Ethel Waters
| Ethel Waters | |
|---|---|
Waters in 1943
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | Ethel Howard |
| Born |
October 31, 1896 Chester, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | September 1, 1977 (aged 80) Chatsworth, California |
| Genres | Jazz, gospel, blues |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, singer |
| Instruments | Vocals |
| Years active | 1918–1977 |
| Associated acts | Fletcher Henderson, Lena Horne |
Ethel Waters (October 31, 1896 – September 1, 1977) was an American singer and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, but she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.
Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", and "Cabin in the Sky", as well as her version of the spiritual "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American, after Hattie McDaniel, to be nominated for an Academy Award. She was also the first African-American woman to be nominated for an Emmy Award, in 1962.
Waters was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 31, 1896, as a result of the rape of her teenaged mother, Louise Anderson (believed to have been 13 years old at the time, although some sources indicate she may have been slightly older), by John Waters, a pianist and family acquaintance from a mixed-race middle-class background. He played no role in raising Ethel. Soon after she was born, her mother married railroad worker Norman Howard. Ethel used the surname Howard as a child, before reverting to her father's name of Waters. She was raised in poverty and never lived in the same place for more than 15 months. She said of her difficult childhood, "I never was a child. I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family."
Waters grew tall, standing 5' 9½" in her teens. According to women-in-jazz historian and archivist Rosetta Reitz, Waters's birth in the North and her peripatetic life exposed her to many cultures.
Waters married at the age of 13, but her husband was abusive, and she soon left the marriage and became a maid in a Philadelphia hotel, working for $4.75 per week. On her 17th birthday, she attended a costume party at a nightclub on Juniper Street. She was persuaded to sing two songs and impressed the audience so much that she was offered professional work at the Lincoln Theatre in Baltimore. She later recalled that she earned the rich sum of ten dollars a week, but her managers cheated her out of the tips her admirers threw on the stage.
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