Bailey, Pearl

March 29, 1918
August 17, 1990

The singer and actress Pearl Bailey, popularly known as Pearlie Mae, was born in Newport News, Virginia, to Joseph James Bailey, a revivalist minister, and Ella Mae Bailey. At the age of four, she moved with her family to Washington, D.C., and after her parents divorced she moved to Philadelphia with her mother and her stepfather, Walter Robinson. There, Bailey attended school until the age of fifteen, when she began her career as an entertainer after winning an amateur contest at the Pearl Theater. For a while she performed in coal-mining towns in Pennsylvania, then in small clubs in Washington, D.C. Beginning in 1941 she toured with the United Service Organization (USO), and in 1943–1944 she performed with bands led by Charles "Cootie" Williams (1908?–1985), William "Count" Basie (1904–1984), and Noble Sissle (1889–1975). It was during this period that she began to develop her distinctive trademark, described by John S. Wilson in the New York Times as "a warm, lusty singing voice accompanied by an easy smile and elegant gestures that charmed audiences and translated smoothly from the nightclub stage and Broadway to film and television."

In the early 1940s Bailey made solo appearances at the Village Vanguard and the Blue Angel in New York City, and she made her Broadway debut in 1946 in the musical comedy St. Louis Woman, for which she won the Donaldson Award as the most promising new performer of the year. The following year she appeared in the motion picture Variety Girl, in which she sang one of her most popular songs, "Tired." Thereafter, she made numerous stage, screen, and television appearances, including the 1954 Broadway musical House of Flowers and such films as Carmen Jones (1954), St. Louis Blues (1958), and Porgy and Bess (1959). Her most acclaimed performance came in 1967, when she appeared with Cab Calloway (1907–1994) in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly! This brought her a special Tony Award in 1968 for distinguished achievement in the New York theater.

In 1969 Bailey received the USO's Woman of the Year award. The following year President Richard Nixon appointed her "Ambassador of Love," and in 1975 she was appointed special "goodwill" ambassador to the United Nations. Despite her popularity, however, Bailey's association with the Nixon administration was criticized by some African Americans; the Harlem congressman Charles Rangel in particular stated that her appointment was an insult to better-qualified blacks.

During this period, Bailey returned to school, studying theology at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., from which she received both an honorary degree in 1978 and a bachelor's degree in 1985, at the age of sixtyseven. An inveterate traveler—frequently accompanied by her husband, the jazz drummer Louis Bellson (whom she married in 1952)—Bailey also authored several books, including the autobiographical The Raw Pearl (1968) and Talking to Myself (1971). Between You and Me: A Heartfelt Memoir on Learning, Loving, and Living was published in 1989, shortly before she died of heart disease on August 17, 1990. Two years before her death, Bailey was presented with the Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

See also Calloway, Cab; Musical Theater

Bibliography

Bogle, Donald. Blacks in American Film and Television: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 1988.

Smith, Jessie Carney, ed. Notable Black American Women. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992.

Wilson, John S. Obituary. New York Times, August 19, 1990.

krista whetstone (1996)