Leonard Harper was a producer,
stager, and choreographer in New York City during
the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's and
1930's.
Harper's works spanned the worlds of Vaudeville, Cabaret, Burlesque and
Broadway musical comedy. As a dancer, choreographer and studio owner, he
coached many of the country's leading performers, including Ruby Keller. Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire,
came by the studio twice, and the Marx Brothers went
for lessons. He produced floor shows and theatrical revues both uptown in
Harlem and downtown on Broadway's Great White Way.
In his Times Square dance
studio he trained the Busby Berkeley dancers,
and Fred's sister Adele Astaire. He co-directed and staged the
ensemble segments of The Exile and the short film Darktown Revue with Oscar Micheaux.
Harper staged for Broadway Hot Chocolates at
the Hudson Theatre and was the premiere
producer who opened up the Cotton Club.
Harper was born in 1899 in Birmingham, Alabama, to William Harper, a
performer, and his wife. It was the major industrial city of the state. Harper
started dancing as a child to attract a crowd on a medicine show wagon,
traveling with the show throughout the South. In 1915, Harper first toured in
New York City, but quickly moved to Chicago.
There he began choreographing and
performing dance acts with Osceola Blanks of the
Blanks Sisters, whom he married in 1923.
Harper and Osceola Blanks performed in his
first big revue, Plantation Days, when it opened at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem in
1922-1923. He began producing floor shows in Harlem and New York thereafter.
From 1923–1924, Harper offered the Duke Ellington Orchestra
the house band position at the speakeasies, Connie's Inn in Harlem and the
Kentucky Club in Times Square. He was producing shows there and the Duke
Ellington orchestra played as the house band at the Kentucky Club for the next
four years. At the suggestion of drummer Sonny Greer,Duke Ellington and
his wife Edna along with their son Mercer Ellington were
lived in one of Harper's Harlem apartment bedrooms in the early 1920s.
By 1925, Harper owned a Times Square dance
studio where black dancers taught their dances to white performers.
As a nightclub and Broadway producer,
Harper counted Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Bill Robinson,
Harold "Stumpy" Cromer of Stump and Stumpy and Count Basie among
his colleagues. He introduced Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway to
New York show business, and worked with Mae West, Josephine Baker, Lena Horne, Fats Waller and Eubie Blake.
Harper was part of the transition team when
the Deluxe Cabaret was turned into the Cotton Club,
producing two of its first revues during its opening. Harper's biggest
milestone on the Great White Way was his staging of the
Broadway hit Hot Chocolates, which established the
songs Black and Blue
(Fats Waller song and Ain't Misbehavin classic
Broadway show tunes.
Harper was one of the leading figures who
transformed Harlem into a cultural center during the 1920s. His nightclub
productions took place at Connie's Inn, the Lafayette Theatre (Harlem) at the
opening of the new Apollo Theatre, and at other theatres in New
York.
He had a daughter Jean Harper out of
wedlock with Fannie Pennington.
Harper died in Harlem, New York, on
February 4, 1943, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. conducted
his funeral at the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
A Harlem street was Co-Named after Harper
on October 10, 2015 because of the efforts of his grandson Grant Harper Reid.
"Leonard Harper Way" is located on 7th. Ave. (also known as Adam
Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.) and 132nd street. Harper became a 2015 NAACP
History Maker.
(Link)
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