Gone but never forgotten — Legendary entertainer Pearl Mae Bailey was born on March 29, 1918 in Southamption, Virginia. Throughout her career, singing, acting, dancing, she did it all with a mischievous spirit that captivated audiences. 

Pearl Bailey grew up in Newport News, Virginia, was never formally trained in music but learned to sing in her father’s evangelical church. She dropped out of school at 15 and joined the Vaudeville and club circuits with her debut performance at an amateur contest at Philadelphia’s Pearl Theater.  Encouraged to enter the contest by her older brother, Bill Bailey, an aspiring tap dancer, Bailey won first prize in the competition.

After winning a similar contest at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Bailey decided to start performing as a professional.  In the 1930s she took jobs singing and dancing in Philadelphia’s black nightclubs singing with big bands led by Count Basie and Cab Calloway.  After the start of World War II, Bailey decided to tour the country with the USO where she performed for US troops.  The USO performances spread her name and reputation across the country.

After the war ended Bailey moved to New York.  She continued to perform in nightclubs but she also garnered a recording contract and now went on tour to promote her music.  Her 1952 recording, “Takes Two to Tango,” was one of the top songs of the year.  In 1946 Bailey made her Broadway debut in ST. LOUIS WOMAN where she played the role of Hagar in a cast that also included Eartha Kitt and Nat King Cole.  Although Bailey performed on stage she still performed in concert tours.  On November 9, 1952, Bailey married jazz drummer Louie Bellson in London.

In 1954 Bailey made her film debut as a supporting actress in Carmen Jones.  Playing the character, Frankie, she was most remembered for her rendition of “Beat Out That Rhythm on the Drum”. By 1959 she was considered a leading African American actor and starred in films such as Porgy and Bess with Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge.

Although Bailey continued to release records and star in various films through the 1960s, had a short-lived television series in the early 1970s. 

Throughout her career, Bailey had great success on the Broadway stage. After ST. LOUIS WOMAN, she appeared in ARMS AND THE GIRL, BLESS YOU ALL, and HOUSE OF FLOWERS. Her most celebrated entertainment achievement came in 1975 when she returned to the stage to star as Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi in an all-black version of HELLO, DOLLY! for which she won a Tony Award.

Bailey made 23 appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, where along with other African American Ed Sullivan Show guests, like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat “King” Cole, helped break down the color barrier on network television.

In 1970, Bailey, a lifelong Republican, was appointed by President Richard Nixon as America’s “Ambassador of Love.” In that post she attended several meetings at the United Nations.  She later made a television commercial for President Gerald Ford in the 1976 election.

While taking a break from acting, Bailey went back to school and earned a B.A. in theology from Georgetown University in 1985.  In 1987 Bailey won an Emmy Award for her performance in an ABC Afterschool Special, Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale.  

Pearl Bailey was known as a humanitarian as well as an entertainer. Starting in 1941 and up until the year she died, she toured with the USO. In 1975 she was appointed special ambassador to the United Nations, and she was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan.

On August 17, 1990, Pearl Mae Bailey died in Philadelphia from coronary artery disease.  She was 72.

Pearl Bailey in Hello, Dolly!

Perhaps my mum knew more about me than I thought. One day she announced it would be a good idea to take me to watch a musical show instead of another ballet. Not even a teenager yet, I vividly remember being dragged ‘pushing and screaming’ into attending my first professional musical.

At the time I thought this was a horrifically boring idea, since musicals would likely not be adorned with hot men in tights leaping about, but of course I had no choice…

The embassy had coordinated for us to attend the Kennedy Center to see Pearl Bailey in HELLO, DOLLY! The director of the Kennedy Center, Martin Feinstein, kindly organized for us to sit in the “Presidential Box” in the magnificent Opera Theatre at the Kennedy Centre, Washington D.C.

Off we went to the theatre. BUT, it was apparently halfway through the stirring Jerry Herman overture of HELLO, DOLLY! that I was seen leaning forward in my seat with my arms perched on the box railing listening intently while taking in the temple that was the interior of the Opera Theatre.

It Only Takes a Moment

From the moment of the reveal of Dolly Gallagher Levi at the train station I became enthralled by the uplifting songs, movement, costumes and scenery — it was a revolutionary, fantastical and wonderland experience for me.

Even without men leaping in tights, it was astonishing and all-encompassing thrilling. By the end of the show, I wanted more.

After the curtain call vaudeville show, we were escorted backstage by director of the Kennedy Center, to meet Miss Bailey and co-star Mr. Daniels.

As we walked backstage towards the dressing rooms after the show, we passed the various scenery on stage that I had seen in the show. From the upstage side (the rear of the stage), I was fascinated looking at the “Harmonia Gardens” set pieces which were actually just wood and canvas and only an inch thick, yet 30 minutes before, I thought it all was massively real.

I think it was at this very moment that the magic and excitement of live theatre determined my life’s path.

Thank-you Jerry Herman, Michael Stewart, Pearl Bailey, Martin Feinstein and whomever designed those sets!

In later life, I went on to work on Hello, Dolly! productions for the Queensland Theatre Company in Australia and the tour of HELLO, DOLLY!  starring Carol Channing in her final revival in the mid-1990’s.  I also enjoyed a friendship with dinners and copious drinks at his Hollywood Hills and Florida homes with composer Jerry Herman since the ’90’s as I evolved into his male (and my female) alter ego Auntie Mame.

Thanks to my mothers memoirs, the flashback of long-ago events are preserved via an extract: