Color Prejudice in the Chorus Line
Josephine Baker: "Too young, too thin, too dark"
One of the biggest stares to come out of Shuffle Along was singer/dancer Josephine Baker. Following her success in the show, she traveled to Paris where she became a legendary performer, a symbol of the excitement of the 1920s. However, when she first auditioned for to be a member of the show's chorus, she was turned away. Her dark skin made her ineligible in the minds of the show's producers to be a dancer in the show.
While Black comedians were expected to wear dark blackface makeup, the chorus girls had to comply with a different standard: They were expected to be fair-skinned, or "high yellow" in the terms of the day. Anyone overly dark would be turned away. Even extremely talents performers were rejected. Josephine Baker was among several future stars who was turned away when she auditioned for the show. As she later recalled the traumatic event:
I found myself face to face with Mr. Sissle, a thin man with a full head of hair. Mr. Blake, plump and bald-headed, sat at the piano, his nose buried in his music. He never once opened his mouth. Nor did Mr. Sissle waste words. “Too young,” he snapped. I began my usual routine. “But I’m seventeen…” “Sorry. Too small, too thin, too dark” …. Sissle wanted his chorus to look like Tillers, a highly successful white company…”[i]
The Tiller Girls were a white dance-act of the day who performed in a kick-line.
As can be seen in this photograph, Baker originally won a part in the travelling cast of Shuffle Along as a comedic dancer, crossing her eyes and awkwardly splaying her legs, and wearing a tattered dress. In this scene, she is dancing to a comedian sporting a banjo; he appears sporting blackface makeup, indicating his status as part of the comic cast and not one of the lead actors.
[i] Benetta Jules-Rosette, Josephine Baker in Art and Life, Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 57.
Lottie Gee: A Star Who "Can Bear Rigid Inspection"
The show's star and romantic lead was the fair-skinned Lottie Gee. Gee had been a successful singer/dancer on vaudeville and also toured Europe with bandleader Will Marion Cook, a noted Black composer. Gee was praised by critics for having a "refined" act, including fine costumes, without any of the sexual innuendo of the popular blues singers like Bessie Smith. She had great appeal for her Black middle-class audience, who wanted to "uplift the race," in the words of W.E.B. DuBois and other leading intellectuals of the day. The Black newspaper the New York Age enthused: "Miss Gee has an act that can bear rigid inspection and severe criticism from every angle. This young lady is attractive in appearance and her costumes ... She sings and dances well, showing ability to render both ragtime songs and high class ballads…"[i]
[i] “Lottie Gee Scores Big Vaudeville Hit,” New York Age, September 4, 1920, p.6
"Makes the Most Unruly Hair Lay Right"
Gee was an ideal performer to play the controversial role of a romantic lead. Besides her great talents as an actress and singer, she was fair-skinned with straight hair, which she wore in the popular style of the day. She could easily have passed for white. In this way, she fit into the standard for black chorines in general who were expected to be light skinned and conventionally attractive. Drawing on her conventional good lucks, Gee landed an endorsement deal with “Sophia’s Triple Pomade,” a hair-straightening treatment that promised to “make the most Stubborn, Harsh, or Unruly Hair Lay Right.” Gee’s photo appeared in advertisements that ran in the African-American press, along with a testimonial letter praising “the wonderful merit of [this] beauty system.”[i]
[i] Advertisement for Sophia’s Triple Special Promenade in the Pittsburgh Courier, July 21, 1923, p. 16.