Entertainment

Joyce Bryant was born in Oakland, California as the oldest of eight children. Her father was a chef for the railroad and her mother was a devout Seventh-Day Adventist. At the age of 18, Bryant was visiting family in Los Angeles when she agreed to a dare to sing at a local club. She was so good that the owner offered her $25 to sing solo on stage. Because of this event, she started to pick up gigs around California and started to build a strong reputation.

By the late 1940s, she began performing for $400 a week at the La Martinique nightclub in New York City. She then picked up a 118-show circuit tour of hotels in the Catskill Mountains. One evening, she found out that she was performing on the same bill as the famous entertainer Josephine Baker. She decided to paint her hair silver with radiator paint so that she would stand out from Baker’s performance. In addition to the paint, she wore a very tight silver dress. It was the beginning of her trademark look that she would keep with her during future performances.

She became one of the biggest African-American sex symbols of the 1950s. She gained nicknames such as “The Bronze Blond Bombshell,” “The Black Marilyn Monroe,” and “The Voice You’ll Always Remembers.” She inspired a young Etta James to color her hair and style in her performances. By 1952, she released a several records with Okeh Records. She started earning $150,000 a year for her record deal. Some of her most popular songs were banned from NBC and CBS as being too provocative and sexy.

Bryant also fought racial discrimination throughout her career. She was very outspoken during the 1950s about the racial injustices throughout the country. The Ku Klux Klan burned her in effigy and threaten her life when she was the first black entertainer to perform at a Miami Beach hotel. She was a regular covergirl for Jet Magazine and in 1953 she was pictured predominantly in Life Magazine. She was considered by many magazines to be one of the most beautiful black women in the World.

By 1956, she left show business and joined the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She returned to show business by the early 1960s to help raise money for her church and for the cause of desegregation. She met several times with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and sang to crowds fighting racial segregation. She also toured internationally throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Her contribution to music, the arts, and civil rights made her a Great American.

She was born Carol Diahann Johnson in Bronx, New York in 1935. While still a baby, her family moved to Harlem. She attended Music & Art High School and was a classmate of future movie and television star Billy Dee Williams. While in school, she excelled in singing, dance and modeling. At the age of 15, she became a model for Ebony Magazine. She grew to be six feet in height. After high school, she attended New York University and majored in sociology.

When she was 18 years old, she became a contestant and won $1000 on a television game show. With her new found fame, she was booked at local nightclubs as a singer. She began having offers for roles on Broadway and in the movies. Her first Broadway musical was “House of Flowers” in 1958. She was soon able to pick up small roles on television shows.

In 1961, she starred in the movie “Paris Blues,” starring Paul Newman, Louis Armstrong, Joanne Woodward and Sidney Poitier. The following year, she starred in the Broadway hit “No Strings” and became the first African-American woman to win a Tony Award for Best Actress. In 1968, she became the first black woman to ever star in her own television series. The show “Julia” was about a single mother whose husband had been killed in the Vietnam war and her life as a nurse at a hospital. The show was one of the top ten shows in America in 1968 and the first not depicting a black woman as a domestic worker. She won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Emmy in 1968 for her role.

She continued her work as an actress after the show. She made numerous appearances on shows with Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, and Ed Sullivan. She earned an Oscar nomination for her leading role in the 1974 movie “Claudine.” She had a major role in the hit show “Dynasty” in the 1980s and she was nominated for another Emmy on the television show “A Different World.” She was the voice on “The Legend of Tarzan” and appeared on “Grey’s Anatomy.” She was twice nominated for the NAACP Image Award for her work on Showtime’s “Soul Food.”

Carroll passed away in 2019. She worked on Broadway as well as television and movies. Her groundbreaking work, breaking the stereotypes of black woman being servants in entertainment, makes her a great American.

Samuel George Davis, Jr. was born in Harlem, New York City in 1925. Both of his parents were dancers and entertainers in vaudeville. When he was three, his parents separated and he traveled with his father, learning to dance. When World War II broke out, Davis was assigned to the Army Integrated Entertainment Special Services Unit. It was then that he learned about the prejudices of being black. Davis suffered insults and racial slurs while traveling the country.

After his time in the army, Davis began playing clubs. In 1954, Davis lost his left eye in a near-fatal car accident. It was during this time that he converted to the Jewish faith. Despite the accident, he continued his career as an entertainer. After winning praise from critics, he released several albums and starred in the Broadway play "Mr. Wonderful" in 1956.

In 1959, Davis became a member of the newly reorganized Rat Pack with his friend Frank Sinatra. Initially, the Rat Pack was called "The Clan," but Davis voiced opposition because it sounded too much like the Ku Klux Klan. Sinatra had the name changed to "The Summit." It was through this new Rat Pack that Davis became involved in many movies, including "Ocean's Eleven", "Sergeants Three" and "Robin and the 7 Hoods."

In 1960, Davis married the Swedish actress May Britt and became embroiled in controversy due the fact that his wife was white. Despite the criticisms, Davis became a headliner in Las Vegas, but was required to stay in hotels on the south side of town because he was black. He became involved in the civil rights movement and was in attendance at the March on Washington in 1963. He spoke at many events throughout the country about civil rights and equality.

Davis continued making records and performing in Las Vegas. On December 11, 1967, he kissed Nancy Sinatra during her musical variety show on television, one of the first black-white kisses in US television history. He made cameo appearances on television and movies, including the James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever." He famously kissed Carroll O'Connor on the cheek during the television show "Archie Bunker" in the early 1970s. He became involved in some political controversy when he endorsed Richard Nixon for President in 1972. He said he had become disillusioned with the Democratic Party after John F. Kennedy was President.

Sammy Davis, Jr. died in 1990 of liver failure. In his lifetime, he was nominated for three Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, He received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and Lifetime Achievement Award. He won a Golden Globe in 1974 for his work on television. He received the NAACP Spingarn Medal in 1968 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987. He is featured on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame. His song, "The Candy Man" was a number one hit in 1972. Davis broke many barriers during his life. He will always be remembered as a great American.

Katherine Dunham was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1909. Her mother died when she was three years old and after her father remarried, they moved to Joliet, Illinois. At the age of 12, Dunham published a short story called "Come Back to Arizona" that was published in a periodical edited by W.E.B. DuBois. Dunham became interested in dance during her teenage years when she joined the Terpsichorean Club and began her training as a dancer.

After high school, Dunham began studying ballet in Chicago under Ludmilla Speranzeva. Speranzeva was one of the first ballet teachers in America to accept black dancers as students. Dunham was also attending Joliet Junior College. One day, she joined her brother, Albert, at the University of Chicago and overheard a lecture by a professor of anthropology. During the lecture, Dunham became fascinated by black culture from Africa. As a result, she changed her major to anthropology and focused on dances of the African diaspora.

In 1930, she formed one of the first Negro ballet companies in America. Two years later, she opened a dance school for young black dancers. She gave up ballet and began focusing on modern dance. She also began to travel to the Caribbean studying local dance. With the information that she learned in the Caribbean, Dunham came back to Chicago and was awarded a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Afterwards, she was awarded several grants to continue her studies, but she gave up academics to begin a career on Broadway and Hollywood.

She moved to New York City in 1939 and became a dance director. She found great success as a choreographer for productions on Broadway. After extensive success in New York, she began appearing in movies made in Hollywood. When television became popular, she made numerous appearances in Europe, Australia and North America. The biggest moment of her career came in 1963 when she became the second-ever African-American choreographer for the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Dunham retired in 1967, but continued to choreograph from time to time. She was featured in the 1978 PBS special, "Divine Drumbeats: Katherine Dunham and Her People." Her work in dance made her a cultural ambassador to nations throughout the world. She taught numerous A-list movie stars dance techniques. In 1992, she participated in a hunger-strike to protest U.S. foreign policy against the Haitian boat people. She became a major pioneer in Black theatrical dance. Her dance, choreography, social activism and cultural research made her a great American.

Gail Fisher was born in 1935 in Orange, New Jersey. She was raised by her mother after the death of her father at the age of two. She had an interest in theatre and got a leading role in the senior play. Also during high school, she became a cheerleader and entered into several beauty contests. She won the title of Miss Black New Jersey and became the first black contestant to make the semifinals in the New Jersey State Fair beauty contest. She was noticed by a press agent for Coca Cola and won a two-year scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City.

While in New York, she became a member of the Repertory Theater at the Lincoln Center. She also work a side job as a model. At the age of 25, she made her first television appearance on a program called “Play of the Week,” a show that televised stage plays. She also became the first African-American to make a national television commercial for laundry detergent. She also made appearances on the television series “The Defenders,” “General Hospital,” and “Simply Heaven.” In 1967, she became only the second African-American female to have a prominent role in a television series. She was featured on the crime show “Mannix” in 1967 and stayed on for the next nine seasons. In 1970, she won an Emmy Award and was nominated three more times. In 1972, she won the first of her two Golden Globe Awards while also being nominated two other times. She is the became the first black woman ever to win an Emmy or Golden Globe. In 1969, she won the NAACP Image Award.

Fisher died in 2000 from renal failure. She periodically appeared on television after “Mannix.” Fisher became an important pioneer in television for black women. Her contributions to the arts made her a Great American.

She was born Caryn Johnson in New York City. She was raised in a housing project in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. Her father left her family at an early age and she was raised by her mother. At an early age, she became interested in acting. She dropped out of school at the age of 17 because her studies were being negatively affected, unknowingly, by dyslexia.

In 1974, she moved to California to pursue a career in show business. She founded the San Diego Repertory Theatre and joined a improvisational group called "Spontaneous Combustion." She began doing stand-up comedy and touring the United States in her one-woman show entitled, "The Spook Show." It became such a success that the show became a Broadway act. Her "Spook Show" was an instant success and she sold out all 156 performances.

She was then noticed by director Steven Spielberg. He asked her if she was interested in staring in his new movie "The Color Purple," based off the book by Alice Walker. Goldberg won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress and was nominated for Best Actress in the Oscars. Since 1985, she has starred in over 80 movies and television shows including "Jumpin' Jack Flash," Fatal Beauty," Star Trek: The Next Generation" television series, and "The Long Walk Home." In 1990, she was only the second African-American woman to win an Oscar for her supporting role in the movie "Ghost." That same year, she won the NAACP Black Entertainer of the Year Award and the Excellence Award at the Women in Film Festival. In 1992, she earned an American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in the movie "Sister Act." In 1994, she became the first African-American woman ever to host the Academy Awards.

In 1987, Goldberg along with Billy Crystal and Robin Williams co-hosted HBO's "Comic Relief," a program to help raise money for the homeless. She became a voiceover artist for various cartoons including "The Lion King." She has been designated a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She has spoken out for gay rights and received the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Vanguard Award. She is currently on the talk show "The View" and has had a radio program called "Wake Up With Whoopi."

Goldberg is one of only eleven people to receive an Oscar Award, Grammy Award, Tony Award and Emmy Award. In 2001, she won the prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Her career is far from over, yet Goldberg has achieve more than most artists have done in a lifetime. Her work as a performer as well as a social activist makes her a great American.

Dick Gregory was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Sumner High School and excelled in track as a half-miler and miler. He received a scholarship to run track at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. When in college, he set several school records, but his time there was cut short when he was drafted into the US Army in 1954.

Gregory was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Lee in Virginia and Fort Smith in Arkansas. While in the army, he was known to his comrades as a jokester. His commanding officer suggested that he enter several talent contests as a comedian. It was there that his career as a comedian began and he became highly successful. When he left the army in 1956, he chose not to finish college and moved to Chicago in hopes of becoming a professional comedian.

Gregory’s career got off to a bumpy start. He failed as a comedian when he started in 1958 and ended up working for the United States Postal Service. He kept trying to get into show business and finally landed a job as the master of ceremonies at the black-owned Roberts Show Club in Chicago. One night, Roberts was performing as master of ceremonies when Hugh Hefner of Playboy Magazine walked in. When Hefner heard his standup act, he immediately hired him to do comedy at his Chicago Playboy Club. He instantly became a hit with both white and black audiences. Gregory was invited to appear on the Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar on television, but her refused because the black comedians were not allowed to sit on the couch and be interviewed after their standup routine. Finally, Jack Paar agreed to Gregory’s terms and became the first black comedian to be interviewed on the show.

Gregory brought comedy to the civil rights movement. His act mocked bigotry and racism in America. Gregory took his comedy to the south during the Civil Rights Movement and was chastised and ridiculed. He was invited by a group of students to speak at the University of Tennessee. When the university revoked his invitation, the students sued and won an order from the court that allowed Gregory to freely speak on campus. Gregory spoke in Selma, Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, protested the Vietnam War, actively took part in several hunger strikes, and marched in several demonstrations. He became active in politics, running against Richard Daley for Mayor of Chicago. He was a write-in candidate for President of the United States. He won a case in the United States Supreme Court overturning his arrest in a peaceful protest. Gregory stated a company that brought health service to poor black urban neighborhoods. He became an outspoken critic of the Warren Commission’s findings on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He became an outspoken feminist and joined in rallies for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. He conducted research into the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and convinced Congress to investigate the murder in the 1970s. In 1980, he travelled to Tehran, Iran to try to negotiate the release of American hostages and even went on a hunger strike to gain their release.

Gregory died in 2017 in Washington, DC. His legacy lives on as a pioneering comedian, author, civil rights activist, actor and entrepreneur. He brought black humor in to mainstream white American and shown a light on the injustices of racism. He wrote numerous books and recorded over a dozen comedy albums. He received an honorary doctorate from South Illinois University and received over 100 awards for his work in civil rights. Gregory was presented with the key to the City of St. Louis and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His numerous contributions made Dick Gregory a Great American.

Willie M. "Bill" Pickett was born in 1870 in Travis County, Texas. He was the second of 13 children. His father was a former slave and his mother was of mixed European and Native American descent. Pickett only received a fifth grade education. While he was a child, he began riding horses and working on a ranch.

At an early age, Pickett created a new technique of grabbing cattle called "bulldogging." He developed the technique while watching herder dogs subdue huge steers by biting their upper lips. He would twist their necks, bit their noses or upper lips, and make them fall to one side. Soon after creating this technique, he and four of his brothers established their own horse breaking business in Taylor, Texas.

Pickett entered his first rodeo in 1888 in Taylor, Texas and was wildly successful. He expanded his business and his rodeo shows throughout the west. His fame grew so much that he was asked to join the 101 Ranch Wild West Show in 1905. The show was famous for featuring performers such as Will Rogers, Bee Ho Gray, and Buffalo Bill. Pickett was featured in several movies, but he would have to claim that he was part Comanche in order to perform.

Bill Pickett revolutionized rodeos in America. His techniques are still used to this day. He broke the color-barrier in the industry by becoming the first "Negro" rodeo performer in America. He was killed in an accident in 1932 while performing. In 1971, he was inducted into the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame. In 1993, his likeness was featured on a US postage stamp. His contributions to the art and sport of the rodeo made Bill Pickett a great American.

Naomi Sims was born in Oxford, Mississippi in 1948. By the time she was 13 years old, she was 5’10” tall. As a teenager, Sims and her family moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and her mother was forced to place her into foster care due to their lack of money. After graduating high school, she won a scholarship to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She also took night classes at New York University in psychology.

While in New York, she attempted to get a job modelling, but the agencies said that her skin was too dark. She caught a break when a fashion photographer agreed to take picture of her for the cover of The New York Times fashion supplement. She approached former model Wilhelmina Cooper, who was starting her own modelling agency, with an arrangement to circulate the New York Times photos to different advertising agencies in exchange for a commission of any jobs that she would receive. She started to become noticed and her image was printed on many magazines and newspapers. Her big breakthrough came in 1968 when she was picked for a national television commercial for AT&T.

Sims’ career took off. She became the first successful black model in the United States. She was the first black model to appear on the cover of the Ladies’ Home Journal. In 1969, she appeared on the cover of Life Magazine. Her image was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1972, she was offered movie roles in Hollywood, but turned them down due to their racist portrayal of blacks.

In 1973, she retired from modelling and started her own business, the Metropa Company. Her company produced wigs with straightened black hair. She authored five books on modeling, health and beauty. Her business and books made her a multimillionaire. By the 1980s, she extended her collection into perfume, beauty salons and cosmetics.

Sims passed away in 2009 from breast cancer. She was a pioneer in the modeling industry and was an icon for the “Black is Beautiful” movement in the United States. Her hard work and efforts in the fashion industry made Sims a Great American.

Ethel Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania in 1896. Waters was born as a result of the rape of her mother when she was an early teenager. Because of the circumstances of her birth, Waters was ostracized by her family and she had a very difficult childhood. She was married at the age of 13, but soon left her abusive husband and moved to Philadelphia. While she was there, she attended a party at a nightclub where she was convinced to sing two songs. She impressed onlookers so much that she was offered a full-time job as a performer at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland.

After working Baltimore, she began singing in the black vaudeville circuit. She earned the nickname "Sweet Mama Stringbean." She moved around to many venues. She performed in Atlanta and sang in the same theater as the great Bessie Smith. Around 1919, she moved to Harlem in New York City and began performing to large audiences at nightclubs. In 1921, she became one of the first black women to make a record.

Waters' first big hit was the song "Dinah" in 1925. Afterwards, she began recording more records and touring the country. She performed on Broadway and one of her songs, "Am I Blue," appeared in the movie "On With The Show." She was now performing with some of the biggest black artists of the time. In the early 1930s, she began starring in musical-short films. One of the films, "Rufus Jones for President," featured Waters singing and dancing with a seven-year old Sammy Davis, Jr. She began performing at the Cotton Club and sang one of her greatest songs, "Stormy Weather."

In 1933, she became the first African-American woman to perform in a "white" show on Broadway in Irving Berlin's Broadway musical "As Thousands Cheer." She played Petunia in the all-Black musical "Cabin in the Sky" and later starred in the film version of the musical. In 1949, Waters became the second-ever African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for the film "Pinky." She won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award her role in the play "The Member of the Wedding." With the advent of television, Waters began making guest appearances. She became the first African-American woman to be nominated for an Emmy in 1962 for the television series "Route 66."

Ethel Water became one of the highest paid performers in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Waters was a deeply religious woman and often sang gospels on crusades with Reverend Billy Graham. She was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. She song "Stormy Weather" is listed in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress as one of the most significant songs in American history. She was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame as well as the Christian Music Hall of Fame. In 1994, she was featured on a U.S. Postage Stamp. Her fame and contributions to music and film have made Ethel Waters a great American.

Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi in 1954. When she was six years old, her mother moved her to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After giving birth to another daughter, Oprah's mother sent her to live with her father in Nashville, Tennessee. She went back and forth between Milwaukee and Nashville, but finally settled in Nashville with her father and graduated from East Nashville High School. There, Winfrey was an honor student and voted Most Popular Girl. She joined the speech team and placed second nationally in dramatic interpretation. She won a speaking contest sponsored by the Elks Club, which helped her to secure a full scholarship to Tennessee State University.

Soon after arriving in college, Winfrey won the Miss Black Tennessee Beauty Pageant at the age of seventeen. She excelled in school and participated in the Drama Club, Debate Club and Student Council. She was offered a job with WTVF-TV in Nashville as the first African-American female news co-anchor at only the age of nineteen.

After graduation, Winfrey moved to Baltimore, Maryland and became a morning talk show host for the next eight years. In 1983, she moved to Chicago and began hosting a morning show called "A.M. Chicago." The show was during the same time slot as the extremely popular Phil Donahue Show. In just a few months, she took the show from last in the ratings to number one. Her success caught the eye of Steven Spielberg, and cast her in a role in the movie "The Color Purple," which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Winfrey renamed her television show, "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and it started airing nationally in 1986. Her show toppled the Donahue Show with twice the national audience that he had ever been able to garner. In its first year, Winfrey's show had 10 million viewers and grossed $125 million. Soon, Winfrey took ownership of the program from ABC and started a new production company called Harpo Productions.

Winfrey's production company grew. It produced television drama shows such as "Brewster Place." The company helped produce movies such as an adaptation of Toni Morrison's story "Beloved." Outside of Harpo, Winfrey helped found "Oxygen," a women's cable television network. She started an on-air reading club, which helped increase the sales of many authors. She created "OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network" for cable television. She even launched her own magazine called "O: The Oprah Magazine."

Winfrey has become one of the richest people in American. According to Forbes Magazine, her net worth in 2012 came to $2.7 billion. Business Week named her the greatest Black philanthropist in American history. She has raised money for Hurricane Katrina relief, education in Africa, and numerous other charitable organizations throughout the country. Life Magazine declared Winfrey to be the most influential woman of her generation. She has championed causes such as child abuse, children's rights and domestic abuse.

Oprah Winfrey has become one of the most power and recognized women in the world. Her business savvy, charm and philanthropy have given her an unprecedented influence into the daily lives of people across the country. The name "Oprah" has become a household word and her story is still developing. Oprah Winfrey is a great American.