Eddie "Rochester" Anderson

[Roman]

Roger Ebert's website today contained a review of two biographies recently written about Lincoln Perry, better known as Stepin Fetchit (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbc ... R/51208001). Stepin Fetchit, for those who don't remember, was a very popular black comic actor of the first half of the 20th century who specialized in playing servile, slow witted, lazy characters. By the 1950s and later, Stepin Fetchit was widely viewed as an embarrassing anachronism if not worse. Stepin Fetchit's character was typical of Hollywood's treatment of black actors in the 1930s and 40s, at least as presented in movies primarily aimed at white audiences. Anyone who has watched The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, or other comedies from that era can recall similar examples of this stereotype.

The few (relatively) positive portrayals allowed during this period were indeed unique. There was Paul Robeson, Bill Bojangles Robinson, and Hattie McDaniel - and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.

Until Jack Benny and his producers introduced Anderson into the cast in 1937, Anderson had a productive career as a vaudeville performer and then movie actor but, at least in the movies, his roles were mostly of the servile porters and butlers that were offered to black actors of that era. While a listener today would find much of Rochester's dialogue to be borderline (or occasionally over the line) racist (from the drinking and craps jokes, to his role as Benny's valet to jokes about his skin color, to his addressing Jack and the others characters as "Mr. Benny (or Boss)," "Miss Livingstone," etc. while they always called him simply "Rochester."

However, these are surface criticisms. The main thing was that Rochester was every bit Jack's and the other castmembers' intellectual and moral equal on the show. As with the others in the Benny Program, he gave back to Jack far more than he received in putdowns and sarcastic cracks. It's hard to overstate just how revolutionary this was to 1930s and 40s America. Rochester may have held a subordinate position to Jack but he wasn't a servile character looking to please the boss a la Stepin Fetchit. Indeed, Rochester was more of a friend to Jack than an employee. Jack and his writers deserve praise for the courage they showed in taking full advantage of Anderson's comic gifts without demeaning him (or themselves) with the common ugly racism of their time. But the greatest credit belongs to Eddie Anderson who created this unique and beloved character at a time when such characters simply did not exist in radio or general audience movies.

It's most definitely not an exaggeration to say that Eddie Anderson helped pave the way for later black comedians such as Bill Cosby, the great Richard Pryor (whose genius was cut short far too early), Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, and Bernie Mac. Eddie Anderson's Rochester had dignity, a sense of life's absurdities, and absolutely terrific comic timing that made him unique in his time and a model to later comedians who performed in a more enlightened era.

[Roman]

I should have added Ethel Waters and Lena Horne to my list of 1940s black entertainers who had success in the movies of that era.

Also, I noted with interest that Jack was just as generous with Eddie Anderson as with his other castmembers in allowing them to plug their movie appearances. When Cabin in the Sky was about to be released in 1943, Jack gave prominent mention of this in a couple of his programs, including one where Louis Armstrong guest starred and another where Eddie Anderson sang a song from the movie (wow, I wish he had been given more chances to sing).

[Maxwell]

Lena Horne was in interesting case. Due to MGM's desire to book their films in southern theaters, her parts in their musicals that featured predominantly white casts were filmed so they could easily be edited out. (I wonder how much of that had to do with the fact that she was married to pianist-arranger Lenny Hayton, who was white).

Also, she was very light skinned, but you'd never know it from the lighting and make-up used on her. IIRC Max Factor created a special shade just for her.

[David47Jens]

Stepin Fetchit, for those who don't remember, was a very popular black comic actor of the first half of the 20th century who specialized in playing servile, slow witted, lazy characters. By the 1950s and later, Stepin Fetchit was widely viewed as an embarrassing anachronism if not worse. Stepin Fetchit's character was typical of Hollywood's treatment of black actors in the 1930s and 40s, at least as presented in movies primarily aimed at white audiences. Anyone who has watched The Three Stooges, The Marx Brothers, or other comedies from that era can recall similar examples of this stereotype.

I own a fascinating videotape entitled "That's Black Entertainment," which shows a heavy sampling from movies filmed for black audiences of the period. Lincoln Perry's Stepin Fetchit character, although regarded as an embarassment in "white" cinema (primarily because there were so relatively few black roles then, and his portrayal of the slow-witted, lazy, superstitious Negro reinforced such a negative stereotype), came off as a surprisingly clever comic performer in "black" movies. In those films, he was the goofball amidst otherwise "normal" people -- for more modern-day "white" equivalents, think of Kramer, Ted Baxter, or Larry, Darryl, and Darryl in their respective shows -- and the implied racism didn't exist in that setting.

This explains why I prefer television episodes of "Amos and Andy" to their radio antecedents. The television episodes showed the main cast of slow-witted con-men among dignified supporting cast members and guest characters who "just happened to be black," as opposed to the radio show with its minstrel show dialects being performed by whites.

[LLeff]

This explains why I prefer television episodes of "Amos and Andy" to their radio antecedents. The television episodes showed the main cast of slow-witted con-men among dignified supporting cast members and guest characters who "just happened to be black," as opposed to the radio show with its minstrel show dialects being performed by whites.

I have to recommend again the book "The Original Amos n Andy" on this pointhttp://www.midcoast.com/~lizmcl/aa.html, as Elizabeth goes into a very detailed and scholarly phonetic analysis of the various fricatives and substitutions developed by Correll and Gosden for the show, and compares them to linguistic studies of actual black dialects. Of course, her focus is more on the 1920s-30s shows which mostly no longer exist. However, it's a very enlightening study.

[David47Jens]

This explains why I prefer television episodes of "Amos and Andy" to their radio antecedents. The television episodes showed the main cast of slow-witted con-men among dignified supporting cast members and guest characters who "just happened to be black," as opposed to the radio show with its minstrel show dialects being performed by whites.

I have to recommend again the book "The Original Amos n Andy" on this pointhttp://www.midcoast.com/~lizmcl/aa.html, as Elizabeth goes into a very detailed and scholarly phonetic analysis of the various fricatives and substitutions developed by Correll and Gosden for the show, and compares them to linguistic studies of actual black dialects. Of course, her focus is more on the 1920s-30s shows which mostly no longer exist. However, it's a very enlightening study.

I've never read The Original Amos n Andy; I will try to find a copy, based on your recommendation. (Look out, eBay, here I come!)

Am I correctly reading your comment as saying that Correll & Gosden's vocal characterizations were more accurate than the "minstrel show dialects" I referred to them as? Maybe so... but I guess I'm just a bit sensitive where such things are concerned. I'm usually more than simply offended by such things, even when taken in a historical context. So I suppose I may appear somewhat thin-skinned on the subject.

When I was in high school, circa 1971, the drama club did a play based on the book Up the Down Staircase. Since our school had literally no black students at that time, the play's sole black character, "Edward Williams, Esquire," was played by a white kid in blackface. His version of a "black dialect" was to imitate the voice of Flip Wilson's then-popular "Geraldine" character. The high school audience thought he was terrific, and applauded virtually every speech his character made; I think I was the only one who was offended and horrified.

And all that from an adolescent who, only four or five years earlier, had innocently & often put on blackface make-up myself when going through a brief but fervent "Al Jolson phase!"

Comes with being a Massachusetts liberal, I guess...

[LLeff]

Am I correctly reading your comment as saying that Correll & Gosden's vocal characterizations were more accurate than the "minstrel show dialects" I referred to them as? Maybe so... but I guess I'm just a bit sensitive where such things are concerned. I'm usually more than simply offended by such things, even when taken in a historical context. So I suppose I may appear somewhat thin-skinned on the subject.

A couple clarifications...the "available" Amos n Andy shows are significantly different than the shows from the late 1920s-early 1940s, when Correll and Gosden were doing their daily 15-minute shows. However, Gosden had some significant exposure to the African American community in his youth, and had made a conscious effort to make the original voices true to the dialect of the time. And the characters in those 15-minute shows were a lot more serious and complex than the ones that you normally hear in the circulating half-hour shows. In the book are script excerpts that can literally bring you to tears, like Amos telling about being by the side of his beloved Ruby Taylor when they think she's going to die.

So I think the combination of glitzy sitcom and the completely different show structure makes it come off sounding more like a minstrel show, although Gosden and Correll are still the same people doing the same original dialect. It's a deep shame that the original series seems to exist almost exclusively in script form rather than recorded form.

[shimp scrampi]

Hey folks, I'm excited, there's a new DVD out of "Cabin in the Sky" with a commentary track including Eddie Anderson's wife and daughter - Evangela and Eva Anderson.

I'm going have to find a copy of that!

Was Evangela married to Eddie before or after his wife Maymie, who died very young in the '50s?

These two may be more productive people to contact rather than the beleaugered Eddie Anderson Jr?

[LLeff]

Was Evangela married to Eddie before or after his wife Maymie, who died very young in the '50s?

After. Unfortunately, their marriage ended in divorce. But I'd be incredibly curious to know what she and their daughter have to say about Eddie.