CAMILLE F. FORBES
Author * Historian * Performer

"Camille F. Forbes has produced a history not only of a life and an industry, but also of our ideas about the performance and theatricality of race itself. This is a significant contribution to the field of African American Studies as well as a model of how to pull a story out of archives and historical records that do not always cooperate.”

—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

“This book combines the fascinating biography of Bert Williams with the enriched history of blacks in American show business. Camille F. Forbes does a wonderful job of displaying her research on his life as she recreates the atmosphere of the years during which Williams flourished. It is a welcome addition to my personal library.”

—David Jasen, author of The American Rag: The Story of Ragtime from Coast to Coast and Rags and Ragtime: A Musical History

Tucson Citizen

"A comprehensive biography of Bert Williams - one of the greatest Broadway stars ever - is long overdue...Forbes, a historian and performer with a Ph.D. in American civilization from Harvard University, has written a remarkable book that is much more than a simple narrative about the life of an entertainer from the early years of the last century. She connects the dots and offers a glimpse into the fraught issues surrounding both race and artistic expression in American culture that even today continues to reverberate.

This is an important book about nothing less than the very birth of American show business."

Grade: A

BookPage

"...Camille F. Forbes' thorough and captivating biography Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt-Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America's First Black Star represents the most exhaustive work done on this groundbreaking figure...Introducing Bert Williams provides some much needed perspective and documentation regarding his life and times."

Kirkus

“A neglected titan of popular culture gets his due… A wealth of detail illuminates the evolution of show business during Williams’s era, and the artist himself is quoted at length, revealing an articulate and thoughtful man beneath the burnt cork.”

Publishers Weekly

"Once billed as 'The Funniest Man on Earth,' black comedian Bert Williams (1874–1922), in the midst of a current revival (e.g., Louis Chude-Sokei's The Last 'Darky' and Caryl Phillips's 'Dancing in the Dark'), gets solidly covered by Forbes, a UC–San Diego professor of African-American literature and culture. She delivers an in-depth documentation of his life set against the shadowy backdrop of 19th and 20th-century racism. Working within the limitations of blackface stereotypes, Williams regaled audiences with his creative characterizations. Born in the Bahamas, he was schooled in California, joining medicine shows and minstrel troupes before teaming with George Walker for vaudeville and Victor recordings. Williams's woeful 'Nobody' became his signature theme song, and in 1903, he brought the first black musical to Broadway. When Ziegfeld ignored protests and cast Williams in 1910, his integrated Ziegfeld Follies became a theatrical milestone. Williams 'had shown that blacks who break through to "The Great White Way" can triumph and stay.' Forbes's foray through the Billy Rose Theatre Collection and other archives fills 52 pages of bibliographic notes, and her vivid, detailed descriptions of Williams's comedy routines bring his dynamic stage presence to life on the page." (Jan. 29)

London Daily Telegraph

"...In Camille Forbes's richly detailed new biography, she tells one story that might stand for her subject's entire life.

Once, when Williams was performing in New York in the early 1900s, the great Maurice Barrymore, patriarch of the most celebrated acting family in America, went down to the wings to watch him in action. 'Like him?' a passing stagehand asked. 'Yes, he's terrific,' Barrymore replied.

Then, a moment later, as Williams was coming offstage, the stagehand said: 'Yes, he's a good nigger, knows his place.; Overhearing the remark, as he was surely meant to, Williams said under his breath: 'Yes, a good nigger knows his place. Going there now. Dressing Room One!'

Like so many of the stories in this book, this is a tale that could easily be interpreted in one of two ways. On the one hand, it lays bare the appalling racism that Williams had to endure throughout his professional life; on the other, it could also be seen as the story of victory against the odds, of a man who fought his way into Dressing Room One. Forbes leans towards the latter view, and the emphasis in this book is generally positive."

Copyright © 2007 Camille F. Forbes. All Rights Reserved.