Enlightened Free Thinking Nubian Kings And Queens

Samuel George Davis Jr. was born on December 8, 1925 in Harlem, New York. His parents, Sammy Davis Sr., an African American, and Elvera Sanchez, a Cuban American, were both vaudeville dancers.  They separated when young Davis was three years old and his father took him on tour with a dance troupe led by Will Mastin. Davis joined the act at a young age and they became known as the Will Mastin Trio. It was with this trio that Davis began a lucrative career as a dancer, singer, comedian, actor, and a multi-instrumentalist. During World War II Davis joined the army, he joined an integrated entertainment Special Services unit, and found that while performing the crowd often forgot the color of the man on stage. After his discharge from the army Davis rejoined the Will Mastin Trio and soon became known in Las Vegas as the kid in the middle.  On November 19, 1954, with the act in Las Vegas finally getting off the ground, he was involved in a serious car accident on a trip from L...

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 ...

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' ...