Gertrude Saunders (born March 25, 1903—April 1991) was a singer, actress, comedian, and producer of musicals and vaudeville shows. Her most notable role was the original star of the groundbreaking production of Shuffle Along (1921).
Gertrude Saunders was born in Asheville, North Carolina. As a teenager, in her senior year at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, she left the school to go on tour with vaudeville and stage performer, Billy King. She joined the Billy King Stock Co., which at the time was in residence at the Grand Theater in Chicago and remained there for several years. While with Billy King, her performances turned several of his songs into hits including, “Wait ‘Til the Cows Come Home” from the show The Board of Education (1918), “Little Lump of Sugar” from The Heart Breakers (1918), “Hot Dog” from They’re Off (1919), and “Rose of Washington Square” from Town Top-Piks (1920).
Other shows she performed in include The Undertaker’s Daughter, The Face at the Window, and Raiding a Cabaret (all 1917), At the Beach and In the Draft (both 1918) and Over the Top and Exploits in Africa (both 1919). Over the Top was a significant work because it “dramatized the state of African Americans at the time of the Paris Peace Conference” and was one of the first well-known efforts to stage serious theatrical and musical revues.
After Florence Mills replaced Saunders as the lead in Shuffle Along, she worked in revues throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s, including one financed by Bessie Smith’s husband, Jack Gee in 1929, which led to a fight with Smith. In 1931, Saunders experienced a nervous breakdown and returned to her home in Ashville, North Carolina, to recover. She returned to performing in the vaudeville Keith circuit as well as other White circuits, she also coproduced her own show, Midnight Steppers in 1939. She was also featured in revues such as Red Hot Mama and several films, including The Toy Wife (1938), Big Timers (1945) and Sepia Children (1947), which were all marketed toward Black audiences.
Sometime after these films Saunders left show business. She died in Beverly Massachusetts in 1991.
Gertrude Saunders was recognized at an event sponsored by the Negro Actors Guild of America, with fellow entertainers Josephine Baker, Eubie Blake, and Noble Sissle.