Irvin C. Miller
| Irvin C. Miller | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Irvin Colloden Miller February 19, 1884 Columbia, Tennessee, United States |
| Died | February 27, 1975 (aged 91) St. Joseph, Michigan, US |
| Nationality | U.S. |
| Occupation | Vaudeville entertainer, playwright, theatre producer |
Irvin Colloden Miller (February 19, 1884 – February 27, 1975) was an African-American actor, playwright and vaudeville show writer and producer. He was responsible for successful theater shows including Broadway Rastus (1921), Liza (1922), Dinah (1923), which introduced the wildly popular black bottom dance, and Desires of 1927 starring Adelaide Hall. For thirty years he directed the popular review, Brown Skin Models, influenced by the Ziegfeld Follies but exclusively using black performers. "In the 1920s and 1930s, he was arguably the most well-established and successful producer of black musical comedy."
He was born in Columbia, Tennessee, the son of the editor of the Nashville Globe, a black weekly newspaper. Irvin's younger brothers Flournoy Eakin Miller (1885-1971) and Quintard Gailor Miller (1895-1979) also became theatrical performers and producers. Irvin studied at Fisk University in Nashville, graduating in 1904. The following year, he started performing with the Pekin Stock Company in Chicago, where he appeared in Colored Aristocrats, written by his brother Flournoy with his stage partner Aubrey Lyles. He then moved to New Orleans and performed with Scott's Black American Troubadours, with whom he wrote a successful musical play, Happy Sam from Bam.
In 1913 he began touring in vaudeville with singer Esther Bigeou; they later married. After the couple returned to Chicago, Irvin Miller performed with Kid Brown's company and wrote a musical comedy, Mr. Ragtime, in which he performed. He then wrote a new show, Broadway Rastus, first performed in Philadelphia in 1915. It was highly successful, and brought Miller fame. The show moved to Atlantic City where it featured performers including Leigh Whipper and Lottie Grady, and included music by W. C. Handy. Productions of Broadway Rastus continued on a regular basis until the late 1920s. Miller and Bigeou divorced in 1918, and he married chorus girl Blanche Thompson the following year.
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