In her own words: “My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen.” Bea must have had this dream at an early age because by the time she was 12 years old, she towered over her classmates and had very dark hair. Feeling awkward in school she became the class clown. At this time in her life she was not planning on being a comedian, however, she did like to sing. Bea attended Blackstone College, a private religious school, at age 18 where she received intellectual and spiritual training. She was serious and intelligent, but not yet sure of where her future would take her. In later life some would say that Bea was a very private, introverted person. Which I can understand after hearing about her early life. She did not really start out as a funny, outgoing girl.
At the beginning of her entertainment career, Bea tried to become a “Lounge Singer”. But her overbearing presence really did not fit the mold. However, by 1947 she had begun to get parts while in a workshop and made her theater debut as a member of the speaking chorus in ‘The Dog Beneath the Skin’ at the ‘Cherry Lane Theatre, with JeSrry Stiller. She was on her way folks, on her way to becoming a tall, dark-haired, deep-voiced, beauty on Broadway, off-Broadway, into starring roles on Television.
There is so much more to Bea’s life as an entertainer. I am trying to write bits about her here on this site, but not too much, as I am writing a book on the TV sitcom, Maude. Plus that I am also trying to catch up with the changes made at WordPress. Today I wound up with four separate “boxes” as paragraphs! How I got there, I do not know. Thank goodness I enjoy posting and sharing about my book writing journey.
Next post will be all about my first book signing for my book titled The Jeffersons A fresh look back featuring episodic insights, interviews, a peek behind-the-scenes, and photos.
Thanks, for stopping by 🙂
Don’t forget to get your Christmas gifts – both of these can be found on Amazon:
Every now and then I get the urge to SAY something (my daughter would attest to that). Today I want to reassure my fellow Americans that the Post Office is a lasting establishment. A true American entity. Since its inception we have had mail delivery continuously six days a week. Didn’t I learn about the pony express in grammar school? As a child I thought those pony express riders were heroes. The mail got through no matter what. The phrase “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”, was modified over time to refer to postal service workers, “Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from their appointed rounds”. I mean, for heaven’s sake, Benjamin Franklin was the first Postmaster General. The organizing of the Post Office was signed into law by President George Washington on February 20, 1792! This was major.
A few years later we gained The Postal Reorganization Act of 1970-Here is the first paragraph: “The United States Postal Service shall be operated as a basic and fundamental service provided to the people by the Government of the United States, authorized by the Constitution, created by Act of Congress, and supported by the people. The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities. The costs of establishing and maintaining the Postal Service shall not be apportioned to impair the overall value of such service to the people.” We have since updated the USPS logo. Eagles are powerful, stately, determined and undeniably American, which reflects the spirit of the Postal Service and its employees.
The Marvelettes waited patiently for their mailman everyday. Or should I say postman. Wait, oh yea, wait a minute Mr. Postman-What a hit that was. Mail delivery was essential to living life. Still is. To so many people. People waiting for love letters or prescriptions. People waiting for hospital supplies. Checks. At one point Saturday delivery was almost cancelled, however, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2013, passed reversing the cuts to Saturday delivery.
And how many of you remember Mr. McFeely? Speedy Delivery!! He stopped by Mr. Rogers place every day. He was always on time and always had a smile on his face. He was so much fun. One of the most popular characters on the show. Mr. McFeeley would sometimes bring videos to show children how macaroni or plastic combs were made. I always looked forward to mail delivery when I watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Fun Fact: My father, Eddie Green, once got in trouble with the Post Office, according to my mom. Eddie would dress my mom’s female friends in long scarves, take pictures and send them on postcards to men who ordered them through magazines. One of the photos showed a bit too much and Eddie became a friend of the postal inspector. (Not really, he had to pay a substantial fine.) I wonder if he got his idea from this Mata Hari postcard?
I have been asked to do an essay on a Mr. Perry Bradford. Perry was born in 1893. As a vaudeville performer and composer and songwriter, he too worked in theater circuits throughout the South and into the North. I imagine that he had the same worries as every other Black man in the South at that time. But he had a goal in mind. Bradford persevered in getting the recording industry to value recordings of African-American artists. In 1957, Little Richard had a hit with Bradford’s “Keep A-Knockin'”. In 1965 he wrote his autobiography Born With the Blues. Later in 1994 his song “Crazy Blues” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Perry lived a long time, too. He died in 1970.
More recently, there was Arlando Smith, born 1952. Arlando came up during the Civil Rights era, police with hoses and dogs and batons. He worked at becoming successful. Arlando was a TV writer and director. During my research for my book on The Jeffersons I learned about this gentleman. He worked on What’s Happening Now, All In The Family, Silver Spoons, 227, The Richard Pryor Show, She’s The Sheriff, The Robert Guillaume Show. The Jeffersons (2 episodes) and Malcolm and Eddie. He was the stage manager for All in the Family, 51st Annual Academy Awards, The Richard Pryor Show, What’s Happening, Sanford and Son, That’s My Mama, Good Times, and The Jeffersons (48 episodes). In 2015 when Arlando Cooper Smith died The San Pedro Sun reported that: “Smith was an award-winning director who directed the first episode of La Isla Bonita Telenovela. He also contributed to several American television series, Arlando Cooper Smith made the Isla Bonita his home, has selflessly supported the island in ways too numerous to count for many years. He will be missed by all those who knew and loved him.”
Well, here we are all quarantined together. A good time to take a look back into the past. The first picture on this post is a copy of a financial document from my father to Joe Seiden from about 1939. Eddie had his first movie studio in Palisades, New Jersey as did Seiden (Seiden Cinemas). Seiden edited Eddie’s films and helped with sound and the making of prints. Eddie made his first four films here from 1939-1941. What is now Fort Lee, New Jersey was, at one time, the “movie capital” before there was “Hollywood”. Fox, Universal, Biograph studios all began here. Oscar Micheaux was at Metropolitan Studios at this site. The last movie Eddie made here was “One Round Jones”, a movie about a nightclub owner who comes up with the idea to pay $50 to anyone who can go “one round” with his mystery fighter, who of course turns out to be Eddie.
When I wrote the biography about my father I discovered one thing. The more I searched for information, the more I found. This has carried over until today. When I first received this press sheet I was overjoyed. I had to have permission to use it in the marketing of my book which was fine with me. What I didn’t realize was that this sheet held a font of information that would eventually hook me up with more information four year after publication of the book. My first example is in the lower portion of the 4th column of this article a Mr. Lorenzo Tucker is mentioned as part of the cast. I did not expand on this in the book, mainly because I had no idea exactly who he was and how he would pop up in future. About a month ago I heard from an Eddie Green fan who had some original photos of my father that he wanted to gift to me. One of the photos is of Eddie and Louis Jordan and a woman name June Richmond. Louis and June had starred in the 1947 movie Reet, Petite and Gone. I decided to research this movie and learned that Lorenzo Tucker appeared in this movie as the shyster lawyer, Henry Talbot.
Reet, Petite and Gone is about an Old-time musical star Schyler Jarvis, now wealthy, who is dying; his last act is a visionary plan for the future happiness of his son, swing bandleader Louis Jarvis, and Honey Carter, daughter of his long-lost love. But crooked lawyer Talbot has a nefarious scheme to get his hands on the Jarvis money. There is also plenty of swing from Louis Jordan’s Bands. Lorenzo Tucker also appeared in 18 of Oscar Micheaux’s films. He eventually went totally off the movie track and became an autopsy technician for the New York City medical examiner, where he worked on the body of Malcolm X. That original photo that is being gifted to me shines more light. Lorenzo seems to have started out with my father’s movie studio.
Then I noticed that Mr. J. Louis Johnson was also in the 1947 movie Reet, Petite and Gone. He played Senator Morton’s Butler. Well, J. Louis Johnson was a cast member in my father’s Sepia Art Pictures Company, Inc. in 1939. I did mention him in the book but I just did not see the connection. Mr. Johnson was in a lot of great movies. Mostly bit parts, but hey, he must have been a good actor because he worked with such stars as Clark Gable in Homecoming (1948), Lena Horne and Eddie “Rochester” Anderson in Cabin In The Sky (19400, and he had parts in Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train and Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). But he was with Eddie before these others.
When I began this blog in 2014 I was still in the process of doing the research for the biography I wrote about my father. I had lots and lots of news articles about Eddie, I had pictures of Eddie that I didn’t even know existed before 2014 and I was finding more and more information about my father than I even suspected. As an entertainer in the early 1900s Eddie was busy. And his doings were routinely printed up in the local newspapers. Mostly the Black newspapers, but also in Billboard (which is still in business today). In the beginning they were just one-liners (Eddie Green at the Gayety), and then as time went by the articles became longer. Then interviews were printed as Eddie got more famous. Five yeas before Eddie died he was featured in the Paramount movie “Ed Gardner’s Duffy’s Tavern” (1945). The popularity of the Duffy’s Tavern radio program seemed like a good idea for a full-length movie in which the principal characters of the radio show were signed to play their same parts in the movie, Ed Gardner as Archie, Charles Cantor as Finnegan, Eddie Green as Eddie the Waiter, and Ann Thomas as Miss Duffy. Paramount used almost their whole roster of stars in this movie:
Since publishing my father’s biography what I have discovered is that there exists much more information about my father that I did not find, but others have. Fans of my father have sent me pictures, articles and cd’s of Eddie’s radio shows. My publisher told me early on that I would probably find more information and that I should save it up for a second book about Eddie. Well, he was right. Even today 2020 in the past week I have been contacted by someone who has a couple of pictures and a Duffy’s Tavern (DT) beer mug from the 1948-49 season. I didn’t even know DT beer mugs existed. A Twitter friend sent me dozens of articles he found while doing some research. He said in his first email: “It’s been so interesting tracing Eddie’s career – he was really well-known, and liked.” This is so remarkable to me that these people have taken the time to trace Eddie’s career and have held on to items related to Eddie. If you are an old movie fan you will recognize the name Adolphe Menjou in the Lincoln Theatre ad. He was famous! And there’s Eddie Green appearing at the same theater.
Of course, I could go on and on about my father. Since I don’t really remember him, writing about and talking about him brings me a type of peace. Something that makes me feel good always. This is my Black History. This man though born in 1891 chose to drag himself out of his childhood poverty, taught himself to read and chose a path that he liked and was good at and became quite successful in the field of entertainment. Plus, he was a nice guy while doing so. He became well-known and “liked”.
Every now and then I like to write about random stuff. Stuff not connected to my father’s biography or my latest writing venture. Sometimes I ache to write about politics, however, I would probably burn up my laptop with my furious typing. But today I am going to share with you the conversation I had with myself while “doing” my hair this morning. My daughter says I spend way too much time worrying about how my hair looks. But I have always placed a lot of emphasis on how my hair looks. As I was combing it today I remembered the old childhood story about Rapunzel- “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair”. I loved that story as a young girl. But I did not have long hair like Rapunzel, I had frizzy hair, when my mom put my hair up in a rubber band I looked like I had a bunny’s tail.
“This yam will make a nice dinner, said the farmer. Put me down! Put me down!” said the yam
SURPRISE!!!! About two weeks ago it Snowed in the Antelope Valley in Sunny Southern California! Real Snow. In Lancaster, where it was hot as the blazes a couple of months ago. Snow in the Valley. I’ve seen snow before, in Manassas, Va. Not here. So all the neighbors were out taking pics and some of them made snowmen and snowwomen (guess how you could tell the difference). All I could think of when I went outside was “Merry Christmas!!!!” So I shouted it out. An early White Christmas. I love it! It hung around for about 3 days before it melted away. I took this pic with my old “free” government phone.
I began researching and interviewing last December 2018. I am THIS close to having a rough draft for my publisher. I’ve spoken to cast and crew members, writers, directors and guests. I’ve spoken to those who cannot be done without – Administrative Assistants (I’ve been one so I know their importance). My self-imposed timeline to finish a rough for my publisher was the end of December 2019. It’s quite possible I may go a tad bit over. But everything about this book writing process is fun, except the proofing (:() Rather tedious, but necessary.
So I’ve left my OG phone behind (now that I can afford an upgrade). I’m working hard on a new book about a TV sitcom that I loved and I’m looking way back into those yesteryears when you had to read what was on the screen. Which somehow seems to meld in to what we are doing today. Reading our screens. Anybody out there remember telephone party lines? Wishing you all a bunch of good Holiday Surprises!
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