68 Facts About Bill Robinson

Bill Robinson's career began in the age of minstrel shows and moved to vaudeville, Broadway theatre, the recording industry, Hollywood films, radio, and television.

Bill Robinson brought it on its toes, dancing upright and swinging," adding a "hitherto-unknown lightness and presence.

Bill Robinson is credited with having popularized the word copacetic through his repeated use of it in vaudeville and radio appearances.

Bill Robinson is famous for his dancing with Shirley Temple in a series of films during the 1930s, and for starring in the musical Stormy Weather, loosely based on his own life and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Bill Robinson used his popularity to challenge and overcome numerous racial barriers.

Bill Robinson was one of the first minstrel and vaudeville performers to appear as black without the use of blackface makeup, as well as one of the earliest Black performers to perform solo, overcoming vaudeville's two-color rule.

Bill Robinson was the first black performer to appear in a Hollywood film in an interracial dance team, and the first black performer to headline a mixed-race Broadway production.

Bill Robinson came under heavy criticism for his apparent tacit acceptance of racial stereotypes of the era, with some critics calling him an Uncle Tom.

Bill Robinson strongly resented this, and his biographers suggested that critics were underestimating the difficulties faced by black performers engaging with mainstream white culture at the time, and ignoring his many efforts to overcome racial prejudice.

Bill Robinson was a popular figure in both black and white entertainment worlds of his era, and is remembered for the support that he gave to fellow performers, including Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne, Jesse Owens and the Nicholas Brothers.

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was born Luther Robinson in Richmond, Virginia on May 25,1878, to Maxwell, a machinist, and Maria Robinson, a church choir director.

Bill Robinson claimed that he was christened Luther, a name that he did not like.

Bill Robinson proposed to his younger brother William that they should exchange names, and they eventually did.

At the age of five, Bill Robinson began dancing for small change, appearing as a "hoofer" or busker in local beer gardens and in front of theaters for tossed pennies.

In 1890, at the age of 12, Bill Robinson ran away to Washington, DC, where he did odd jobs at Benning Race Track and worked briefly as a jockey.

Bill Robinson travelled with the show for over a year before growing too mature to play the role credibly.

Bill Robinson later teamed up with a young Al Jolson, with Jolson singing while Robinson danced for pennies or to sell newspapers.

Bill Robinson received an accidental gunshot wound from a second lieutenant who was cleaning his gun.

On March 30,1900, Bill Robinson entered a buck-and-wing performance contest at the Bijou Theatre in Brooklyn, New York, winning a gold medal and defeating Harry Swinton, star of the show In Old Kentucky and considered the best dancer of his day.

The resulting publicity helped Bill Robinson to get work in numerous travelling shows, sometimes in a troupe, more frequently with a partner, though not always as a dancer.

Under Forkins' tutelage, Bill Robinson matured and began working as a solo act, increasing his earnings to an estimated $3,500 per week.

Forkins accomplished this by inventing an alternate history for Bill Robinson, promoting him as already being a solo act.

The Keith Circuit and Orpheum Circuit underwrote vaudeville acts at reduced fees, but Bill Robinson volunteered to perform gratis for thousands of troops, in both black and white units of the expeditionary forces, receiving a commendation from the War Department in 1918.

In 1926 Bill Robinson made a short tour of UK variety theatres, headlining at the Holborn Empire and, during the week of July 19, the Brighton Hippodrome.

In 1918 at the Palace Theatre in New York, Bill Robinson performed the stair dance.

Claims regarding the origin of the stair dance were highly disputed; however, Bill Robinson was widely credited with the dance because he made it popular.

Bill Robinson changed rhythmic meter and tap steps and syncopated breaks seamlessly.

Bill Robinson is said to have consistently performed in split-soled wooden shoes, handcrafted by a Chicago craftsman.

On stage, Adelaide Hall and Bill Robinson danced and sang a duet together, captivating their audiences.

In 1939, Bill Robinson returned to the stage in The Hot Mikado, a jazz version of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

RKO was formed in part by a merger of the Keith and Orpheum theater circuits, with whom Bill Robinson had performed as a headliner for many years.

Bill Robinson was cast as a specialty performer in a standalone scene.

Dixiana was followed by Bill Robinson's first starring role, in Harlem Is Heaven, which sometimes is cited as the first film with an all-black cast, even though all-black silent films preceded it and the cast of Harlem Is Heaven includes a white actor with a speaking part, as well as a few white extras.

The movie was produced in New York and did not perform well financially, leading Bill Robinson to focus on Hollywood-produced movies after that.

Bill Robinson passed the test and was brought in to star with Temple and to teach her tap dancing.

Bill Robinson walked a step ahead of us, but when he noticed me hurrying to catch up, he shortened his stride to accommodate mine.

Temple and Bill Robinson appeared in four films together: The Little Colonel, The Littlest Rebel, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Just Around the Corner.

Bill Robinson didn't talk down to me, like to a little girl.

Bill Robinson refused to play stereotypical roles imposed by Hollywood studios.

Bill Robinson appeared opposite Will Rogers in In Old Kentucky, the last movie Rogers made before his death in an airplane crash.

Bill Robinson's final film appearance was a starring role in the 1943 Fox musical Stormy Weather.

From 1936 until his death in 1949, Bill Robinson made numerous radio and occasional television appearances.

Bill Robinson addressed the audience directly, something very rare for a black radio performer in that era.

Bill Robinson made several recordings, including one in which he demonstrated each of his tap steps and their corresponding sounds.

The last theatrical project for Bill Robinson was to have been Two Gentlemen from the South, with James Barton as the master and Bill Robinson as his servant, in which the black and white roles reverse and eventually the two come together as equals, but the show did not open.

Bill Robinson reciprocated with open-handed generosity and frequently credited the White dancer James Barton for his contribution to his dancing style.

Bill Robinson's funeral was arranged and paid for by longtime friend and television host Ed Sullivan.

Bill Robinson lay in repose at the 369th Infantry Regiment Armory in Harlem, where an estimated 32,000 people filed past his open casket to pay their last respects.

Bill Robinson is buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens, Brooklyn, New York.

Bill Robinson was a popular figure in both black and white entertainment worlds of his era, and is remembered for the support that he gave to fellow performers, including Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, Lena Horne, Jesse Owens and the Nicholas Brothers.

Bill Robinson co-founded the New York Black Yankees baseball team in Harlem in 1936 with financier James "Soldier Boy" Semler.

Bill Robinson was 36 when the USentered World War I, and received a letter of commendation from the War Department for his work during the war in boosting morale at training camps in the United States, not overseas.

Bill Robinson's biographer estimates that they met in late 1920 and were married in early 1922.

Bill Robinson's meeting with Marty Forkins, the man who became his manager, is said to have occurred when Bill Robinson, working as a waiter, spilled soup on Forkins.

Bill Robinson is given credit for having popularized the word copacetic and claimed to have invented it while still living in Richmond.

The word was used in films Bill Robinson made with Shirley Temple in the 1930s.

In 1922, Bill Robinson set the world record for running backward.

Bill Robinson came under heavy criticism for playing stereotyped roles, and took offense at such claims.

Once, after being called an "Uncle Tom" in the newspaper The New York Age, Bill Robinson went to its office in Harlem, pistol in hand, demanding to see the editor.

In 1933, Bill Robinson was named an honorary Mayor of Harlem for his philanthropic contributions to his community and for his renowned success.

Bill Robinson took this role seriously, performing over 3,000 benefits in the course of his career, aiding hundreds of unorganized charities and individuals.

On March 21,1908, as a result of a dispute with a tailor over a suit, Bill Robinson was arrested in New York City for armed robbery.

Bill Robinson had failed to take the charges and trial seriously and paid little attention to mounting a defense.

Bill Robinson was the one exception, finding work for Owens within a few months of his return to the US Bill Robinson introduced Owens to his manager, Marty Forkins, who secured a series of demonstration races for Owens which were viewed by many as degrading to the dignity of an Olympic athlete, most notably an event in Cuba in which Owens raced against a horse.

Bill Robinson had done many such races and did not view them as undignified.

In 1937, Bill Robinson caused a stir in the Harlem community by choosing Geneva Sawyer, a white dancer, as his dance partner over Jeni Le Gon in the Twentieth Century Fox film Cafe Metropole.

Sawyer had been Shirley Temple's dance coach during the time Temple and Bill Robinson made movies together, and Sawyer had taken tap lessons from Bill Robinson while he was teaching Temple and choreographing her routines.

Bill Robinson suggested to the producers that Sawyer could be cast as his partner if she wore blackface.