Biography

The child of a teenage rape victim, Ethel Waters grew up in the slums of Philadelphia and neighboring cities, seldom living anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time. "No one raised me, " she recollected, "I just ran wild." She excelled not only at looking after herself, but also at singing and dancing; she began performing at church functions, and as a teenager was locally renowned for her "hip shimmy shake". In 1917 she made her debut on the black vaudeville circuit; billed as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" for her tall, lithe build, she broke through with her rendition of "St. Louis Blues", which Waters performed in a softer and subtler style than her rivals, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Beginning with her appearances in Harlem nightclubs in the late 1920s, then on the lucrative "white time" vaudeville circuit, she became one of America's most celebrated and highest-paid entertainers. At the Cotton Club, she introduced "Stormy Weather", composed for her by Harold Arlen: she wrote of her performance, "I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted". Impressed by this performance, Irving Berlin wrote "Supper Time", a song about a lyncing, for Waters to perform in a Broadway revue. She later became the first African-American star of a national radio show. In middle age, first on Broadway and then in the movies, she successfully recast herself as a dramatic actress. Devoutly religious but famously difficult to get along with, Waters found few roles worthy of her talents in her later years.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: David S. Smith

Singer Crystal Waters is her great-niece.

Was the second African-American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award. The first was Hattie McDaniel, who won for her performance in Gone with the Wind (1939).

Ethel was born to a 12-year-old mother, Louise Anderson, who had been raped at knife point by a man named John Waters. Although she was raised by her maternal grandmother, Sally Anderson, she took her father's surname.

She recorded her first two songs, "The New York Glide" and "At the New Jump Steady Ball," in 1921 on the Cardinal Record label. That same year, she was the first artist to record for Black Swan, W.C. Handy's record label. By the early 1930s, she had introduced fifty song hits.

Husband Edward Mallory was an orchestra leader whom Ethel performed with.

Waters has had three of her recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame: "Dinah" (Columbia Records, 1925) in 1998; "Stormy Weather" (Brunswick Records, 1933) in 2003; and "Am I Blue?" (Columbia Records, 1929) in 2007. Her "Stormy Weather" recording was also inducted into the Library of Congress National Recording Registry in 2004.

Often appeared on the various radio & TV shows of New York City media couple "Tex & Jinx" (John Reagan 'Tex' McCrary & Eugenia 'Jinx' Lincoln Falkenberg). Waters appeared as a regular on the Tex & Jinx TV Show over WNBT in NYC starting January 29, 1954.

There is a park named in her honor in her hometown of Chester, Pennsylvania. Ethel Waters Park is located at Third & Dock Streets and a plaque reading "dedicated to the city of Chester for the enjoyment of its people" was placed there May 1, 1972 following "Ethel Waters Week," which ran from April 24th to April 30, 1972. April 30, 1972 was proclaimed "Ethel Waters Day" in Pennsylvania by then governor Milton Shapp. Waters was on hand for the ceremonies.

Waters made headlines in January 1957 when she appeared on the game show "Break the $250,000 Bank" and announced that she was broke and needed the money to pay off back taxes owed to the I.R.S. She won $10,000 by the end of her second week (her winning category was religious music) when the show was abruptly canceled. She accepted the chance to appear on the new show, "Hold That Note" but she wasn't the winner when she appeared on the first episode of the new series.

In " As Thousands Cheer", Waters introduced the songs "Heat Wave" and "Supper Time".

In the steamy, playful "Heat Wave", Waters plays a character from Martinique. The song became an immediate hit. It would be sung in three films:by Ethel Merman in "Alexander's Ragtime Band"(1938), Olga San Juan in "Blue Skies"(1946), and by Marilyn Monroe in "There's No Business Like Showbusiness" (1954). "Supper Time" is about a woman who is told that her husband has been lynched as she is about to set the table so that her children can eat dinner. She does so, not revealing her emotions to them. Irving Berlin wrote the song to express his outrage about the lynchings of black people.

Berlin discovered Waters in the Cotton Club in Harlem in 1933 and immediately wanted her for "As Thousands Cheer".

It was in the Cotton Club in 1933 that Waters introduced the song "Stormy Weather". She sang it under a blue light while leaning against a lamppost. "Stormy Weather was most famously sung by Lena Horne in the film "Stormy Weather"(1944).

I just let singing out the way it comes to me. Once the orchestra gets used to letting themselves go, everything works out fine. The song is really the main thing, the song and the way you sing it.