Adelaide Hall

She went on to appear in a number of similar black musical shows, including Runnin' Wild[22] on Broadway in 1923, in which she sang James P. Johnson's hit song "Old-Fashioned Love".

[26] Included in the cast were The Three Eddies, Lottie Gee, Rufus Greenlee and Thaddeus Drayton, Bobbie and Babe Goins, Charles Davis and Sam Wooding and his Orchestra.

[34][35] In 1926, upon Hall's return to New York after touring Europe with the Chocolate Kiddies, she was featured in Tan Town Topics, a revue containing songs written by Fats Waller and Spencer Williams.

The cast included Fats Waller, Eddie Rector and Ralph Cooper, Hall, Maude Mills, Arthur Gaines, Leondus Simmons and a dance troupe called the Tan Town Topics Vamps.

The show opened at Harlem's Lafayette Theatre on 5 April followed by a short road tour on the eastern Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA) circuit taking in Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia.

[39] From October 1926, Hall toured America playing the TOBA circuit until September 1927 in the highly praised show Desires of 1927, conceived by J. Homer Tutt and produced by impresario Irvin C. Miller.

"[35] Billed as the star "soubrette" of the show, Hall's performance included several songs (most notably "Sweet Virginia Bliss"), flat-foot dancing and accompanying herself on the ukulele while singing.

[63] The French artist Paul Colin illustrated several posters to advertise Blackbirds run at the Moulin Rouge including one entitled "Le Tumulte Noir – Dancer in Magenta" that captures Hall's performance beautifully, as she is dancing and waving her arms about.

At the end of Blackbirds' tenure at the Moulin Rouge, to thank the cast for their successful run and to welcome in the forthcoming Thanksgiving Day, Lew Leslie threw a big party held in the Paris suburb of Authie and, along with the cast, invited several cultural figures including the visual artist Man Ray, lyricist Ira Gershwin, writer James Joyce, German composer Kurt Weill, American composer William Grant Still and producer Clarence Robinson.

[68] The Blackbirds cast sailed from France back to the US in the fall of 1929 and upon their arrival almost immediately commenced a road tour of the States opening at the Adelphi Theatre, Chicago, on the evening of 26 November.

As news of her arrival in Larchmont leaked into the local media she began to encounter racial opposition from her white upper-middle-class neighbors, who threatened court action to have Hall evicted.

[86][87] For one week commencing Saturday 14 January 1933, Hall returned to New York to appear in a music revue produced by Leonard Harper at the Harlem Opera House.

After the famous parade (the largest to date) a huge free picnic event was held in Washington Park that included games, music, entertainment, dancing and ice cream.

Her husband Bert opened a nightclub for her in Paris, situated at 73 rue Pigalle in Montmartre, called La Grosse Pomme (French for "The Big Apple", the name of his original New York club) where she frequently entertained.

In 1937, Hall choreographed her own take on the famous French dance the Can-can; she called it the Canned Apple and would perform it at her Montmartre nightclub La Grosse Pomme.

[117] After many years performing in the US and Europe, Hall went to the United Kingdom in 1938[118] to take a starring role in a stage-adapted musical version of Edgar Wallace's The Sun Never Sets at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

Hall has a cameo appearance as a singer in the 1940 Oscar-winning movie The Thief of Bagdad (directed by Michael Powell (and others) and produced by Alexander Korda) in which she sings Lullaby of the Princess, written by Miklós Rózsa.

When the show was broadcast on BBC TV it was 60 minutes in length and included performances from Winifred Atwell, Evelyn Dove, Cyril Blake and his Calypso Band, Edric Connor and Mable Lee and was produced by Eric Fawcett.

In 1951, Hall appeared as a guest in the music spot on the first ever British comedy series How Do You View, starring Terry-Thomas and written by Sid Colin and Talbot Rothwell.

Artists also taking part included Tony Bennett, Phyllis Hyman, Jacques Loussier, Alan Downey, Wayne Sleep, Ronnie Scott, Stan Tracey and the New Swingle Singers.

Other artists on the bill included Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock, Stéphane Grappelli, Mel Tormé, Zoot Sims, Carmen McRae and Chick Corea.

Called The Blues is a Woman, the program, narrated by Carmen McRae, featured music by Hall, Big Mama Thornton, Nell Carter and Koko Taylor.

[200] In 1990, Hall starred in Sophisticated Lady, a Channel 4 television documentary about her life broadcast on 24 July, which included a performance of her in concert recorded live at the Riverside Studios in London.

"[205] In 2018, Hall was named by the Evening Standard on a list of 14 "Inspirational black British women throughout history", alongside Mary Seacole, Claudia Jones, Margaret Busby, Olive Morris, Joan Armatrading, Tessa Sanderson, Doreen Lawrence, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Sharon White, Malorie Blackman, Diane Abbott, Zadie Smith and Connie Mark.

[229][230] The show is an idealised fantasy of Harlem in its 1920s–1930s heyday and salutes black musicians and performers such as Ethel Waters, Hall, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington and the Nicholas Brothers, who became international stars during that era.

[232] In February 2014, a new stage show called A Nite at the Cotton Club, produced by Lydia Dillingham, opened at the Southern Broadway Dinner Theatre at The Historic Hildreth Brothers Building in Alabama, USA, in which the actress Brandy Davis portrays Hall.

[236] Bashir Salahuddin played the part of Paul Robeson, Day'Nah Cooper took the role of Dowager Countess of Basie, Aleksei Archer portrayed Adelaide "Addy" Hall, and Nefetari Spencer brought Zora Neale Hurston to life.

[238] Critics praised it: Rolling Stone called it "the hidden gem of sketch comedy"; The New York Times said it was "irreverent", and Salon said it was "bright, accessibly silly and uproarious".

[244] In honour of UK Black History Month, what would have been Hall's 122nd birthday was celebrated with a Google Doodle, featuring illustrations by London-based artist Hannah Ekuwa Buckman.

[249] Singer/actress Elaine Delmar pulled the cord to unveil the blue plaque and the singer/songwriter Tori Cross performed one of Hall’s classic Cotton Club songs, “Stormy Weather”.

Cover of Vu , issue N°77, Wednesday, 4 September 1929, titled "Au revoir Black Birds!", with Hall saying farewell as star of Blackbirds at the Moulin Rouge , after a four-month production run
Hall's 1931–32 tour
Advertisement for Hall in the Cotton Club Revue of 1934 at Loew's Metropolitan Theatre , Brooklyn , from 7 September 1934
Radiolympia, Thursday 31 August 1939, Kentucky Minstrels starring Adelaide Hall
Hall starring in Piccadixie at the Finsbury Park Empire, London, 28 July 1941 (detail from the original programme)
Hall's grave at Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn , New York, Terrace Hill Section, Grave 1252, March 2018
Crowds of spectators outside the unveiling of the Adelaide Hall Blue Plaque in Collingham Road, Kensington and Chelsea, London, July 9, 2024.