Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip: Ethel Waters

Sunday Diva/Three From The Hip:

Ethel Waters

In my own personal big gay church, there is a wing dedicated to what can only be described as...The True Divas. These are ones who may do many things in life, but from the moment they opened their mouths to sing they became the one thing they were meant to become: a true diva.

One such barrier breaker?

Ethel Waters.

Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.

She began her career at the age of 17, and sang the blues - until Bessie Smith objected (they were on the same bill) and Waters had to switch to ballads and popular music. 

The stage came calling and, at one point, this diva was the highest paid performer on Broadway!

Then came a string of film appearances. Along with her own television show! Audiences loved her. And she was good for the box office.

Oh, she was far from perfect, far from without her conflicts. Elia Kazan, who replaced John Ford as the director of Pinky after Ford and Waters failed to see eye to eye, once referred to Waters as a "truly odd combination of old-time religiosity and free-flowing hatred."

She married at the age of 13, but that man proved abusive and she left him. During the 1920s, Waters was involved in a romantic relationship with dancer Ethel Williams. The two were dubbed 'The Two Ethels' and lived together in Harlem. She later married a man. And then another... but, in her heart of hearts, she was forever an island.

In 1957, it all changed when she met Billy Graham. From that point on, she considered herself 'saved' and sang the lord's praises. 

In her wake, she left a legacy of performances which opened doors and blazed the trail for those who followed in her footsteps.

She was one of a kind. And there will never be another.

The gospel according to her?

Well, here are three from the hip, dropping from her lips.

The topic? Race.

"Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners."

"Negroes are human beings with exactly the same faults and virtues as members of the other races."

"All my life I've been prejudiced against wealthy people."

"The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade."
 
"The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down."

"I never felt I belonged. I was always an outsider."

"I am an isolationist."

"After years in white theaters I dreaded working in colored houses. The noise, the stomping, whistling, and cheering that hadn't annoyed me when I was young was now something I dreaded."

"I wanted to be with the kind of people I'd grown up with, but you can't go back to them and be one of them again, no matter how hard you try."

Underneath The Harlem Moon - Ethel Waters

1933

Taking A Chance On Love - Ethel Waters

from the 1943 motion picture Cabin In The Sky

His Eye On The Sparrow - Ethel Waters

from the 1952 motion picture A Member Of The Wedding

 And one last parting shot...

"There is a great supply of amateur undertakers in show business."

"I never accepted the idea that I was all through. I guess no person who has once been a star can do that, ever."