Norma Adele Miller (December 2, 1919 – May 5, 2019) was an American Lindy hop dancer, choreographer, actress, author, and comedian known as the "Queen of Swing".
[1] Miller was born in 1919 in Harlem, New York City, to mother Alma, a charwoman, and father Norman, a shipyard worker, both from Bridgetown, Barbados.
[2]When the Great Depression began in 1929, Miller and her family moved to a cramped and noisy tenement apartment on 140th street that overlooked the Savoy Ballroom.
[3][1] The windows were open due to the lack of air conditioning and she could hear the house band, which was led by Chick Webb and included singer Ella Fitzgerald.
[5] On Easter Sunday in 1932, when Miller was dressed up from church services, she was dancing outside the Savoy Ballroom, too young to enter.
In 1934, along with her high school dance partner, Sonny Ashby, she won the Savoy Lindy Hop Contest, held at the Apollo Theater.
In 1935, Miller competed in a dance contest called the Harvest Moon Ball at Madison Square Garden.
In 1937, while on tour in California, she met the Marx Brothers, Allan Jones and Maureen O'Sullivan, and made her film debut in A Day at the Races, a movie by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
She danced and sang in the number "All God's Chillun Got Rhythm" which featured singer Ivie Anderson and Duke Ellington's orchestra.
[3] Whitey's Lindy Hoppers performed in the 1941 movie Hellzapoppin', where Miller had a memorable role as a dancing cook, executing breathtaking flips, slides, kicks, splits, and lifts.
Because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, they were unable to find transportation home and ended up staying for 10 months, nearly exhausting all of their energy and money.
Between 1956 and 1956, she lived in Miami and performed comedy shows with Cab Calloway and George Kirby, produced by Mervyn Nelson.
[3] In Miami, she suffered from racism in renting housing, and was forced to ride in the back of buses and dine in black eateries.
(Lindy Old Timers) event" in Montesilvano, beginning a collaboration with the Italian Swing Dance Society that lead to five years of concerts, festivals, conventions, recordings and books.
[13] From September to October 2017, at age 98, she was on a European tour with the Orchestra, consisting of seven concerts in Italy, Slovenja, and Denmark.
In September 2018, a second printing of the new edition of the book was issued with new pictures, notes and a last chapter about Miller's last four years of living in Italy.
In September 2017, Miller's song "Gimme da Beat" was remixed and issued on the CD Electro Swing New Generation 01 by French DJs Bart & Baker.