interesting facts about gwendolyn brooks

In 1962, she was nominated for an Emmy Award for a guest appearance on the program, Route 66. NBC invited her to star in The Ethel Waters Show, bringing to life one of her Broadway plays, Mamba’s Daughters in a one-night experimental test run.Ī decade later, she starred in her own series, Beulah, as a kind maid, a role she was not happy with. Later, she became known for putting voice to the 1933 song “Stormy Weather.” Both songs, now in the Grammy Hall Of Fame, are her renditions.ġ939 was the dawn of television and Waters became the first Black person to appear on a network television show. Her professional singing career took off some years later, scoring her a 1925 international hit “Dinah” with Columbia Records. Blues singers were a commodity during this high period of the Harlem Renaissance and Waters thrived. This led to her career on the Black vaudeville circuit, then later she moved to Harlem. As a tall, slender woman, she earned the nickname “Sweet Mama String-Bean.”

At the urging of friends at nightclub in Philadelphia, Waters took to the stage and impressed the owners so much that she earned a gig at Baltimore’s Lincoln Theater. Thinking that becoming a maid was the best she could do, she became a domestic.Īt age 17, however, her fortunes changed. At age 13, she was married to an abusive husband but escaped his clutches at 14. Living from home to home, Waters and her mother struggled mightily. Born Octoin Chester, Pennsylvania., Waters was born into poverty under unfortunate circumstances as her teenage mother was raped by an older man.

Interesting facts about gwendolyn brooks