and St. Louis Blues, a 1958 biography of blues pioneer W. C. Handy. In between, Bailey found time to perform as the featured act at President Eisenhower's second inauguration in 1957.
During the first half of the 1960s, Bailey kept herself busy mainly with her nightclub act. She also began feeling the first effects of the heart trouble that would hound her for the next 25 years. The biggest triumph of Bailey's career came in 1967, when she starred as matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in the all-black Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! Her performance as Dolly received unanimous raves from all quarters, and she received a Tony award for her efforts. In his New York Times review, Clive Barnes wrote that Bailey "took the whole musical in her hands and swung it around her neck as easily as if it were a feather boa." The Broadway production ran for two years, before Bailey's health problems forced it to close. She toured with the show after her recovery, and again in the mid-1970s.
After Dolly, Bailey again returned to the intimacy of cabaret, where her special talents were always best displayed. She charmed British audiences with her risque, off-handed style during an extended run at London's famous venue, Talk of the Town. Bailey was given her own television variety show in 1971, but it lasted only one season. In 1975 President Gerald Ford named Bailey special advisor to the U.S. Mission of the United Nations General Assembly. She traveled to Africa and the Middle East as a good will ambassador, and received honors from several world leaders.
By the late 1970s, Bailey--who had never graduated from high school--was the author of five books, ranging in subject from children's stories, to autobiography, to cooking. In 1978 she decided to get a formal education and enrolled at Georgetown University. She graduated with a degree in theology in 1985 at the age of 67. Bailey continued to sing and act throughout the 1980s. She played a supporting role in the television sit-com Silver Spoons for several years, and her involvement with the U.N. was renewed by Presidents Reagan and Bush. She was frequently honored for her humanitarian work, and in 1988 President Reagan awarded her the Medal of Freedom.
Bailey authored her sixth and last book, a memoir titled Between You and Me, in 1989. The following year, she died of an apparent heart attack while she was recovering from knee surgery. More than 2,000 people attended the funeral. That outpouring of love did not surprise anybody who knew her. Longtime friend and coworker Calloway eulogized Bailey in words from Hello, Dolly!, in which he starred with her: "You'll always be here in our hearts where you belong." Bellson said simply that Bailey was "a person of love. She believed that ~show business' was ~show love.'"
Awards
Donaldson Award, 1946, for St. Louis Woman; Entertainer of the Year citation from Cue magazine, 1967; Tony Award, 1968, for Hello, Dolly!; March of Dimes Award, 1968; Woman of the Year citation from the U.S.O., 1969; Heart of the Year award, American Heart Association, 1972; named special advisor to the U.S. Mission of the United Nations General Assembly, 1975; Hussein Ben-Ali Freedom Medal, Jordan, 1975; First Order of Arts and Science of Egypt, 1975; Medal of Freedom, 1988.
Works
Selective Discography
- Hello, Dolly!, RCA, 1968.
- The Bad Old Days.
- Pearl Bailey Songs for Adults Only.
Writings- Selected writings Raw Pearl, Harcourt, 1969.
- Talking to Myself, Harcourt, 1971.
- Pearl's Kitchen: An Extraordinary Cookbook, Harcourt, 1973.
- Duey's Tale, Harcourt, 1975.
- Hurry Up, America, and Spit, Harcourt, 1976.
- Between You and Me, Doubleday, 1989.
Further Reading
Books
- Bailey, Pearl, Between You and Me, Doubleday, 1989.
- Bailey, Pearl, Raw Pearl, Harcourt, 1969.
Periodicals- New York Times, August 19, 1990, p. 34.
- Newsweek, December 4, 1967, p. 110.
- People Weekly, September 3, 1990, p. 74.
— Robert R. Jacobson
