Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams was born in New Providence, Nassau on November 12, 1874. was one of the pre-eminent entertainers of the Vaudeville era and one of the most popular comedians for all audiences of his time. He was by far the best-selling black recording artist before 1920. At the age of 11, Bert permanently immigrated with his parents from The Bahamas to Florida and then to Riverside, California, where he later graduated from Riverside High School. In 1893, while still a teenager, he joined different West Coast minstrel shows, including Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels, where he first met his future partner, George Walker. He and Walker later became known as Williams and Walker - Two Real Coons . They performed song-and-dance numbers, comic dialogues and skits, and humorous songs. They fell into stereotypical vaudevillian roles: originally Williams portrayed a slick conniver, while Walker played the "dumb coon" victim of Williams' ...