Jolson, Al

Jolson, Al [né Asa Yoelson] (1886–1950), singer and actor. Born in Srednike in what is now Lithuania, he was brought to America when still a youngster and settled in Washington, D.C., where his father was a cantor. In 1897 he ran away from home to join Rich and Hoppe's Big Company of Fun Makers, then worked in a circus and later as a super in the Washington tryout of Children of the Ghetto (1899), until his father forced him to return home. Within a few months he was back onstage, in vaudeville. For the next eleven years Jolson moved back and forth between two‐a‐day, burlesque, and minstrelsy. He signed with the Shuberts in 1911 and appeared in La Belle Paree when it opened the Shuberts' new flagship, the Winter Garden. He performed in blackface, with an exuberance and warmth that quickly made him the most popular box‐office attraction in New York. As one critic was later to write, “He sang with his old‐time knee‐slapping, breast‐beating, eye‐rolling ardor, sang with a faith that moved mountains and audiences.” Major assignments followed in Vera Violetta (1911), The Whirl of Society (1912), The Honeymoon Express (1913), Dancing Around (1914), Robinson Crusoe, Jr. (1916), Sinbad (1918), Bombo (1921), and Big Boy (1925). Among the many songs Jolson introduced in these shows, and with which he was afterward identified, were “April Showers,” “Avalon,” “California, Here I Come,” “My Mammy,” and “Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody.” In many of his early vehicles he reputedly often dismissed the cast and spent much of the evening singing to audiences from directly in front of the footlights or on ramps leading out into the house. His most famous pose was down on one knee, arms outstretched. By 1925 his popularity had begun to slip slightly, so he went to Hollywood, where he starred in the first “talkie,” The Jazz Singer, and for a few years was a major film star. He returned to Broadway only twice, in The Wonder Bar (1931) and Hold on to Your Hats (1940), which he co‐produced. In neither show did he play the blackface clown that made him famous. No longer a star of stage or screen, Jolson still remained a popular recording artist until he died. Biography: Jolson: The Legend Comes to Life, Herbert G. Goldman, 1988.