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The Life and Career of Ethel Waters
HarperCollins
February 2011
On Sale: February 8, 2011
640 pages
ISBN: 0061241733
EAN: 9780061241734
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
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 reimagined
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.
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