Though I missed his book signing in NYC this past Thursday(had a screening of my own film – hallelujah!) all film, and Black film (and music) lovers have to go out and get Donald Bogle’s new book on the turbulent life of Ethel Waters, entitled HEAT WAVE.

If you’ve somehow never read any of Bogle’s books, he’s the preeminent historian on all things Black film. I spent a geeky but fulfilling summer of my youth reading his work, which includes:

Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in Films; Brown Sugar: Eighty Years of America’s Black Female Superstars; Blacks in American Film and Television: An Illustrated Encyclopedia; Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography; Primetime Blues: African Americans on Network Television; Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood.

If you’ve read ‘Bright Boulevards…’ in particular, you learned a lot about Ethel Waters but this new bio dispels even more about her illustrious and very controversial career, including more about her bisexual relationships. Here’s the book description from the publisher:

From the author of the bestselling Dorothy Dandridge comes a dazzling look at one of America’s brightest and most troubled theatrical stars.

Almost no other star of the twentieth century re-imagined herself with such audacity and durable talent as did Ethel Waters. In this enlightening and engaging biography, Donald Bogle resurrects this astonishing woman from the annals of history, shedding new light on the tumultuous twists and turns of her seven-decade career, which began in Black vaudeville and reached new heights in the steamy nightclubs of 1920s Harlem.

Bogle traces Waters’ life from her poverty-stricken childhood to her rise in show business; her career as one of the early blues and pop singers, with such hits as “Am I Blue?,” “Stormy Weather,” and “Heat Wave”; her success as an actress, appearing in such films and plays as The Member of the Wedding and Mamba’s Daughters; and through her lonely, painful final years. He illuminates Waters’ turbulent private life, including her complicated feelings toward her mother and various lovers; her heated and sometimes well-known feuds with such entertainers as Josephine Baker, Billie Holiday, and Lena Horne; and her tangled relationships with such legends as Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Harold Clurman, Elia Kazan, Count Basie, Darryl F. Zanuck, Vincente Minnelli, Fred Zinnemann, Moss Hart, and John Ford.

In addition, Bogle explores the ongoing racial battles, growing paranoia, and midlife religious conversion of this bold, brash, wildly talented woman while examining the significance of her highly publicized life to audiences unaccustomed to the travails of a larger-than-life African American woman.

Wonderfully atmospheric, richly detailed, and drawn from an array of candid interviews, Heat Wave vividly brings to life a major cultural figure of the twentieth century—a charismatic, complex, and compelling woman, both tragic and triumphant.

Check it out. You can’t get it at any major book store, smaller ones too, and online stores. I’m picking up my copy this weekend. In the meanwhile, check out this great radio interview Donald Bogle did this past week to promote the book –http://thedianerehmshow.o...?nid=13733

I don't know anything about her music, but I have an old movie called Pinky on DVD she was in.

MickyDolenz said:

I don't know anything about her music, but I have an old movie called Pinky on DVD she was in.

i just watched that on netflix last week!

she and ethel barrymore were good in it. most of the stars were good - except the lead actress!

pretty provocative for its time, i think.