- Born
- Died
- Nickname
- Sweet Mama Stringbean
- The child of a teenage rape victim, Ethel Waters grew up in the slums of Philadelphia and neighboring cities, seldom living anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time. "No one raised me, " she recollected, "I just ran wild." She excelled not only at looking after herself, but also at singing and dancing; she began performing at church functions, and as a teenager was locally renowned for her "hip shimmy shake". In 1917 she made her debut on the black vaudeville circuit; billed as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" for her tall, lithe build, she broke through with her rendition of "St. Louis Blues", which Waters performed in a softer and subtler style than her rivals, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Beginning with her appearances in Harlem nightclubs in the late 1920s, then on the lucrative "white time" vaudeville circuit, she became one of America's most celebrated and highest-paid entertainers. At the Cotton Club, she introduced "Stormy Weather", composed for her by Harold Arlen: she wrote of her performance, "I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted". Impressed by this performance, Irving Berlin wrote "Supper Time", a song about a lyncing, for Waters to perform in a Broadway revue. She later became the first African-American star of a national radio show. In middle age, first on Broadway and then in the movies, she successfully recast herself as a dramatic actress. Devoutly religious but famously difficult to get along with, Waters found few roles worthy of her talents in her later years.
- IMDb mini biography by: David S. Smith
- SpousesMatthews, Clyde Edward(1929 - 1934) (divorced)Merritt Purnsley(April 3, 1912 - ?) (divorced)Ed Mallory(? - 1938) (divorced)
- Was the second African-American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award. The first was Hattie McDaniel, who won for her performance in Gone with the Wind (1939).
- Ethel was born to a 12-year-old mother, Louise Anderson, who had been raped at knife point by a man named John Waters. Although she was raised by her maternal grandmother, Sally Anderson, she took her father's surname.
- Waters has had three of her recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame: "Dinah" (Columbia Records, 1925) in 1998; "Stormy Weather" (Brunswick Records, 1933) in 2003; and "Am I Blue?" (Columbia Records, 1929) in 2007. Her "Stormy Weather" recording was also inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2004.
- Her favorite hymn was "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." She used it for the title of her autobiography.
- On September 30, 1933, Ethel Waters became the first African-American to share billing with white performers on Broadway when Irving Berlin's musical, "As Thousands Cheer" premiered at the Music Box Theater. Previously, during the out of town tryout in Philadelphia, her white co-stars, Clifton Webb, Marilyn Miller, and Helen Broderick, told Berlin that they would not take bows with Waters at the show's end. He said " I respect your feelings. Only then there will be no bows. " The next night all four of them bowed together.
- I just let singing out the way it comes to me. Once the orchestra gets used to letting themselves go, everything works out fine. The song is really the main thing, the song and the way you sing it.
- I guess singing is the traditional outlet for the colored people. The very thing that is paramount in my mind I can find expression for in just humming a song. But, of course, there is solid prayer for other things in my mind. Oh, I can get angry and curse a little (of course, the Lord look the other way). I don't take the Lord's name in vain, don't get that idea. But I have a vocabulary without the Lord's name that could raise the roof. You understand what I'm saying, sugar?
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