Performers featured in Smart Affairs included Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Sara Vaughan, and Lou Rawls.
His plans changed in 1934 when he was offered a job for $3 a night as a singing master of ceremonies and bandleader at Panama Café in the South Side.
[5] Smart Affairs featured a variety of performers, including Billy Daniels, Savannah Churchill, Freda Payne, Peg Leg Bates, Lola Falana, Cab Calloway, Arthur Lee Simpkins, Al Hibber, Olga James, Mabel Scott, and Sallie Blair.
[12] In 1962, the troupe began touring concert auditoriums to accommodate the audiences of comedians Dick Gregory and Damita Jo who headlined the revue that year.
[13] In 1968, Smart Affairs performed at Atlantic City's Steel Pier and the Tropicoro Room of the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.
[3] By 1969, Smart Affairs offered two simultaneous shows, one at Club Harlem in Atlantic City and the other at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach.
[16] For "projecting the true picture of Negro in travels abroad," Steele received the Racial Dignity and Human Relations Award from Howard University's Alumni Association in 1961.