BRICKTOP, CABARET QUEEN IN PARIS AND ROME, DEAD
By ALBIN KREBS
Published: February 1, 1984
Bricktop, the legendary singer and entertainer whose cafe society nightclubs in Paris in the 20's and in Mexico City and Rome in the postwar years drew royalty, writers and the fashionably riffraff, died in her sleep early yesterday in her apartment on West 68th Street. She was 89 years old and had been in fragile health.
Thousands of her friends on several continents called the once red-haired doyenne of cafe society by the Bricktop nickname, and her fashionable clubs were also called Bricktop. But her real name was more impressive - Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith.
Her fame was as widespread as it was legendary. She taught the Prince of Wales and future Duke of Windsor the Black Bottom in her small but ultra-chic bo^ite on Place Pigalle in Paris in the 20's. Cole Porter, whom she taught the Charleston, wrote specially for her a drama-in-song called ''Miss Otis Regrets,'' based on the Frankie-and-Johnny legend.
Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald got drunk at Bricktop's, and the carrot- topped entertainer once threw out John Steinbeck for being ''ungentlemanly.'' He got back into her good graces by sending her a taxi loaded with roses. 'Fascinated by Saloons'
Brick, or Brickie, as some of her legions of admirers often called her, was born on Aug. 14, 1894. She was a nonstop, stream-of-consciousness talker, and she loved telling her own colorful life story.
''I was born in Alderson, West, by God, Virginia,'' she told one interviewer a decade ago. ''My mother was the whitest Negro that ever lived, and she was certainly shanty Irish. I was always fascinated with saloons. As a kid on State Street in Chicago, I was always running under the swinging doors. I was in the chorus of a Negro theater at 15 - don't say 'black,' I hate 'black,' I'm 100 percent American Negro with a trigger Irish temper.''
In the early 1920's, Bricktop sang in Connie's Inn in Harlem, then moved on to Paris. ''I was sent for to sing in a little nightclub,'' she said. ''Cole Porter brought me to Venice to sing and dance on his barge for his private parties. In those days there was no such thing as the jet set. It was the set. Darling, either you're born in it or you're not. If you were born in the gutter you can get polish, but some day you'll fall back in the gutter.''
Despite her seeming, occasionally, to put on such airs, Bricktop cultivated a reputation for being everyone's friend in her nightclubs, managing to have pleasant, although usually brief, chats with all her guests. She seldom stayed at a table more than five minutes, however, and, she once insisted, ''I never have a drink with a guest unless they've begged me three or four times.'' Her formula seemed to work, for her guests and customers vied with one another to assure her of their love. I'm a Personality'
''When I'm alone with anyone,'' she once said, ''I call them 'darling.' Except the Duke of Windsor. I have always called him 'Sire.' ''
Such a pronouncement was often followed by a more self-effacing observation: ''You know, darling, Cole Porter wrote 'Miss Otis Regrets' for me, but I'm no singer, I'm a personality. Nobody ever came to hear me, they came to see me.''
Not long before Bricktop returned to New York after the Depression dimmed the City of Light, she hired an unknown English singer named Mabel Mercer, who remained her lifelong friend. Earlier, she had taken another newcomer, Josephine Baker, under her wing, and she also counted as her protege Duke Ellington.
In her auitobiography, ''Bricktop by Bricktop,'' written with James Haskins and published last year on her 89th birthday, the entertainer told of some hard times in New York in the 1940's. In 1943, she said, her old friend, the heiress Doris Duke, lent her money to set up a club in Mexico City. In 1950, she returned briefly to Paris, but was repelled by postwar anti-Americanism there and moved on to Rome.
Bricktop's on the Via Veneto was a mecca for American and European tourists, but its owner once told a friend: ''Compared to my little 14-table spot in Paris years ago, this place is a dump.'' She finally gave up the nightspot in 1961. Her departure was noted in one newspaper in these words:
''Singing, dancing, cigar-smoking Bricktop, who has reigned as American nightclub queen in Europe for 40 years, announced her abdication today. 'I'm tired, honey, tired of staying up till dawn every day,' the 67-year-old, freckle-faced entertainer said.''
There were occasional attempts at comebacks in New York over the next few years, but as the entertainer's health worsened, she became less and less active. She never lost interest in charity work, however, particularly for the Roman Catholic Church, to which she was a convert.
She always took her religion seriously, but Bricktop, who said she ''was married a few years to a saxophone player and a great gentleman,'' Peter Duconge, laughed when her friends teased her about her conversion.
''They say I'm a religious fanatic, because I'm always running in and out of church,'' she said. ''For 40 years I was running in and out of bars, and they didn't call me a fanatic.''
Funeral services were incomplete yesterday.
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Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, better known as Bricktop, (August 14, 1894 – February 1, 1984) was an American dancer, singer, vaudevillian, and self-described saloon-keeper who owned the nightclub Chez Bricktop in Paris from 1924 to 1961, as well as clubs in Mexico City and Rome. She has been called "...one of the most legendary and enduring figures of twentieth-century American cultural history."[citation needed]
Contents
[hide]Early life[edit]
Smith was born in Alderson, West Virginia, the youngest of four children by an Irish father and a black mother. When her father died, her family relocated to Chicago. It was there that saloon life caught her fancy, and where she acquired her nickname, "Bricktop," for the flaming red hair and freckles inherited from her father. She began performing when she was very young, and by 16, she was touring with TOBA (Theatre Owners' Booking Association) and on the Pantages vaudeville circuit. Aged 20, her performance tours brought her to New York City. While at Barron's Exclusive Club, a nightspot in Harlem, she put in a good word for a band called Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, and the club booked them. One of its members was Duke Ellington.[1]
Her first meeting with Cole Porter is related in her obituary in the Huntington (West Virginia) Herald-Dispatch:
John Steinbeck was once thrown out of her club for "ungentlemanly behavior." He regained her affection by sending a taxi full of roses.
Cafe society[edit]
By 1924, she was in Paris. Cole Porter hosted many parties, "lovely parties" as Bricktop called them, where he hired her as an entertainer, often to teach his guests the latest dance craze such as the Charleston and the Black Bottom. In Paris, Bricktop began operating the clubs where she performed, including The Music Box and Le Grand Duc. She called her next club "Chez Bricktop," and in 1929 she relocated it to 66 rue Pigalle. Her headliner was a young Mabel Mercer, who was to become a legend in cabaret.
Known for her signature cigars, the "doyenne of cafe society" drew many celebrated figures to her club, including Cole Porter, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald mentions the club in his 1931 short story Babylon Revisited. Her protégés included Duke Ellington, Mabel Mercer and Josephine Baker. She worked with Langston Hughes when he was still a busboy. The Cole Porter song, "Miss Otis Regrets", was written especially for her to perform. Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli wrote a song called "Brick Top".[citation needed]
She married singer Peter DuConge in 1929.[2] Though they separated after a few years, they never divorced, Bricktop later saying that "as a Catholic I do not recognize divorce".[3] According to Jean-Claude Baker, one of Josephine Baker's children, as recorded in his book about his mother's life, titled Josephine: The Hungry Heart, Baker and Bricktop were involved in a lesbian affair for a time, early in their careers.[4]
Bricktop broadcast a radio program in Paris from 1938–39, for the French government. During WWII, she closed "Chez Bricktop" and moved to Mexico City where she opened a new nightclub in 1944. In 1949, she returned to Europe and started a club in Rome. Bricktop closed her club and retired in 1961 at the age of 67, saying "I'm tired, honey. Tired of staying up all night." Afterwards, she moved back to the United States.
Later life[edit]
Bricktop continued to perform as a cabaret entertainer well into her eighties, including some engagements at the age of 84 in London, where she proved herself to be as professional and feisty as she had ever been and included Cole Porter's "Love for Sale" in her repertoire.
Bricktop made a brief cameo appearance, as herself, in Woody Allen's 1983 mockumentary film Zelig, in which she "reminisced" about a visit by Leonard Zelig to her club, and an unsuccessful attempt by Cole Porter to find a rhyme for "You're the tops, you're Leonard Zelig." She appeared in the 1974 Jack Jordan's film Honeybaby, Honeybaby, in which she played herself, operating a "Bricktop's" in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1972, Bricktop made her only recording, "So Long Baby," with Cy Coleman. Nevertheless, she also recorded a few Cole Porter songs in New-York City at the end of the seventies with pianist Dorothy Donegan. The session was directed by Otis Blackwell, produced by Jack Jordan on behalf of the Sweet Box Company. The songs recorded are: Love For Sale, Miss Otis Regrets, Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe, A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Am I Blue and He's Funny That Way. This recording was never released as of today. She preferred not to be called a singer or dancer, but rather a performer.[citation needed](See external link below to YouTube "Bricktop tells about Cole Porter and her singing")
She wrote her autobiography, Bricktop by Bricktop, with the help of James Haskins, the prolific author who wrote biographies of Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks. It was published in 1983 by Welcome Rain Publishers (ISBN 0-689-11349-8).
Death[edit]
Bricktop died in her sleep in her apartment in Manhattan in 1984, aged 89. She remained active into her old age and according to James Haskins, had talked to friends on the phone hours before her death.[5][6] She is interred in the Zinnia Plot (Range 32, Grave 74) at Woodlawn Cemetery (Bronx).
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Ada Smith Bricktop
1894-1984
Birth: August 14, 1894 in Alderson, West Virginia, United States
Death: January 31, 1984 in New York, New York, United States
Occupation: Performing Arts
Source: The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 1: 1981-1985. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
(b. 14 August 1894 in Alderson, West Virginia; d. 31 January 1984 in New York City,) vaudevillian, saloon entertainer, and nightclub owner whose clientele and friends included royalty, the wealthy, and the artistic elite
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Bricktop, born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith, was the third daughter and youngest of the five children of Thomas Smith, a black barber, and Harriet ("Hattie") Elizabeth (Thompson) Smith. Her mother, seven-eighths white and of Irish descent, had been born a slave. Ada's lengthy name was an attempt to please many acquaintances. After her father died in 1898, the family moved to Chicago, where Hattie was a housekeeper and ran rooming houses. At the age of four or five, Ada made her stage debut in Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Haymarket Theatre in Chicago. She attended Keith public school and appeared in shows there. She also was fascinated with the saloons on State Street. When she was fourteen or fifteen, Ada joined the chorus at the Pekin Theatre but was forced to return to school.
At age sixteen Ada left school and began singing in vaudeville with Miller and Lyles. Later she toured the Theatre Owners' Booking Association and Pantage vaudeville circuits with McCabe's Georgia Troubadours, Ten Georgia Campers, the Kinky-Doo Trio, and the Oma Crosby Trio. The following year, in New York City, Ada met Barron Wilkins, the owner of Barron's Exclusive Club in Harlem; he nicknamed her "Bricktop" because of her flame-red hair. Later that year she performed at Roy Jones's saloon in Chicago and met the boxer Jack Johnson, for whom she worked at the Cabaret de Champion until it closed in 1912. Over the following years she appeared in many saloons, including the Panama Club, where she, Florence Mills, and Cora Green were known as the Panama Trio.
In 1917 Bricktop left the trio and went to Los Angeles. While working at the Watts Country Club she met Walter Delaney. They lived together until Delaney's history of arrests for selling drugs, gambling, and promoting prostitution forced them to move to San Francisco during a crackdown on vice in Los Angeles. Rather than drag her down with him, Delaney left Bricktop in San Francisco. She later moved to Seattle.
In 1922 Bricktop convinced Barron Wilkins to hire Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, with pianist Duke Ellington, for his New York City Club. In 1924 she performed at the Café Le Grand Duc in Paris. One of her first acquaintances there was a busboy and struggling author named Langston Hughes. Visitors to Le Grand Duc included Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, John Steinbeck, Josephine Baker, Elsa Maxwell, and Cole and Linda Porter. In 1925 Bricktop taught the Charleston at the Porters' lavish Charleston parties, and they introduced her to the Paris elite. In the fall of 1926, after returning from the Porters' palazzo in Venice, Bricktop opened the Music Box saloon in Paris. It closed the same year, and she then took over Le Grand Duc. Wanting a more chic place, before the end of 1926 she opened Bricktop's, where guests such as Jascha Heifetz, Duke Ellington, Noël Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Paul Robeson, gave impromptu performances.
In 1927 Bricktop met saxophonist Peter Ducongé. They were married on 19 December 1929 and separated in 1933 but never divorced; they had no children. In 1931 Bricktop opened a bigger café, also named Bricktop's, with Mabel Mercer as her assistant. Following the custom of Montmartre cafés, Bricktop's closed for the summer; she opened another café during the summer in the resort of Biarritz. In 1934 the effects of the Great Depression forced her to move her café to a smaller location. By the fall of 1936 she could not afford to open for the season, so she and Mercer entertained at nightspots in Paris and Cannes.
From 1938 to 1939 Bricktop did radio broadcasts for the French government. In October 1939, at the insistence of the Duchess of Windsor and Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, she fled the advancing war and returned to the United States, where she was reintroduced to American racial prejudice and segregation absent from her life in Paris. In New York City she worked at many cafés and attracted refugees from Paris. In 1940, when her following moved on, Bricktop helped open the Brittwood Café on 140th Street in Harlem. At first it was a success, drawing such celebrities and entertainers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Anna Jones, Willie Grant, Minnie Hilton, and Robert Taylor. In 1943 Bricktop moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.
In 1949 Bricktop returned to Paris, and in May 1950 she opened a new Bricktop's on the Rue Fontaine. By Christmas it was closed. She then went to Rome, where in 1951 she opened Bricktop's on the Via Veneto, drawing Italian high society and royalty. While in Italy, Bricktop, who had converted to Catholicism in 1943, was involved with Catholic charity and fund-raising projects and became a friend of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
On 6 March 1964 Bricktop announced her retirement from the nightclub business because of poor health--she had arthritis and a heart condition. She returned to Chicago in 1965 to live with her sister Blonzetta. After Blonzetta's death in 1967, Bricktop settled in New York City. In 1972 she made her only recording, "So Long, Baby," with Cy Coleman. She also worked with Josephine Baker, a longtime friend, who was attempting a comeback, in 1973. In the same year Bricktop made the film documentary Honeybaby, Honeybaby! In 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by Columbia College in Chicago. She continued to perform, but made few appearances after 1979 because of declining health. In 1983, on her last birthday, she was presented with the seal of New York City and a certificate of appreciation by Mayor Ed Koch. Just a few months later Bricktop died in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment. More than 300 people attended her funeral at St. Malachy's Church in Manhattan. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
T. S. Eliot is quoted as saying about the birth of Bricktop: "And on that day Bricktop was born, and to her thorn, she gave a rose." Perhaps her most enduring contribution is herself. Although she was a stage entertainer and an early vaudevillian, Bricktop's special talent was to entertain and befriend some of the most famous and most talented people of the twentieth century, giving them a haven from their empty castles.
FURTHER READINGS
A collection of Bricktop's personal papers is at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. Her autobiography, Bricktop by Bricktop (1983), was written with James Haskins. Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1963; repr. 1986), contains information on Bricktop's early days in Paris. An obituary is in the New York Times (1 Feb. 1984); an account of her funeral is in the New York Times (5 Feb. 1984).
Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith
1894-1984
Nationality: American
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.
New Entry : 04/27/1998
OBITUARY NOTICE
Born August 14, 1894, in Alderson, W. Va.; died in her sleep, January 31, 1984, in New York, N.Y. Nightclub owner, entertainer, and author. The redheaded Smith, better known by the nickname Bricktop, began her career as a singer and chorus girl in Harlem during the 1920's. She then moved to Paris, where she achieved fame as the owner of Bricktop's, a fashionable nightclub on the Place Pigalle that was frequented by such notable figures as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Evelyn Waugh, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Gloria Swanson, the Duke of Windsor, and Cole Porter, who wrote the song "Miss Otis Regrets" for her. She also took several performers under her wing early in their careers; Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, and Mabel Mercer were among the artists who performed at her boite. Smith returned to New York when Parisian nightlife fell victim to the Depression and the looming Second World War, and after receiving a loan from a friend, heiress Doris Duke, she established a second Bricktop's in Mexico City in 1943. She opened a third cafe on the Via Veneto in Rome, which became popular with American and European tourists, in the mid-fifties. When the talktative, cigar-smoking personality closed the third Bricktop's in 1961, she told reporters, "I'm tired, honey, tired of staying up till dawn every day." Her autobiography, Bricktop by Bricktop, was published in 1983.
1894-1984
Birth: August 14, 1894 in Alderson, West Virginia, United States
Death: January 31, 1984 in New York, New York, United States
Occupation: Performing Arts
Source: The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, Volume 1: 1981-1985. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
(b. 14 August 1894 in Alderson, West Virginia; d. 31 January 1984 in New York City,) vaudevillian, saloon entertainer, and nightclub owner whose clientele and friends included royalty, the wealthy, and the artistic elite
BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Bricktop, born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith, was the third daughter and youngest of the five children of Thomas Smith, a black barber, and Harriet ("Hattie") Elizabeth (Thompson) Smith. Her mother, seven-eighths white and of Irish descent, had been born a slave. Ada's lengthy name was an attempt to please many acquaintances. After her father died in 1898, the family moved to Chicago, where Hattie was a housekeeper and ran rooming houses. At the age of four or five, Ada made her stage debut in Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Haymarket Theatre in Chicago. She attended Keith public school and appeared in shows there. She also was fascinated with the saloons on State Street. When she was fourteen or fifteen, Ada joined the chorus at the Pekin Theatre but was forced to return to school.
At age sixteen Ada left school and began singing in vaudeville with Miller and Lyles. Later she toured the Theatre Owners' Booking Association and Pantage vaudeville circuits with McCabe's Georgia Troubadours, Ten Georgia Campers, the Kinky-Doo Trio, and the Oma Crosby Trio. The following year, in New York City, Ada met Barron Wilkins, the owner of Barron's Exclusive Club in Harlem; he nicknamed her "Bricktop" because of her flame-red hair. Later that year she performed at Roy Jones's saloon in Chicago and met the boxer Jack Johnson, for whom she worked at the Cabaret de Champion until it closed in 1912. Over the following years she appeared in many saloons, including the Panama Club, where she, Florence Mills, and Cora Green were known as the Panama Trio.
In 1917 Bricktop left the trio and went to Los Angeles. While working at the Watts Country Club she met Walter Delaney. They lived together until Delaney's history of arrests for selling drugs, gambling, and promoting prostitution forced them to move to San Francisco during a crackdown on vice in Los Angeles. Rather than drag her down with him, Delaney left Bricktop in San Francisco. She later moved to Seattle.
In 1922 Bricktop convinced Barron Wilkins to hire Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, with pianist Duke Ellington, for his New York City Club. In 1924 she performed at the Café Le Grand Duc in Paris. One of her first acquaintances there was a busboy and struggling author named Langston Hughes. Visitors to Le Grand Duc included Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, John Steinbeck, Josephine Baker, Elsa Maxwell, and Cole and Linda Porter. In 1925 Bricktop taught the Charleston at the Porters' lavish Charleston parties, and they introduced her to the Paris elite. In the fall of 1926, after returning from the Porters' palazzo in Venice, Bricktop opened the Music Box saloon in Paris. It closed the same year, and she then took over Le Grand Duc. Wanting a more chic place, before the end of 1926 she opened Bricktop's, where guests such as Jascha Heifetz, Duke Ellington, Noël Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Paul Robeson, gave impromptu performances.
In 1927 Bricktop met saxophonist Peter Ducongé. They were married on 19 December 1929 and separated in 1933 but never divorced; they had no children. In 1931 Bricktop opened a bigger café, also named Bricktop's, with Mabel Mercer as her assistant. Following the custom of Montmartre cafés, Bricktop's closed for the summer; she opened another café during the summer in the resort of Biarritz. In 1934 the effects of the Great Depression forced her to move her café to a smaller location. By the fall of 1936 she could not afford to open for the season, so she and Mercer entertained at nightspots in Paris and Cannes.
From 1938 to 1939 Bricktop did radio broadcasts for the French government. In October 1939, at the insistence of the Duchess of Windsor and Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, she fled the advancing war and returned to the United States, where she was reintroduced to American racial prejudice and segregation absent from her life in Paris. In New York City she worked at many cafés and attracted refugees from Paris. In 1940, when her following moved on, Bricktop helped open the Brittwood Café on 140th Street in Harlem. At first it was a success, drawing such celebrities and entertainers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Anna Jones, Willie Grant, Minnie Hilton, and Robert Taylor. In 1943 Bricktop moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.
In 1949 Bricktop returned to Paris, and in May 1950 she opened a new Bricktop's on the Rue Fontaine. By Christmas it was closed. She then went to Rome, where in 1951 she opened Bricktop's on the Via Veneto, drawing Italian high society and royalty. While in Italy, Bricktop, who had converted to Catholicism in 1943, was involved with Catholic charity and fund-raising projects and became a friend of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
On 6 March 1964 Bricktop announced her retirement from the nightclub business because of poor health--she had arthritis and a heart condition. She returned to Chicago in 1965 to live with her sister Blonzetta. After Blonzetta's death in 1967, Bricktop settled in New York City. In 1972 she made her only recording, "So Long, Baby," with Cy Coleman. She also worked with Josephine Baker, a longtime friend, who was attempting a comeback, in 1973. In the same year Bricktop made the film documentary Honeybaby, Honeybaby! In 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by Columbia College in Chicago. She continued to perform, but made few appearances after 1979 because of declining health. In 1983, on her last birthday, she was presented with the seal of New York City and a certificate of appreciation by Mayor Ed Koch. Just a few months later Bricktop died in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment. More than 300 people attended her funeral at St. Malachy's Church in Manhattan. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
T. S. Eliot is quoted as saying about the birth of Bricktop: "And on that day Bricktop was born, and to her thorn, she gave a rose." Perhaps her most enduring contribution is herself. Although she was a stage entertainer and an early vaudevillian, Bricktop's special talent was to entertain and befriend some of the most famous and most talented people of the twentieth century, giving them a haven from their empty castles.
FURTHER READINGS
A collection of Bricktop's personal papers is at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library. Her autobiography, Bricktop by Bricktop (1983), was written with James Haskins. Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (1963; repr. 1986), contains information on Bricktop's early days in Paris. An obituary is in the New York Times (1 Feb. 1984); an account of her funeral is in the New York Times (5 Feb. 1984).
Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith
1894-1984
Nationality: American
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2002.
New Entry : 04/27/1998
OBITUARY NOTICE
Born August 14, 1894, in Alderson, W. Va.; died in her sleep, January 31, 1984, in New York, N.Y. Nightclub owner, entertainer, and author. The redheaded Smith, better known by the nickname Bricktop, began her career as a singer and chorus girl in Harlem during the 1920's. She then moved to Paris, where she achieved fame as the owner of Bricktop's, a fashionable nightclub on the Place Pigalle that was frequented by such notable figures as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Evelyn Waugh, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Gloria Swanson, the Duke of Windsor, and Cole Porter, who wrote the song "Miss Otis Regrets" for her. She also took several performers under her wing early in their careers; Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, and Mabel Mercer were among the artists who performed at her boite. Smith returned to New York when Parisian nightlife fell victim to the Depression and the looming Second World War, and after receiving a loan from a friend, heiress Doris Duke, she established a second Bricktop's in Mexico City in 1943. She opened a third cafe on the Via Veneto in Rome, which became popular with American and European tourists, in the mid-fifties. When the talktative, cigar-smoking personality closed the third Bricktop's in 1961, she told reporters, "I'm tired, honey, tired of staying up till dawn every day." Her autobiography, Bricktop by Bricktop, was published in 1983.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Ada "Bricktop" Smith (b. August 14,1894, Alderson, West Virginia - d. January 31, 1984 New York City, New York) was a vaudevillian, saloon entertainer, and nightclub owner whose clientele and friends included royalty, the wealthy, and the artistic elite.
Bricktop, born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith, was the third daughter and youngest of the five children of Thomas Smith, an African American barber, and Harriet ("Hattie") Elizabeth (Thompson) Smith. Her mother, seven-eighths white and of Irish descent, had been born a slave. Ada's lengthy name was an attempt to please many acquaintances. After her father died in 1898, the family moved to Chicago, where Hattie was a housekeeper and ran rooming houses. At the age of four or five, Ada made her stage debut in Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Haymarket Theatre in Chicago. She attended Keith public school and appeared in shows there. She also was fascinated with the saloons on State Street. When she was fourteen or fifteen, Ada joined the chorus at the Pekin Theatre but was forced to return to school.
At age sixteen, Ada left school and began singing in vaudeville with Miller and Lyles. Later she toured the Theatre Owners' Booking Association and Pantage vaudeville circuits with McCabe's Georgia Troubadours, Ten Georgia Campers, the Kinky-Doo Trio, and the Oma Crosby Trio. The following year, in New York City, Ada met Barron Wilkins, the owner of Barron's Exclusive Club in Harlem; he nicknamed her "Bricktop" because of her flame-red hair. Later that year she performed at Roy Jones' saloon in Chicago and met the boxer Jack Johnson, for whom she worked at the Cabaret de Champion until it closed in 1912. Over the following years, she appeared in many saloons, including the Panama Club, where she, Florence Mills, and Cora Green were known as the Panama Trio.
In 1917 Bricktop left the trio and went to Los Angeles. While working at the Watts Country Club she met Walter Delaney. They lived together until Delaney's history of arrests for selling drugs, gambling, and promoting prostitution forced them to move to San Francisco during a crackdown on vice in Los Angeles. Rather than drag her down with him, Delaney left Bricktop in San Francisco. She later moved to Seattle.
In 1922 Bricktop convinced Barron Wilkins to hire Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, with pianist Duke Ellington, for his New York City Club. In 1924 she performed at the Cafe Le Grand Duc in Paris. One of her first acquaintances there was a busboy and struggling author named Langston Hughes. Visitors to Le Grand Duc included Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, John Steinbeck, Josephine Baker, Elsa Maxwell, and Cole and Linda Porter. In 1925 Bricktop taught the Charleston at the Porters' lavish Charleston parties, and they introduced her to the Paris elite. In the fall of 1926, after returning from the Porters' palazzo in Venice, Bricktop opened the Music Box saloon in Paris. It closed the same year, and she then took over Le Grand Duc. Wanting a more chic place, before the end of 1926 she opened Bricktop's, where guests such as Jascha Heifetz, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Paul Robeson, gave impromptu performances.
In 1927 Bricktop met saxophonist Peter Duconge. They were married on December 19. 1929 and separated in 1933 but never divorced; they had no children. In 1931 Bricktop opened a bigger cafe, also named Bricktop's, with Mabel Mercer as her assistant. Following the custom of Montmartre cafes, Bricktop's closed for the summer; she opened another cafe during the summer in the resort of Biarritz. In 1934, the effects of the Great Depression forced her to move her cafe to a smaller location. By the fall of 1936 she could not afford to open for the season, so she and Mercer entertained at nightspots in Paris and Cannes.
From 1938 to 1939 Bricktop did radio broadcasts for the French government. In October 1939, at the insistence of the Duchess of Windsor and Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, she fled the advancing war and returned to the United States, where she was reintroduced to American racial prejudice and segregation absent from her life in Paris. In New York City she worked at many cafes and attracted refugees from Paris. In 1940, when her following moved on, Bricktop helped open the Brittwood Cafe on 140th Street in Harlem. At first it was a success, drawing such celebrities and entertainers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Anna Jones, Willie Grant, Minnie Hilton, and Robert Taylor. In 1943 Bricktop moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.
In 1949 Bricktop returned to Paris, and in May 1950 she opened a new Bricktop's on the Rue Fontaine. By Christmas it was closed. She then went to Rome, where in 1951 she opened Bricktop's on the Via Veneto, drawing Italian high society and royalty. While in Italy, Bricktop, who had converted to Catholicism in 1943, was involved with Catholic charity and fund-raising projects and became a friend of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
On March 6, 1964 Bricktop announced her retirement from the nightclub business because of poor health--she had arthritis and a heart condition. She returned to Chicago in 1965 to live with her sister Blonzetta. After Blonzetta's death in 1967, Bricktop settled in New York City. In 1972 she made her only recording, "So Long, Baby," with Cy Coleman. She also worked with Josephine Baker, a longtime friend, who was attempting a comeback, in 1973. In the same year Bricktop made the film documentary Honeybaby, Honeybaby! In 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by Columbia College in Chicago. She continued to perform, but made few appearances after 1979 because of declining health. In 1983, on her last birthday, she was presented with the seal of New York City and a certificate of appreciation by Mayor Ed Koch. Just a few months later Bricktop died in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment. More than 300 people attended her funeral at St. Malachy's Church in Manhattan. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Bricktop, born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith, was the third daughter and youngest of the five children of Thomas Smith, an African American barber, and Harriet ("Hattie") Elizabeth (Thompson) Smith. Her mother, seven-eighths white and of Irish descent, had been born a slave. Ada's lengthy name was an attempt to please many acquaintances. After her father died in 1898, the family moved to Chicago, where Hattie was a housekeeper and ran rooming houses. At the age of four or five, Ada made her stage debut in Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Haymarket Theatre in Chicago. She attended Keith public school and appeared in shows there. She also was fascinated with the saloons on State Street. When she was fourteen or fifteen, Ada joined the chorus at the Pekin Theatre but was forced to return to school.
At age sixteen, Ada left school and began singing in vaudeville with Miller and Lyles. Later she toured the Theatre Owners' Booking Association and Pantage vaudeville circuits with McCabe's Georgia Troubadours, Ten Georgia Campers, the Kinky-Doo Trio, and the Oma Crosby Trio. The following year, in New York City, Ada met Barron Wilkins, the owner of Barron's Exclusive Club in Harlem; he nicknamed her "Bricktop" because of her flame-red hair. Later that year she performed at Roy Jones' saloon in Chicago and met the boxer Jack Johnson, for whom she worked at the Cabaret de Champion until it closed in 1912. Over the following years, she appeared in many saloons, including the Panama Club, where she, Florence Mills, and Cora Green were known as the Panama Trio.
In 1917 Bricktop left the trio and went to Los Angeles. While working at the Watts Country Club she met Walter Delaney. They lived together until Delaney's history of arrests for selling drugs, gambling, and promoting prostitution forced them to move to San Francisco during a crackdown on vice in Los Angeles. Rather than drag her down with him, Delaney left Bricktop in San Francisco. She later moved to Seattle.
In 1922 Bricktop convinced Barron Wilkins to hire Elmer Snowden's Washingtonians, with pianist Duke Ellington, for his New York City Club. In 1924 she performed at the Cafe Le Grand Duc in Paris. One of her first acquaintances there was a busboy and struggling author named Langston Hughes. Visitors to Le Grand Duc included Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Ernest Hemingway, Man Ray, Pablo Picasso, John Steinbeck, Josephine Baker, Elsa Maxwell, and Cole and Linda Porter. In 1925 Bricktop taught the Charleston at the Porters' lavish Charleston parties, and they introduced her to the Paris elite. In the fall of 1926, after returning from the Porters' palazzo in Venice, Bricktop opened the Music Box saloon in Paris. It closed the same year, and she then took over Le Grand Duc. Wanting a more chic place, before the end of 1926 she opened Bricktop's, where guests such as Jascha Heifetz, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward, the Prince of Wales, and Paul Robeson, gave impromptu performances.
In 1927 Bricktop met saxophonist Peter Duconge. They were married on December 19. 1929 and separated in 1933 but never divorced; they had no children. In 1931 Bricktop opened a bigger cafe, also named Bricktop's, with Mabel Mercer as her assistant. Following the custom of Montmartre cafes, Bricktop's closed for the summer; she opened another cafe during the summer in the resort of Biarritz. In 1934, the effects of the Great Depression forced her to move her cafe to a smaller location. By the fall of 1936 she could not afford to open for the season, so she and Mercer entertained at nightspots in Paris and Cannes.
From 1938 to 1939 Bricktop did radio broadcasts for the French government. In October 1939, at the insistence of the Duchess of Windsor and Lady Elsie de Wolfe Mendl, she fled the advancing war and returned to the United States, where she was reintroduced to American racial prejudice and segregation absent from her life in Paris. In New York City she worked at many cafes and attracted refugees from Paris. In 1940, when her following moved on, Bricktop helped open the Brittwood Cafe on 140th Street in Harlem. At first it was a success, drawing such celebrities and entertainers as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Anna Jones, Willie Grant, Minnie Hilton, and Robert Taylor. In 1943 Bricktop moved to Mexico City, where she lived for six years and was part owner of the Minuit and Chavez's clubs.
In 1949 Bricktop returned to Paris, and in May 1950 she opened a new Bricktop's on the Rue Fontaine. By Christmas it was closed. She then went to Rome, where in 1951 she opened Bricktop's on the Via Veneto, drawing Italian high society and royalty. While in Italy, Bricktop, who had converted to Catholicism in 1943, was involved with Catholic charity and fund-raising projects and became a friend of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
On March 6, 1964 Bricktop announced her retirement from the nightclub business because of poor health--she had arthritis and a heart condition. She returned to Chicago in 1965 to live with her sister Blonzetta. After Blonzetta's death in 1967, Bricktop settled in New York City. In 1972 she made her only recording, "So Long, Baby," with Cy Coleman. She also worked with Josephine Baker, a longtime friend, who was attempting a comeback, in 1973. In the same year Bricktop made the film documentary Honeybaby, Honeybaby! In 1975 she was awarded an honorary doctor of arts degree by Columbia College in Chicago. She continued to perform, but made few appearances after 1979 because of declining health. In 1983, on her last birthday, she was presented with the seal of New York City and a certificate of appreciation by Mayor Ed Koch. Just a few months later Bricktop died in her sleep at her Manhattan apartment. More than 300 people attended her funeral at St. Malachy's Church in Manhattan. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
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