Bricktop

by Ada Smith, James Haskins

Hers is the candid, high-spirited story of a scrappy, redheaded colored girl from West Virginia and Chicago, who combined her unerring eye for talent with a uniquely American brashness and an eminently European sophistication to become the toast of two continents.

Genres: Biography, Music, Memoir, France, African American

Hardcover

First published August 1, 1983

Reviews

[Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere)]

Her wikipedia, and a book review:

"Born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith in a small town in West Virginia, Bricktop moved to Chicago as a little girl. She recalls her early days peeking under saloon doors and longing to be able to sing in the backrooms; going on the road at sixteen (it was while playing a saloon in Harlem that she was dubbed "Bricktop" because of her red hair); working for heavyweight champion Jack Johnson at the Caf‚ Champ in Chicago; and the offer to go to Paris, where she arrived in 1924 at LeGrand Duc, "a room so tiny it felt crowed with six pairs of elbows leaning on the bar." Early one morning Cole Porter heard her sing one of his songs and began bringing his friends to hear Bricktop. Soon she was the queen of the nightclub scene of Paris.

Bricktop recounts her remarkable life the 20s and 30s when everybody who was anybody went to Bricktop's; getting out of Paris just before the Germans came in (with the help of Lady Mendl and the Duchess of Windsor)' her unsuccessful attempts to recreate Bricktop's in New York; her years in Mexico City; her conversion to Catholicism; and Bricktop's in Rome where she watched the marriage of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner break up and unwittingly presided over the first appearances together in public of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. From Sophie Tucker to Jascha Heifetz, from Jelly Roll Morton to Jimmy Walker, from Tallulah Bankhead, Gloria Swanson and Shirley MacLaine to Paul Robeson and Edward G. Robinson, her story is filled with anecdotes about the people she knew and her outspoken opinions of them all, be it F. Scott Fitzgerald ("It was impossible not to like him. He was a little boy in a man's body. He hadn't grown up and he didn't intend to."), Ernest Hemingway ("I never took to him. He just wanted to bring people down.") or Martin Luther King, Jr. ("He was one of the most calm, collected together persons I have ever met in my life.""

[Jane]

I had only gotten started on this book when I had to return it. James Haskins is a recent discovery that i should have discovered long ago! An Alabama native transplanted to Harlem, he has published over 150 works of nonfiction on mostly "black" and social justice topics, mostly for children and young adults. The author line should read "By Bricktop as told to James Haskins."

Bricktop is one of many African-Americans who found her personal liberation in Europe while Jim Crow still reigned in the U.S. She was famous as a singer and nightclub owner. When Martin Luther King was in Europe to receive his Nobel Peace Peace Prize, he went out of his way to meet Bricktop, who surprised him by cooking black-eyed peas in his honor.

Bricktop contains themes and subject matter that make it more appropriate for an adult audience, but most Haskins books target the youth-through-young-adult audience. As one of his colleagues said, Haskins "created a canon that is a resource for anyone studying black history." Anyone of any age can enjoy and learn from the work of James Haskins. He may be Alabama's most prolific author. Jane DeNeefe

[Lillipeg]

Ok, Nickie, I felt motivated to finish for you. It's an enjoyable story--she had a very interesting life. (Lately, I've been interested in the women who were running businesses or providing part of the cultural attractions of 20's Paris, but who are not as well known as the Hemingway's and Fitzgerald's.) What I find I'm missing, though it can't be expected with an autobiography, is the context and analysis you'd get with a well-researched biography. Also, she doesn't provide any gossip to speak of. She was great friends with Cole Porter but never mentions he was gay, which we all know, and she must have known, but she keeps all the juicy tidbits to herself.