William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf Smith (November 23, 1893[a] – April 18, 1973), nicknamed "the Lion", was an American jazz and stride pianist.

[1] In his memoir Smith reports that his father, Frank Bertholf (incorrectly spelled Bertholoff in many sources), was Jewish.

[3] Smith became at least somewhat conversant in Yiddish and studied Hebrew with children of a Jewish family who were clients of his mother's.

[4] According to Ida, "Frank Bertholoff [sic] was a light-skinned playboy who loved his liquor, girls, and gambling."

After Frank Bertholf died in 1901, his mother married John Smith, a master mechanic from Paterson, New Jersey.

Eventually, Ida tasked the boy Willie with accompanying his stepfather to work in order to encourage him to come straight home and not go drinking.

I would watch wide-eyed as the squealing pigs slid down the iron rails to the cutter where they were slashed through the middle, with the two halves falling into a tank of hot water.

The squeaks, the squeals, the dipping them in hot water, they put them on a hook, take off the head, the legs, going down an aisle—I hear it on an oboe.

They moved again around 1912, when his stepfather got a new job at Crucible Steel Company, across the Passaic River in Harrison, New Jersey.

Mrs. Black's son-in-law was the number three tough guy in Newark; reportedly the family hated policemen and generally wouldn't allow them into their store.

In an effort to get the attention of girls, he attempted a variety of sports, including swimming, skating, track, basketball, sledding, cycling, and boxing.

It was where Smith learned about Stanley Ketchel, Kid McCoy, Benny Leonard, Jimmy Britt, and Charlie Warner.

[1] Smith also joined a gang; their club was called The Ramblers (two members were Abner Zwillman and Niggy Rutman).

He was one of two African Americans in the gang; the other was Louis Moss, who Smith called a "sweet talker, who could take his foes apart".

The boy entered an amateur dance contest at the Arcadia Theater and won first place, including a prize of ten dollars.

[1] Willie had wanted a new piano very badly, but every time he thought his mother was able to afford it, there was a new mouth to feed.

Willie got a job at Hauseman's Footwear store shining shoes and running errands, where he was paid five dollars a week.

As it turned out, piano sellers Marshall & Wendell's was holding a contest: the object was to guess how many dots there were in a printed circle in their newspaper advertisement.

Smith and his contemporaries James P. Johnson and Fats Waller developed a new, more sophisticated piano style later called "stride".

[1] As a boy, Smith delivered clean clothes to his mother's clients, who included a prosperous Jewish family who invited him to sit in on Hebrew lessons on Saturday mornings.

[1] In his later years, he received frequent honors for his life's work including a Willie "the Lion" Smith Day in Newark, New Jersey.

It quotes Ellington as saying, "Willie The Lion was the greatest influence of all the great jazz piano players who have come along.