Evelyn Dove: Britain’s black cabaret queen

by Stephen Bourne

Evelyn Dove embraced the worlds of jazz, musical theatre and, most importantly, cabaret, in a career spanning five decades from the 1920s through to the 1960s. A black British diva with movie star looks, she captivated audiences and admirers around the world, enjoying the same appeal as the ‘Forces Sweetheart’ Vera Lynn throughout the Second World War. Refusing to be constrained by her race or middle–class West African and English backgrounds, she would perform for infamous Russian leader, Joseph Stalin; become a regular vocalist for the BBC and a celebrated performer across continental Europe, India and the US. At the height of her fame in the 1930s, she worked with the pioneers of black British theatre, replacing Josephine Baker as the star attraction in a revue at the Casino de Paris and scandalizing her family by appearing on stage semi-nude. This is a celebration of an extraordinary career punctuated with vertiginous highs and profound lows, and places Dove in historical context with artists of her time, such as Adelaide Hall, Dame Cleo Laine and Dame Shirley Bassey.

Genres: Biography

144 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2016

About the author

Stephen Bourne is a British writer, film and social historian specialising in black culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen...

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Brown Girl Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

#NonfictionNovember2016 has come and gone. Sadly it coincided with the disastrous US presidential election results. I was down for a while but am slowly getting back to happy and Evelyn Dove was one of the books that brightened my November. If #NonfictionNovember has taught me anything, it’s that I clearly need to read more of it. https://browngirlreading.com/2017/03/...

[Hermione Ireland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not super well-written I thought, but an interesting history of black entertainers in the UK and beyond in the first half of the 20th century.