Ada "Bricktop" Smith

This article is about the early 20th Century singer. For the modern-era politician, see Ada Smith.

Ada "Bricktop" Smith
Smith in 1934
Born	August 14, 1894 Alderson, West Virginia
Died	February 1, 1984(1984-02-01) (aged 89) New York City, New York, U.S.
Other names	Ada DuConge
Known for	Dancer, singer, vaudeville performer, nightclub owner

Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith, better known as Bricktop, (August 14, 1894 – February 1, 1984) was an American dancer, jazz 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."

Early life

Smith was born in Alderson, West Virginia, the youngest of four children by a Black father and a mixed-race Black mother, who had been born into slavery two years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Her grandfather was likely her mother's Irish-American slavemaster. 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 grandfather. 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.

Her first meeting with Cole Porter is related in her obituary in the Huntington (West Virginia) Herald-Dispatch:

Porter once walked into the cabaret and ordered a bottle of wine. "Little girl, can you do the Charleston?" he asked. Yes, she said. And when she demonstrated the new dance, he exclaimed, "What legs! What legs!"

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

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," which they recorded in Paris in 1937 and in Rome in 1949.

She married saxophonist Peter DuConge in 1929. Though they separated after a few years, they never divorced, Bricktop later saying that "as a Catholic I do not recognize divorce". 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.

Bricktop broadcast a radio program in Paris from 1938 to 1939, 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

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 Michael Schultz's film Honeybaby, Honeybaby, in which she played herself, operating a "Bricktop's" in Beirut, Lebanon. In 1972, Bricktop made a recording of "So Long Baby," with Cy Coleman. 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.

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

The grave of Bricktop

Bricktop died in her sleep at 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. She is interred in the Zinnia Plot (Range 32, Grave 74) at Woodlawn Cemetery.

See also

• Bricktop's at the Parlour

References

• In F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Babylon Revisited", the protagonist considers a visit to Bricktop's club in Paris.

Sources

• Peterson, Bernard L. (2001). Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960. Westport (Connecticut): Greenwood Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 0-313-29534-4. OCLC 231876719.

External links

• Bricktop at IMDb
• Book review, "Bricktop Tells Her Story"
• Book review, "Bricktop Prohibition Harlem, Cafe Society Paris, Movie-mad Rome – The Queen Of The Nightclubs Tells The Exuberant Story Of A Fabulous Life"
• Entry at MusicWeb Encyclopaeida of Popular Music
• The original "Bricktop," Ada Smith...
• "Black Girl in Paris", New York Times
• Ada "Bricktop" Smith at Find a Grave
• "Bricktop Tells About Cole Porter And Her Singing" on YouTube
• Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University: Bricktop (Ada Beatrice Smith) papers, 1894-1984 (MSS 831)
• Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, Emory University: Letters to Jodi Desmond, 1958-1972 (MSS 1167)