Lithuanian-American entertainer (1886–1950)
Al Jolson (born Asa Yoelson, ; May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-born American singer, actor, and vaudevillian.
He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer". Jolson was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, as well as for popularizing many of the songs he sang. Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers".
Jolson was the first openly Jewish man to become an entertainment star in America. His marginal status as a Jew informed his blackface portrayal of Southern blacks. Almost single-handedly, Jolson helped to introduce African-American musical innovations like jazz, ragtime, and the blues to white audiences.
Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, "The Jazz Singer" (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with "The Jolson Story" (1946), in which Larry Parks played the younger Jolson, but with sung vocals dubbed by Jolson himself. The formula was repeated in a sequel, "Jolson Sings Again" (1949). In 1950, he again became the first star to entertain GIs on active service in the Korean War, performing 42 shows in 16 days. He died weeks after returning to the U.S., partly owing to the physical exhaustion from the performance schedule. Defense Secretary George Marshall posthumously awarded him the Medal for Merit.
According to music historian Larry Stempel, "No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway." Stephen Banfield wrote that Jolson's style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical."
With his dynamic style of singing, he became widely successful by extracting traditionally African-American music and popularizing it for white American audiences who would be unwilling to listen to it when performed by black artists. Despite his promotion and perpetuation of black stereotypes, his work was often well-regarded by black publications and has been credited for fighting against black discrimination on Broadway as early as 1911. In an essay written in 2000, music critic Ted Gioia remarked, "If blackface has its shameful poster boy, it is Al Jolson", showcasing Jolson's complex legacy in American society.
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Early life.
Asa Yoelson was born in the village of Srednike (), now known as Seredžius, near Kaunas in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He was the fifth and youngest child of Nechama "Naomi" (née Cantor, c. 1858–1895) and Moses Rubin Yoelson (c. 1858–1945); his four siblings were Rose (c. 1879–1939), Etta (c. 1880–1948), another sister who died in infancy, and Hirsch (Harry) (c. 1882–1953). Jolson did not know his date of birth, as birth records were not kept at that time in that region, and he gave his birth year as 1885.
In 1891, his father, who was qualified as a rabbi and cantor, moved to New York City to secure a better future for his family. By 1894, Moses Yoelson could afford to pay the fare to bring Nechama and their four children to the U.S. By the time they arrived—as steerage passengers on the SS "Umbria" arriving at the Port of New York on April 9, 1894—he had found work as a cantor at Talmud Torah Congregation in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where the family was reunited.
Jolson's mother, Naomi, died at 37 in early 1895, and he was in a state of withdrawal for seven months. He spent time at the St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a progressive reformatory/home for orphans run by the Xaverian Brothers in Baltimore. After being introduced to show business in 1895 by Al Reeves, Asa and Hirsch became fascinated by it, and by 1897 the brothers were singing for coins on local street corners, using the names "Al" and "Harry". They often used the money to buy tickets to the National Theater. They spent most of their days working different jobs as a team.
Stage performer.
In the spring of 1902, Jolson accepted a job with Walter L. Main's circus. Although Main had hired him as an usher, Main was impressed by Jolson's singing voice and gave him a position as a singer during the circus's Indian Medicine Side Show segment. By the end of the year, the circus had folded and Jolson was again out of work. In May 1903, the head producer of the burlesque show "Dainty Duchess Burlesquers" agreed to give Jolson a part in one show. He performed "Be My Baby Bumble Bee", and the producer agreed to keep him, but the show closed by the end of the year. He avoided financial troubles by forming a vaudeville partnership with his brother Hirsch, a vaudeville performer known as Harry Yoelson. The brothers worked for the William Morris Agency. Jolson and Harry formed a team with Joe Palmer. During their time with Palmer, they were able to gain bookings in a nationwide tour. However, live performances were falling in popularity as nickelodeons attracted audiences; by 1908, nickelodeon theaters were dominant throughout New York City. While performing in a Brooklyn theater in 1904, Jolson began performing in blackface, which boosted his career. He began wearing blackface in all of his shows.
In late 1905, Harry left the trio after an argument with Jolson. Harry had refused his request to take care of Joe Palmer, who was in a wheelchair. After Harry's departure, Jolson and Palmer worked as a duo but were not particularly successful. By 1906 they agreed to separate, and Jolson was on his own. He became a regular at the Globe and Wigwam Theater in San Francisco and was successful nationwide as a vaudeville singer. He took up residence in San Francisco, saying the earthquake-devastated people needed someone to cheer them up. In 1908, Jolson, needing money for himself and his new wife, Henrietta, returned to New York. In 1909, his singing caught the attention of Lew Dockstader, the producer and star of Dockstader's Minstrels. Jolson accepted Dockstader's offer and became a blackface performer.
According to "Esquire" magazine, "J.J. Shubert, impressed by Jolson's overpowering display of energy, booked him for "La Belle Paree", a musical comedy that opened at the Winter Garden in 1911. Within a month Jolson was a star. From then until 1926, when he retired from the stage, he could boast an unbroken series of smash hits."
On March 20, 1911, Jolson starred in his first musical revue at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City. "La Belle Paree" helped start his career as a singer. Opening night drew a large crowd, and he became popular with the audience by performing Stephen Foster songs in blackface. The show closed after 104 performances. After "La Belle Paree", he accepted an offer to perform in the musical "Vera Violetta" which opened on November 20, 1911, and like "La Belle Paree" it was a success. In the show, he again sang in blackface and became so popular that his weekly salary of $500 (based on his success in "La Belle Paree") was increased to $750.
After "Vera Violetta" closed, Jolson starred in another musical, "The Whirl of Society", propelling his career on Broadway to new heights. During his time at the Winter Garden, Jolson told the audience, "You ain't heard nothing yet" before performing additional songs. In the play, he debuted his signature blackface character "Gus". Winter Garden owner Lee Shubert signed Jolson to a seven-year contract with a salary of $1,000 a week. Jolson reprised his role as "Gus" in future plays and by 1914 achieved so much popularity with theater audiences that his $1,000-a-week salary was doubled. In 1916, "Robinson Crusoe, Jr." was the first musical in which he was the star. In 1918, his acting career was pushed further after he starred in the hit musical "Sinbad". It became the most successful Broadway musical of 1918 and 1919. "Swanee" was added to the show and became composer George Gershwin's first hit recording. Jolson added "My Mammy". By 1920, he had become the biggest star on Broadway.
His next play, "Bombo", became so successful that it went beyond Broadway to performances nationwide. It led Lee Shubert to rename his theater Jolson's 59th Street Theatre. At the age of 35, Jolson was the youngest man in American history to have a theatre named after him. But on the opening night of "Bombo", the first performance at the new theatre, he suffered from stage fright, walking up and down the streets for hours before showtime. Out of fear, he lost his voice backstage and begged the stagehands not to raise the curtains. But when the curtains went up, he "was [still] standing in the wings trembling and sweating". After being shoved onto the stage by his brother Harry, he performed, then received a significant ovation: "For several minutes, the applause continued while Al stood and bowed after the first act." He refused to go back on stage for the second act, but the audience "stamped its feet and chanted 'Jolson, Jolson', until he came back out". He took 37 curtain calls that night and told the audience, "I'm a happy man tonight."
In March 1922, he moved the production to the larger Century Theater for a benefit performance to aid injured Jewish veterans of World War I. After taking the show on the road for a season, he returned in May 1923, to perform "Bombo" at the Winter Garden. The reviewer for "The New York Times" wrote, "He returned like the circus, bigger and brighter and newer than ever... Last night's audience was flatteringly unwilling to go home, and when the show proper was over, Jolson reappeared before the curtain and sang more songs, old and new."
"I don't mind going on record as saying that he is one of the few instinctively funny men on our stage," wrote reviewer Charles Darnton in the "New York Evening World". "Everything he touches turns to fun. To watch him is to marvel at his humorous vitality. He is the old-time minstrel man turned to modern account. With a song, a word, or even a suggestion he calls forth spontaneous laughter. And here you have the definition of a born comedian."
Films.
"The Jazz Singer" (1927).
Before "The Jazz Singer", Jolson starred in the talking film "A Plantation Act". This simulation of a stage performance by Jolson was presented in a program of musical shorts, demonstrating the Vitaphone sound-film process. The soundtrack for "A Plantation Act" was considered lost in 1933, but was found in 1995 and restored by The Vitaphone Project.
Warner Bros. picked George Jessel for the role, as he had starred in the Broadway play. When Sam Warner decided to make "The Jazz Singer" a musical with the Vitaphone, he knew that Jolson was the star he needed. He told Jessel that he would have to sing in the movie, and Jessel balked, allowing Warner to replace him with Jolson. Jessel never got over it, and often said that Warner gave the role to Jolson because he agreed to help finance the film.
Harry Warner's daughter, Doris, remembered the opening night, and said that when the picture started she was still crying over the loss of her beloved uncle Sam. He had been planning to be at the performance but died suddenly, at the age of 40, on the previous day. However, halfway through the 89-minute film, she began to be overtaken by a sense that something remarkable was happening. Jolson's "Wait a minute" line provoked shouts of pleasure and applause from the audience, who were dumbfounded by seeing and hearing someone speak on a film for the first time, so much so that the double-entendre was missed at first. After each Jolson song, the audience applauded. Excitement mounted as the film progressed, and when Jolson began his scene with Eugenie Besserer, "the audience became hysterical".
According to film historian Scott Eyman, "by the film's end, the Warner brothers had shown an audience something they had never known, moved them in a way they hadn't expected. The tumultuous ovation at curtain proved that Jolson was not merely the right man for the part of Jackie Rabinowitz, alias Jack Robin; he was the right man for the entire transition from silent fantasy to talking realism. The