The Controversial Jazz Cowboy : Herb Jeffries Part 1

Hey Taphophiles! Are you ready for another wild ride? Well good. Hop in, losers!

Herb Jeffries is the kind of Hollywood Forever Cemetery resident who forces us to slow down and ask harder questions than we planned to ask.

There’s the Louis Armstrong napkin of recommendation, the jazz career that was delivered by Duke Ellington’s “Flamingo” and the black singing cowboy persona… that was attributed to a man who was not truly black. Herb made his choices based on the type of music he wanted to make and the kind of artists he wanted to work with. And so we look at his story knowing that the lens of today’s criticism needs to be recalibrated to match the circumstances of the past.  

 What do you make of Herb Jeffries after hearing the first half of his story? There’s a lot to discuss, so please tell us your thoughts in the comments!

Transcript

Tech Fails And Snow Survival

SPEAKER_03 0:18

Hello and welcome to Dead and Kind of Famous, where we dig into the life stories of dead folks who enjoyed a touch or two of fame in their time.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

And now reside permanently in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

I'm Marissa Rivera, and I know nothing about this next episode and who we're talking about, but I do know. What do I know? There's so many things I don't know. What do I know? Man, I do know this. I I do know that a Honda is a great, great investment in a car. I have been let down by so many, so many pieces of technology, including this. I thought you were gonna say so many pieces of shit. Well that too. Um but so I've been let down by so many pieces of technology, but never, ever my Honda fit. And they're not paying me a cent to say that. I'm just so grateful because for some reason, like my my TV is acting weird, my internet's being stupid, my uh stereo system's not working, like just uh one technological thing after another. I tried to send videos and like things were just not happening, but my Mercury retrograde. It's always Mercury retrograde over here.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Um Carol Carol Ryder, tell us from the grave.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Tell us from the grave. Yeah, but goodness. Anyways, on to you.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Okay, well, I am Courtney Blomquist, and I know way too much about what we're gonna talk about and so many other things. Um but uh but I don't know, um, I actually don't know how to like to get a car out of snow slush, like very wet, slushy snow that happens on Easter in Minnesota because that is what I was dealing with. I there was a full-on snowstorm. I was trying to just leave the house to pick up stuff for Iris' Easter basket the night before because because and I like because classic. Yeah, like it was I mean it was like a Saturday. I'm like, yeah, sure, I'll go. Yeah, no, I did exactly the same thing. Yeah. And so I got like I got to the end of this like road we live on, not far. Like you can I could turn around and see the house in my rear view mirror, you know what I mean? And it was just like, and then I was trying to turn onto like the main road, and I just was so stuck in this shitty slush that it was like I couldn't go forward or backward. And I knew that Jesse's dad was like back at the house because he comes over.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Wait, when you told me this story, I thought you couldn't get it out of the driveway. I didn't know that you were like, oh no.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, so I was like, so I was down the road and I knew that Jesse's dad was like at our house because he comes over to snow blow for us whenever it snows. He snows the path, he blows the path to our I know, and it's because he gets his steps in, so he says he wants to do it, which I was like, you don't need you don't need to do it. But he wants to do it. And he's like, I gotta remain active. Yes, and so I it's wonderful. He comes, he's it's like all the stuff that's the most annoying about snow. He's like, I'll just do it. What a sweet angel baby. So he came and rescued you. No, he didn't. He didn't. I knew he was there. I knew he could probably see me struggling. But I was like, look, I'm not gonna call him yet. I'm just going to. I did call Jesse and he was like, Well, I think my dad's outside. I can't leave because I'm with Iris and you have the car. So I was like, Okay, well, I'm just gonna try to do it and then I'll call your dad. So I like got out of the car and kicked all strong, independent woman did it. I was just like, he's already doing stuff with snow. I'll try to do something with it, you know, for once. So I so I went out there and I kicked the slush from underneath the tires and saw that there was like a track sort of of a, you know, that I could get it on, maybe. So I like I kicked it in such a way that I'm like, if I back out this way, maybe I can get it onto this track. And I tell you what, it worked.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

It worked, but I hell yeah, Minnesota, take that, take that Minnesota snowstorm. You like it?

Schedule Shifts And A New Case

SPEAKER_01 5:06

I did it with my not with a strong independent woman. I did it with my with my boot that was not even a proper winter boot. And I kicked it out of the way. I do. I do own them, but I they're hard to walk in because they're and they're heavy and they're large and they're make me, and I'm you know, I'm already half lumberjack at this point. I can't deal with it. So I just I got out of it. It was amazing, and uh and I was smart enough to drive right back home. So um, so yeah, I say that I don't know because I I I really don't. I don't think that would work most of the time, but I did I did figure out I used my um my street smarts, my winter street smarts. So anyway, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm a little bit proud. It's true. All right, well, we should be very proud. Thank you. I am, but today I can't believe we're it's like feels surreal to be talking about anyone but Hollywood lawn. Um I know it's like that was a wild and and lengthy ride, but um sure was.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah. Did you guys enjoy it? Let us know.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, tell us, tell us. I and I apologize by the way, for I know that I switched the schedule of the podcast to being once a month for a while. Um I feel like I can say this. I I'll let you guys well tell them why tell them why.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Okay, Courtney's a big, big pants misproducer lady, and she I'll tell you what, I'll tell them. I'll tell them. She was on a huge show, okay, for her job, on a huge show. Once once we were spacemen. Should I say it? Yeah, we can't. We can say it. We can say it. Once we were spacemen, which got huge really quickly, of course, because it's amazing and Courtney's amazing, and the hosts are amazing, and it's so fun. Have a listen if you haven't already. And it's but the the one downside is it sucked the ever-loving time and life out of Courtney's schedule.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

It really did. It was it required, it just it was a big enough show, it required a lot of attention, and it was wonderful. It was so much fun to work on. I have nothing bad to say. It was just that it, you know, that kind of thing requires a lot of attention, and it made it so that I did not have as much time to dedicate towards this show, which I love dearly, and I don't want any of you to think that I don't. So we'll see if we can adjust the schedule pretty soon and get even more content out there. I feel like I have a little bit of breathing room at the moment, and so that is very exciting. Um, but anyway, so uh that said, I was thinking like, let's do something sleepy, like a boring episode, you know, like Holly was so messy and complicated and whatever.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

I octane.

Meeting Herb Jeffries At His Tomb

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And um, and that is exactly what I did not do. So nice. Yeah. So without So we're jumping right back in. We're jumping right back in. Yeah. It's it's not gonna be, don't worry. That was the only five-part episode um of the season for sure, and maybe ever we'll see. But this is just it's not boring. It's not boring, and it's still complicated, and that's that's what I'll uh start with. So um, without further ado, I bring you Herb Jeffries. Do you know who Herb Jeffries is, Marissa? I sure do not. Herb. Herb.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah, I've never even met a Herb in real life.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yep, I know. I don't think I have either. I don't think I have either. Yeah. A Herbie. Herbie's the name of Miss Rachel's um little like puppet. And Iris Iris knows. Iris knows. Well, I don't know. She definitely knows. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

I do not I do not know this man. This is a man, right? Herb just.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

It's a man, yes. Okay, perfect. So let's look at his tombstone. I included his picture here for this tombstone. So you you describe it to us, Marissa.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Okay. It says he walked with kings, cons, and sages, and never lost the common touch. Herb Jeffreys. There is a cowboy hat. What looks to be a cowboy hat. Um, 924-1913. Jeez. To 525-2014. Oh my god. A Centaurian. Whoa! Cool. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

I always want to say Centaurian, and it's it's not a he's not a centaur.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

He's not a centaur. He's a centaur.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

He is not half-horse.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Um well, I don't know. I don't know anything about this man. Um, okay, and it says cherished by many, loved by all, and then under that it says Savannah, then the ohm symbol, and Lionel, which I'm assuming are his children.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

So, perhaps. So basically, yeah, this we're gonna be able to. So basically, this man Herb Herb Jeffries. He's got a little cowboy, a little yoga.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

He's a little yi's got a little yoga yeehaw.

A Fake Backstory From The Grave

SPEAKER_01 10:35

It's already complicated. We don't we have any centurion. We it's already complicated. We have layers, and it's just the tombstone. So And it's just the tombstone. So I did include I also included a picture to show that he is truly just a few doors down, so to speak, from Hollywoodlawn in the same mausoleum. They are neighbors. Neighbors, he's six doors down to the left. Yep, exactly. Holly, they're right there on the same level and everything. Um, top level, top tier. So naturally they belong. Yes, I didn't mean to do that. I wasn't trying to pick a direct neighbor, but it's just it's just what happens. So, fun fact. But Marissa, give us herbs entirely fabricated life story. Go.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

All right, all right. Well, family, and everyone is family. Let me tell you that. Because we are all connected in this world, okay? We are all connected, and when I made my way into this world, it was in a little Alabama suburb with my wonderful mom Paul, and I made my way into this world kicking and screaming, and that is who I was my whole life. I was, you know, I hate to say it, a bit of a bad boy back then. I got into uh lots of scrapes. And uh, I maybe have gotten into a couple things here and there, but I knew that I wanted to turn my life around. I knew that I could take that kicking and screaming and take it all the way to Hollywood. Okay, and I took that kicking and screaming and I became a stuntman. The best stunt man at the time. There were not a lot of us, let me tell you that. And there were no women, so I did do a lot of stunting for men, women, some animals. I worked a lot.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

And on my I just I just watched a video of like a movie from from I don't know when, like probably the the 60s, where it was like they didn't have CGI, so they had a dog that was supposed to be like running for the police, and then like they just cut back and forth having a man in a dog costume.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

That's exactly that was that was that oh my god, you saw my work, Courtney. You saw my work as Herb Jeffries. I'm so glad you saw a little bit of my work. So there you have it. It was early days. That's right. I'm glad you recognized me. Thank you so much, Courtney. Huh? My goodness. As I was saying, I was a stuntman to the stars. I got in there on the ground floor. Hollywood was new. We were barely out of the talkies, and they needed stuntman, and I answered the call. And I had a long, lustrous career until I had an unfortunate injury. And that's when I did meet, I did meet uh my wife Loretta. She was uh a makeup artist, and and we did have two wonderful, wonderful children, Savannah and Lionel. And and then I I was just working, I was just a I was a workhorse, literally and figuratively. And I had that this is all on tombstone, by the way. I this is all in the obituary. I'm the tombstone, geez. Okay, in first person.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yes, go on.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

That's right, in first person. And I, as I was saying, had that injury and and decided to to to fold it, fold it on home, come on home and and be the family man that I was always destined to be. By then I had met my shaman, and he really guided me and our family into just a loving light of interconnectedness and and really just a spiritual, spiritual life. And so I spent the rest of my days consulting on sets, saluting the sun, and spending time with my daughter and son and wife until my very end of days. Hallelujah. I love I love the universe. Bless us all.

The Truth And The Identity Puzzle

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Oh, that was good. I like a first person obituary. I really do want to I think there should be more of them, if any of them. I don't know if any of them exist, but I like them. So I like yours. But thank you so much. You're so welcome. Now for the truth, or as much of it that bullshit aside. Yeah, let me tell you the true story, or as much of it as I think I can give. And this will be a two-parter, just to give us a little breath. So uh yeah, nothing crazy. Definitely only two, but yes. I'm saying I can give you as much information as I can give because finding out the truth about Herb Jeffries is tricky because his origin story is not entirely consistent in writings about him or even in his interviews, which he did a lot of actually. It's just that they're not consistent. However, there are many quotes from him, and he did do quite a few interviews, including a documentary in his final years, I believe when he was in his 90s. So cool. Yeah. So telling this requires a bit of conjecture, but I found enough to feel that I can do that in good faith. Now you saw the cowboy hat on his tombstone. It's pretty, it's pretty right there, up in your face. Pretty prominent. That's right. That is because Herb Jeffries was a Hollywood history-making singing cowboy. In the he was a singing cowboy.

SPEAKER_03 17:29

I knew, I knew he made history. I knew it.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

In the 1930s, when westerns and yep, that was the moment when westerns and singing cowboys were snowballing in popularity. The more famous names at the time in this category were Gene Outtree and Roy Rogers, of course. But Herb is a unique case because he not only starred in his westerns, he acted as a producer and really made them happen. And these weren't your typical westerns of the era. For the first time, these westerns featured an entirely black cast. But Herb Yes. Right? Wait, Herb was black too? Well Herb was a controversial Western star because of this claim to fame, because his blackness was quite dubious. So let me yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

He didn't do black he didn't do blackface, didn't he?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

No, well, no, uh, we'll get into it. Okay, so let me just roll. I mean, no, not the it's there's gray areas. He did gray face. Okay, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

So let me just let me just roll back to the beginning with the facts that I have pulled. Yep, yep, from the sources that seemed most reliable. I'm using quite a few, but I am largely using an academic paper written by historian and race migration and identity expert Paul Spickard. Or Spickard, I'm not quite sure how you say his name.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Paul Spick Spickard. It's spelled S-P-I-C-K-A-R-D.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yes. His article is called The Bronze Buckaroo: Race and Identity in the Life and Career of Black Movie Star and Jazz Singer Herb Jeffries. So if you would like to look it up yourself, you can. But here we go. Herb Jeffries was born in 1913, Detroit, to an Irish American mother and a Sicilian American father, who he was told died. Yep. So, okay, so that's what we that's definitive, right? So he never knew his father. He was told that he died from mustard gas in World War I, but this is not confirmed and might not be true. Paul seems to think that that doesn't quite line up somehow, but I don't know. If whatever is true about his dad, I have no idea. Herb's birth name.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

So he we we don't really know who his father is.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

No, but apparently he was Sicilian and his and his birth name reflects that. Um Herb's birth name was Umberto Alejandro Ballentino. And due to his and due to his mother's second marriage to a man who was part Ethiopian, he grew up in a multiracial household. Together, Fern and Howard overcame ubiquitous bigotry and honored their relationship by marrying before interracial marriage was legally recognized by the United States.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

Hell yeah. Hell yeah, Fern and Howard.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Yeah. So he had four other siblings, all with different fathers, but I am unsure of their unique ethnicities or how that may have affected him. His stepfather's name was Howard Jeffrey, and he is the one who introduced young Umberto to jazz music, and this exposure helped him find his calling.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Okay. So this guy was his stepfather, but his father, yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Exactly. So Herb's relationship with race must have been interesting from the start because he grew up in a neighborhood where the commonality of everyone was that they were all poor, and that seemed to overpower racial divides significantly, like pretty much entirely, actually, according to him. So, reminder this would have been Detroit in the 1910s and early 20s. So what was Detroit like back then? I mean, in his neighborhood, he was just like in the poor neighborhood where it was like everybody who wasn't uh white, you know, it's Certain people at the time would have been today considered white. This whole story is very interesting because you really have to set yourself in the time period to understand anything. So taking full inventory of everyone in his vicinity at that time in his neighborhood, there were black people who had recently relocated from the South, Italians and Irish people. There were also a fair amount of Jewish folks, and some say that Herb picked up Yiddish during his childhood and was like fluent in Yiddish because they heard him speaking it.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Um that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

I know. But I cannot, I can't really confirm that. It's just like people are like, I heard I've heard him speaking Yiddish, and that's what was said. In any case, his neighborhood was especially diverse. So his mother, Fern ran a boarding house that catered to black performers and musicians. So culturally, there was a good amount of black influence in his life. You have his stepfather, and then he's like his house that his mom is having all these people stay in, it's filled with black musicians all the time. He was hanging around Detroit nightclubs as a teen. And when the depression reared its head, he dropped out of school and started using his lovely voice to sing for tips at those clubs with local bands. As Herb himself said.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Wow, he started busking really early. Yeah. Black bands were the bands I liked singing with. They swung.

Louis Armstrong Sends Him To Chicago

SPEAKER_01 23:27

He's like, the black bands were fun. Yeah, they were the ones who were good. I mean, his his musical taste is like it's it's clearly set up pretty early. Uh yeah, the none of this is really that surprising as far as his taste goes, right? Right. As fate would have it, one day, Louis Armstrong visited that nightclub. And Herb is just 19 at this point. So impressed by Herb, he told him, You have to do Louis Armstrong.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Oh my god. I love it when you get a like really famous wild card. God damn it. I can't. I can't hold on. Let me take a bit. God damn it. No warning, nothing. Nothing. Never. Not a hey, you might want to maybe look up a Louis Armstrong video. Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Forgot it.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

You're on the right track. You're on the right track. Let me get gravel here. Let me get it out. Let me get uh boy. Let me tell you something. God damn it. Boy, let me tell you something. This place is not for you. Your style of singing, you need to go to Chicago, where the World's Fair is opening. That's where you'll make your mark. Okay. I feel like that was Drink some water. No warning, nothing, nothing. My water bottle's downstairs, damn it. Do you need to go get it? No, she didn't even tell me. She didn't even tell me, make sure you have some water near you. Nothing. How dare you? That whole impression, that was all Courtney's fault. That was all Courtney. I am so sorry. I will apologize on my for myself, for my half of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I'm just sorry that you you feel like your voice is is, you know, thrown a little bit because I thought that was that was pretty good. I mean, like as a woman, you do it. This is what I'm saying. As a woman in general, having to do that voice, you know, it's hard. So okay. It's very deep and it's very grappling. Um and it's okay, so it's not so like Louis Armstrong, let's just, yeah, that he's telling him, like, you're talented, you should leave here, go to Chicago, you're gonna make your mark. That's like a huge, that's huge, right? Like that's yeah, that's a huge, huge.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

And he was Louis Armstrong at the time. Yes. Okay. He wasn't up and coming, he was, he was established.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Uh yeah. I mean, like he knew who he was, yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

So um, so it's not too far-fetched to believe that Louis Armstrong would have noted Herb's talent. He had a beautiful tenor at the time, and in his later years, he would switch to singing baritone like it was nothing, like it was just no problem.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Um, he is said to have had I don't really know anything about singing. I don't know if you guys know this, but Courtney she does. She has a degree in musical theater.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I I do, but I yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

So a tenor is like so it's not easy to switch.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Well, it's just like you're it's not, it just shows you have a big range, right? Um because yeah, like he, you know, that he to be able to sing both of those parts well, I think shows you have a pretty decently large range. And he actually had a four and a half octave range. And for context, that is bigger than Freddie Mercury's.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

So I was gonna say I don't know what that means, but now I do.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Yeah, he could sing a lot of he could basically like you could throw whatever at him and he could sing it. Very good singer. So at age 19, Herb hitchhiked to Chicago with a little napkin in his hand where Louis Armstrong had written a personal note of recommendation shut up. That's so cool. It's so cool. And he said he wrote it.

SPEAKER_07 28:06

That's so cool. That's so cool. Please continue.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

He wrote, he wrote a personal note of recommendation to band leader Erskine Tate. I think that's how you say that. It's E-R-S-K-I-N-E Tate. So when Herb arrived, he became aware of the massive mob presence in Chicago and wanted to distance himself from it. His name was very Italian, so he decided to anglicize it to Herbert and take his stepfather's last name, Jeffrey. So at this point, he's Herb Jeffrey. He wouldn't change it to Jeffrey's until later. Okay. Smart move. Yeah, yeah. And uh and also you have to think about the fact that like his Italian heritage clearly meant very little to him because he didn't have his father was not there, you know, at all because he apparently died. Um, and his mother was not Italian, he his other siblings were like from other fathers, so like this might have just I don't think he had much of an attachment to that, and then it's like, oh, the mob, I don't want to be that. You know what I mean? I don't think this was an easy or a difficult thing for him to do. So Louis Note got Herb an audition with Tate for his Vendom orchestra. I think that's also how you say that. His Ven Vendom Orchestra, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

As Herb recounts V-E-N-D-O-M-E. Yes. As Herb recounts, the first thing the guy said to me, What nationality are you? And I realized it was an all-Negro band. Jazz was only colored or Negro bands. I didn't care if it was a Chinese band, I didn't care what kind of band it was. I wanted to sing that kind of music. So I said, I'm Creole from New Orleans. And that made everything okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah. So he's just like kind of coming and being like, I don't know, what do you want me to be? Because I want to be in this band. Right. Um so as we established earlier, that was definitely not Herb's nationality. So this is really the first instance on record of him claiming to be black.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Raymond Strait, the man who was working on Herb's autobiography, which was never published as far as I can tell, said He had to establish himself as a black singer because he was considered a shade too dark for the white bands and a shade too light for the black bands. Oh yeah. I tell you what, it's so hard when people can't put you in a box comfortably. They're like, ah, I don't know what to do with you or how to interact with you or what how what to let you do. And especially at this time.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Especially at this time. It's like any kind of ambiguity, I think, was really, really hard to navigate. And he did have ambiguity for sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

So obviously he could get away with saying that he was, you know, I was gonna say Creole's a is a good lie, too, because Creole's, you know, it's it's uh it's all mixed up.

SPEAKER_04 31:35

Yeah, it's all mixed up as as they say in Puerto Rico, de todos los colores y todos los sabores, which means of all the colors and of all the flavors. Ooh.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yes, exactly, yeah. And I think and it's yeah, he he also has so many influences, so it's interesting, but I also yeah. So I don't want to I don't even want to say anything, I'm just gonna present facts.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

So um I think Courtney's being a responsible white lady right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

I be a little bit of a responsible white lady, but I I personally get the feeling that it's not so much that he was too dark for white bands, but that he didn't have an interest in singing in a white band. That's what I think from everything I'm hearing so far. Like I think he liked jazz and his music idols were black musicians, and he was doing what he had to do to perform with them. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 32:33

That's right. And he had he had a hole barring in his in his pocket of a napkin from Louis Armstrong. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

It's like I it's kind of like you have to, you know, and you can't just be in a black band as a white person at this period of time. You just can't do it. It's not something people do. So it's an interesting, it's a it's a very interesting situation. That's what I'll say.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

So deciding to claim this ancestry worked, and he got a gig singing at the Savoy Ballroom three nights a week. And this was the club Savoy. Yes, yes, this was a very big deal. Yes. Yes. This was the club where all great jazz musicians played, including his talent scout, Louis Armstrong, and other greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie. So pretty huge to like just be like, I just showed up in the city and now I'm singing at the place where you do that, you know? The place. The place, yeah. So from there, Herb moved on to singing with the Earl Hines Orchestra. He recorded the song Just to Be in Carolina in 1934 with Heinz and did his first tour in the South with Earl as well.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Before they began the tour, Heinz pulled him aside and said, They're going to see you on the bandstand, and they're gonna call you off and say, You can't sing with us. So you have to make a decision. When they come up to you, you can say, I'm Mulatto, I have black blood. That changes the that changes the lenses of their eyes. From then on, they're gonna see you as dark as I am.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

So, yeah. So in the South, Jeffries, yeah, it's kind it's everybody kind of knew he had to figure out a story to tell.

SPEAKER_03 34:26

You know, yeah, and basically his boss, his boss was like, just say this and you'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 34:33

Right. So in the south, Jeffries and his bandmates slept in black-only hotels, drank from segregated water fountains, and took their meals from the back doors of restaurants along with other black people. They were restricted to performing in warehouses and segregated black theaters. Family friend Adam C. Powell III said of Jeffries.

SPEAKER_03 34:57

The idea of someone electing to be black, knowing the price he would have to pay, really places Herb Jeffrey's identity in the 30s and 40s in a very interesting light because it means he had the willingness, the courage, and the conviction that he should do this even with such a high price that he would have to pay.

The Moment A Black Cowboy Clicks

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Right. Yeah, it's a it's a it's like you walk into this story, like where I'm like, his bl you know, it's dubious, and you're like, oh god, this asshole, and then it's kind of it's complicated. So while on tour with Heinz, Herb had a pivotal and unexpected moment, as he recalls.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

I went outside for smoke during intermission one day when I was performing with Heinz. I saw a group of seven or eight white kids racing down the alley, followed by a little black child who was crying. I said, Did those boys hurt you? And he answered, No, they are my friends. I asked, Well, if they're your friends, why are you crying? And the boy says to me, I want to play cowboy with them, but they say I can't because there ain't no such thing as a colored cowboy. Now, that just hit me strong. In the old West, one out of every three cowboys was black. They were good cowboys who could ride and rope with the best of them. So standing in front of that little boy, I thought to myself, My gosh, why doesn't somebody make a black cowboy picture? From then on, my driving force was to be a hero to dark-skinned children who didn't have any heroes to identify with. There weren't movies with black cowboys. It was Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. In 1934, there were no hero figures in the movies for black people. None.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

So he's got like this mission now. As somebody who's yeah, it's just very crazy because this this whole thing would be very problematic today, and I think it's just like looking at the story and being like, is it what do we think of it in this context, I guess, historically?

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Right. So it's hard because I'm thinking like, if some bitch pretended to be Latina, right? I'm gonna be a role model. I'm gonna be the I'm gonna be a role model, I'm gonna be the hero these people need. Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

It's it's it feels a little white savior.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Yes, white savior complex. Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

So it's right. So, but you know, and again, I just think there's it's it's interesting. The whole thing is interesting. I think the context of the time puts everything in a different light. So So a seed and a goal was planted in his head and it got his gears turning. Another day, while he was on a lunch break in a diner, he saw a magazine that featured a story about a guy named Jed Buell. Jed was a B movie producer who was trying to make a film called The Terror of Tiny Town, which featured a cast of all little people. As Herb recalls.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

I said, if he'll do that, he'll make an all-colored cowboy picture. Oh God. I said, I said, if he'll do that, he'll make an all-colored cowboy picture. If he'll do that, oh my god. Yeah. Well, he was like, this guy is willing to take a risk. He's willing to take a risk, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Again, feels super problematic. Right. But so does the all well, yeah, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

But I mean, I could see, I could see what the logic he was using. I want to unsee it, but I can see it.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Right, right, exactly. So Jeffries got in touch with Buell. He went out to California and pitched the idea of an all-black cast singing cowboy movie. Buell and his distributor were interested. Jeffries knew he could help. Yeah, they were just immediately interested. Jeffries knew he could help with the music, but they didn't have a script. So while discussing this issue in Buell's office, Herb noticed a pile of scripts on his desk. He picked one up off the top with the title Sunset on the Prairie. Herb proposed they simply change the title to Harlem on the Prairie, add in some more jokes that would reach a black audience, and call it a day. So that was that they had a plan.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

Wow. He was like, I have going to Hollywood, found this guy's office, was able to go get in and pitch.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

I know. And I think maybe I mean, like Earl Heinz was enough of a name at the time that like that being a part of that orchestra might have just given him enough of an in. You know what I mean? He had like some sort of connections there. He was he was performing, he was in he was in the world of it, but not Hollywood.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

You got that napkin note, the napkin note, man. I would get that framed. Oh, 100%. Are you kidding me? Of course I would get that framed.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

I just carry that with me to my dying days.

SPEAKER_01 40:30

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. So now the only problem was casting the lead. They needed someone who could sing, ride a horse, and act. And through the audition process, they quickly realized that they were asking for a triple threat combination that was simply difficult to come by.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

The thing was the thing the thing is too, like black people were not given the opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

No, this is a period of time where every single role that a black person had on camera was somebody who was, you know, in a period piece playing an enslaved person, or somebody who was just like a buffoon, basically.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Or simply played by a white person. Right.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Well, right, like a minstrel kind of performance. Or it could have been, yeah, like it just that nothing was a good, nothing was a good role, or somebody who was like a criminal, really. Like, or something to fear. Yeah. So, you know, the thing was they're not finding who they need because no one's been asked to do any of these things in a film, basically. That's that's a a black person. That's not what they're being asked to do right now. They're not prepared with the skill set. So Jeffries was already himself established as a black singer. He could sing, he had learned to ride horses on his grandfather's farm in Port Huron, Michigan. He hadn't acted before, but he had presence. He definitely did.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

So, you know, he was a bit of a natural fit. As uh yeah, as a singer, you learn to perform right on stage. Like there's a reason why a lot of singers end up trying their hand at acting. Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Right. And also, like, I don't think I got into this a lot here, but if you read Paul's, you know, piece that I based this a lot of this on, um, he talks a lot about like the colorism of the time as well. So even in making an all-black cowboy picture, leads or people who are becoming more famous, they still kind of were um oh people. You can't be too black. You can't be too black, and you kind of have like more European features. That shit ends.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

I'm gonna say you know what? I'm gonna say that right now. That shit still happens today. That shit still happens today. Literally, you can I'm not gonna say you can bleep out, you can bleep out the name uh Courtney, but I want everyone, I want the audience to know she was up for a series regular. Wow, yeah, yeah. Had a studio session, producer session. She was like one of the contenders, and she didn't get the role, and when her management team asked for feedback, someone said she's just too dark. Really? They just said that? They came out and fucking said it.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Wow. Ugh, that's awful.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

She's just too dark and doesn't fit in with the rest of the ensemble.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

Wow. Okay. I yeah, wow. So Uh right, I agree with you. I think it's very much still happening if you really start paying attention to the biggest names. Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

I want lit all I mean you talk to like literally like the kinds of auditions that my dark-skinned black friends get compared to my light-skinned black friends. It is disgusting. And I'll say it too. I, as a light-skinned Latina, get very different auditions than a dark-skinned Latina.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Yeah. It's it's still happening. And this is like today. It's still happening today, and it's like it's very much a thing in Hollywood. I think it's also, you know, this is this is this is a thing in a lot of places, honestly. This is an issue in many countries and places, and yeah. So he does go into it quite a bit in his um paper talking about some of the stars of the time. I'm just saying that I think to have somebody who was light-skinned in a way was kind of what they wanted.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

A selling point, yes. Yeah. Right.

Bronzed Up For Harlem On The Prairie

SPEAKER_01 45:04

But it also wasn't really what they were trying to do with this particular film, you know. Like they wanted it to be an all-black and it was made for a black audience. So that's the difference. This is like really one of the first examples of them really catering to like Hollywood or you know, this is like a B B movie producer, but they're catering to a black audience. They want them to like this movie. So, you know, they were actually concerned about it. So even though normally it would be like, oh yeah, like that, sure, he's, you know, this like light-skinned black guy will we'll deal with that. That seems great. That's what we usually want. Then they're like, Well, what about how is he going to be perceived by a black audience, though? You know, and so they were actually worried about that. So this is when they're like, I'm not sure if you're this is gonna be a problem. So they bronzed him up a bit with makeup and his cowboy alter ego, the bronze buckaroo, was born. Wow. Wow. So yeah. So it's like, and if you look at these movies, I will show you a clip. He doesn't, it doesn't really it's not it, it doesn't really look like he's wearing makeup. It's a black and white movie, you know what I mean? Whatever they did, I don't know. I don't think it really did anything. Um, you know, like but it was look white, yeah. I think so. I'll show I I'll show you. I don't think he doesn't look like it's not like what what movie am I thinking of? Um well, I mean, they did this like in a I feel like a fairly obvious way in like West Side story with certain characters and in um right? Yeah, yeah, it's like it's like very obvious. Famously so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I think like there's other movies uh from that for sure. So like it could have been that. I don't I don't know because it's black and white and it's hard to tell, but he looks like a white guy to me. Or maybe, maybe Latino, maybe. So um, aside from the nickname, the bronze buckaro, Herb's character's actual name was Bob Blake, a romantic cowboy hero who restores justice, gets the girl, and rides off into the sunset. They didn't waste time in just a few months. Harlem on the Prairie came out, and this was 1937. They took just a few days to shoot it, like a few days. Like really we're not gonna spend a lot of m money on this movie. Um, the budget was very low, and all of the filming was done in Victorville, California. So, which is, you know, I it's funny, like now it's just like a bunch of like weird box stores and shopping malls, Victorville, right? I've driven through it. It's nothing kind of depressing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It fit it right, it worked for those. So as the bronze buckaroo, Herb dressed the part of a cowboy hero. He carried two pearl-handled guns that he kept hung on the wall later in his old age. He was very proud of them. He wore a white hat and rode a white horse. He did the fist fighting and the shootouts and all of the things that the cowboys do. And every now and then he and the rest of the cast would burst into song. His intentions with the film were pure.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

This was a chance to make something good out of something bad. Little children of dark skin, not just Negroes, but Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, everybody of color had no heroes in the movies. I was so glad to give them something to identify with. Oh, were you? Were you so glad? I mean And you know that whole budget went to those pistols, went to those pistols that you can't even see on film on camera.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Yeah. Um so the movie resonated with his audience and played in black movie theaters exclusively. So more were made in quick succession. They're pumping these out so fast that they're coming out like two a year, which is crazy. So crazy. Yeah. Two Gun Man from Harlem, 1938, Rhythm Rodeo, also 1938, The Bronze Buckaroo, 1939, and Harlem Rides the Range, 1939. So really, really fast succession here. Just just as he did with the first film, Jeffries composed, wrote, and performed all the songs in every one of the westerns he made. So Wow. He's he's a talented man. He's a talented man. So here's an example. Yeah, and he was. So here's an example with a little tap dancing from one of his talented co-stars as well. Um, that I'm gonna show you from the bronze buckaroo, which is currently on the Criterion channel. Herb has said the bronze buckaroo was his favorite of the films because Bob was presented without introduction, like Rogers or Outry, a legend in his own right. So basically, it's like we already did all these other films. We don't need to really introduce him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he was really proud of that. And I also just want to say, um, basically, like there's some forgiveness for me. And again, I'm speaking very much and trying to as a responsible white person here, but the what I like about what he did, and we're gonna look at it, but I feel like he gave an opportunity to the rest of this cast, you know what I mean, to get roles that they were never gonna get in anything else. Like that was not gonna happen at this time. So, and it's cool because I watched this movie and it was fun to see. It's weird to watch a movie that's this old, really. But it's fun to see like his castmates just being so likable and so I don't know, like being able to be heroes, really, like and funny in a way that isn't like the butt of the joke.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Give exactly and give people opportunities where there were none previously. I I think that is important work, like how he got there may have been a little shady, right? However, you can't you can't deny that he gave people opportunities and showed something that had never been shown before.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

Exactly. And I think that that I think he gets a lot of forgiveness from that, I think, you know, but anyway, so I'm gonna I'm gonna share this. Let me see here. I'm so excited.

SPEAKER_06 51:43

Rolling dice to my surprise, too, and I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

This is his co-star tap dancing.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

He's so good.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:25

So I feel honestly, out of nowhere, but the tap dancing was great. I know it goes out of nowhere, but okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

It comes out of nowhere. No, it's that's I mean, that's like kind of how these movies were. I don't I don't think that was this was not a unique singing cowboy movie. It was a lot like that, I think, where it's just like, and now we're gonna sing. And uh that's that's what the people want. This is like the depression, people just wanna see a cowboy scene and a happy song. Um so, but anyway, so you could see how he appeared. Um he's the guy in the middle singing with the white cowboy hat.

SPEAKER_03 52:58

What are you the the the lightest one there? I mean, yeah. By several shades, can't miss him.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

But at the same time, he's a beautiful voice.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Yes, beautiful voice. And he wrote the song.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Yeah, totally and arranged it.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Ambiguous.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:18

And that is that's nothing to sneeze at. Right. But he's definitely racially ambiguous. But I would not say black would not be my first guess. No. So um, I might repeat myself here. I think it's worth noting here that in making these films, Jeffries helped create roles for all his all-black cast, and um, and they were not getting those at the time. They could be funny without being the butt of the joke, they could be heroes, they could be characters that fit into the Western tropes that they had been excluded from until then. So this like these are definitely like character types, right? That are in these kinds of movies, but they were not able to play those character types. Caricatures. No, no, no. But like what I'm saying is like Western movies had those character types. It's like there's the there's the the hero, there's the bad guy, there's the you know what I mean? They the the there's the western movies. There's the drunk, there's the shared.

SPEAKER_03 54:13

Exactly. The damsel in destruction. The town gossip. The yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

Yes, yes, yes. So those were all like all the movies are a bit the same. But still, no black people were getting those kinds of parts. And they were the parts that like, like that little kid, everybody wanted, you know, that's who they wanted to be. Um, the most popular movies of the time. So, however you feel about Herb's ethnicity, he started something here and it it did have an impact. He spent much of his film earnings on a new Cadillac and had to recoup his losses and get a little ROI. So Herb got creative.

SPEAKER_03 54:48

I put some steer horns on it and put my name on the back, and I went following the picture round, doing personal appearances to make extra money. That's right. He did capitalize. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

Capitalize. Capitalize.

SPEAKER_03 55:04

So riding like the it was like before conventions were a thing, you know? Right, exactly.

Duke Ellington Changes The Trajectory

SPEAKER_01 55:10

He's like, I'll go sign my meet the people who are like at the movie theater. I mean, that would be kind of cool. Like, you're like, oh, I'm going to see where you don't know he's showing up, like, kind of fun. It's super smart. Yeah. So um riding high on making this dream happen, Herb headed east to fulfill yet another dream, seeing Duke Ellington play. Duke knew who he was. Yep. So he was like, I'm gonna take a little break, I'm gonna go see this legend that I've never seen performed before. That was what he wanted to do. So Duke knew who he was. I mean, he was making these popular movies at the time for black audiences, and invited him backstage, where Duke said to him, You have to be Duke Ellington now. Who if you go with the Jordan Peel impression?

SPEAKER_03 55:59

I know, I know that's uh that's what I'm doing. I'm just like, okay. Well, what are your plans looking like? Terrible terrible. And then he has the laugh. Well, let me try it again.

SPEAKER_07 56:28

Let me try it again.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

It won't be any better, but let me give it to me, okay. Well, what are your plans looking like? And Herbert says, Well, I guess I'll go back to Hollywood and make a few more cowboy movies. And Ellington said, That's too bad. I was planning to offer you a job. And Herb says, Well, I well, I guess it's time I changed my plans. Okay. So, dang, Duke Ellington's like, what are you planning on doing? Here's my plan. Well, that's too bad. I was gonna give you a job. And he's like, Well, guess my plans are changing. Yeah. Well, screw that plan. I'm going with this one then. Great. Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Yeah, so just as swiftly as his Western Cowboy star career was hatched, Herb was turning back to his musical goals. Of this decision, Herb said.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

One of the reasons why I went with Duke Ellington was you see, my pictures were made all colored and played in mostly all colored theaters. So I was known in popularity fairly well in the United States, but not like other cowboys were. I said, Why not go with this band? Because he, Duke, was known all over the world. Ah, you got a little sparkle in his eyes. He's like, he's like, I'm the opportunity. But what an international audience.

SPEAKER_01 58:06

Yeah. He sees a golden opportunity here. Plus, plus, he said he like he's quoted in that documentary as saying, um, like that Duke Ellington was his idol then, and he's still his idol now. Like he was Oh, okay. He's yeah, how could you not? Right, exactly. So I would do that too. Yeah, yeah. So the year was now 1940. Jeffries was kicking off the decade by signing with one of his idols, Duke Ellington. They didn't waste time, and recorded Flamingo, a sexy crooner song that went on to sell over 14 million copies.

SPEAKER_03 58:43

Whoa, yes. Dang, a hit.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

A hit. And at the suggestion of Ellington's arranger, Billy Strayhorn, Herb dropped his tenor for a sultry baritone. So this is when he does that. It's with this song. Billy had heard him impersonating Bing Crosby and told him that that was his sweet spot. I mean, Herb had a four and a half octave range, after all. He could take direction and he did. He's like, whatever you want me to do, I'm gonna do it. He was he could do it, he had chops. Wow. So, also due to what some think was a misprint on the massively popular record, Herb chose this moment to officially change his name again from Herb Jeffrey to Herb Jeffries, as it was listed on the record. So, on all the cowboy movies and everything, he was Herb Jeffrey, and now he's Herb Jeffreys. So it's a kind of a funny time to change your name. Yeah. But interesting. So um, hopefully, yeah, hopefully I don't get in trouble for playing any of this, but we gotta hear Herb sing in this range because you heard him sing in the cowboy movies, and that was that. That's his like tenor a little bit, his higher range, and then this is Flamingo.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

Well, it says Duke Ellington and his orchestra with Herb Jeffries, Flamingo, produced by Sam Coslo.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:14

I go flaming the sky.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

And then we have like this these dancers.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:49

We're just dancing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:57

Yeah, he very he very much has it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:59

Okay, vibrato, jeez.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Yes. Yes, he's got it. He was very talented, obviously. I mean, like everybody is noticing it, like, yeah. So anyway, so that was a big hit. Um his lower seductive range in this performance is the range that made all of the ladies swoon, as one LA journalist said.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

He had a voice that made women's knees buckle, and men want to order another round of martinis.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:31

So his star was on the rise, and people wanted more. Herb has a famous quote where he said, Most people come to this world by stork.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

I came by flamingo, and Duke Ellington delivered me. Oh, that's so sweet, and I love it. It's funny and sweet.

Jump For Joy And The Makeup Fight

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

That's a good it's a good quote, yeah. He quickly moved on from this triumph to perform alongside Dorothy Daindridge, Big Joe Turner, and Ivy Anderson in Ellington's 1941 all-black musical review Jump for Joy at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:10

Well, the Mayan, it's it's uh making making her way into another story. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Cause that was that was Mila, right? Yes. Yes, yes. I think so. That was what one of the ones where she was like a um chorus girl. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

So um of this particular moment of his career, writer Marcus Crowder wrote a piece for Alta, um, which is a publication that explains it further. And this is the only thing I read. I'm being specific about the source, because this is the only thing I read where this was described this way, but it's interesting. So let's put it in.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:50

Jeffries was with Ellington and the band for a Los Angeles residency when the idea for the socially ambitious Jump for Joy was hatched at a late night party. Ellington predicted that the All Black Musical Review would take Uncle Tom out of the theater and say things that would make an audience think. After actor John Garfield, an investor in the show, visited Jeffreys in his dressing room and suggested that he was too light-skinned to appear on stage with Dorothy Dandridge, the performer allowed a makeup person to blacken him up. Ellington was mortified when Jeffreys made his entrance. At intermission, Ellington roared into Jeffries' dressing room, demanded an explanation, then stormed out. Moments later, a shake in Garfield told Jeffries there would be no more dark makeup. Ellington's jump for joy was deemed too progressive for Broadway. It ran for nine weeks, but never had a full run after its Los Angeles production. So yeah. It's I mean too progressive for Broadway, damn. Yeah.

War Service And A Taste Of France

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

And also it's like, and when it comes to the makeup, it is always I don't know. I don't really I don't want to make excuses for him. I just see the good in him. I I do like with some of this, and also like some of these decisions at the time making sense. But the makeup was always someone else's choice, is what I'm hearing, right? Like it was always somebody else's idea. So that he didn't say no to it, you know. Right. But it was it was not his first inclination. So um, yeah. So I'll give him that. We'll give him that. Yeah, we'll give him that at least. Um, so then in 1942, he was drafted into the military for World War II. So the momentum of his yeah, and that that happened to a lot of people at this time. A lot, yeah. The momentum of his career halted out of necessity, obviously. I don't believe that he saw combat because due to his talents, he was captain of a special services unit that entertained the troops in various parts of the European theater of the war.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:09

So after the war, I was gonna say he probably he got drafted, but he was probably uh an entertainer because that does happen. You you're fully in the min military, but you work as an entertainer and you don't see combat.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

Right. Yeah. So after the war, um he stopped in France before heading back to the US and it set him up for some new ideas.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:32

I came through France and there was no discrimination whatsoever. Ethnicity meant absolutely nothing to the French people. So when I saw that, it just touched my heart. I saw a lot of American musicians who were very successful here who would never come back to the United States ever again, who were colored. And they could go any place they wanted to go and could become as great, as famous as anybody else. They were not restricted to anything. Whatever nationality you were, you could go anywhere you wanted to go. Anywhere you could afford. And you were treated the same.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

I said, I gotta come back here. So it's funny because I I I mean the I don't know that I think of France, at least now, right, as being like this place that's not racist. Um, but I guess at the time that was the case. And it's true, because this is like the era of Josephine Baker. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Mm-hmm.

Las Vegas Segregation And A Quiet Win

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

Where it's like the she and that is true of her. I know that that that's true of her. Like her she just like lived, she lived in France, did what she wanted to do, was a huge star, and walked a lobster on a leash. That's what I know about her. She was a big beardo, and I love her for her. Um so with the grass looking greener in Europe, it hurt that much more when he returned to the US in the mid-40s to find that he was largely forgotten, especially with younger audiences. So he had to start over as a solo act in Las Vegas right when Las Vegas was really starting to boom as a live show Mecca.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:16

That is still to this day. It's like, oh, people are forgetting about me. Let me do my Las Vegas residency.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:23

Exactly. Exactly. It's right, it's it's like the retiring spot. But at this point in time, I do think it was like not everyone knew about Vegas. Um, you know, maybe just a couple years before. It was pretty right, it was pretty new and hot and you know, what didn't quite have that reputation yet, but it was like where you could get opportunities because they needed to to fill the the shows.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:46

Um the injustice So Las Vegas was up and coming and he saw his opportunity and took it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

Yeah, he was like, I mean, he he was always gonna try to find a way to to perform and and do what he did. So the injustice of segregation though began to eat at him more than it did before, and maybe that was because he was on his own this time and didn't have the camaraderie of a band to soften the blow. Um, but he describes performing in Las Vegas like this.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:18

You didn't stay in the hotel, you lived on the dark side of town. If you were a Negro, you lived over there or got a room in somebody's house, something like that, see? You did not live in those hotels.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

Right. So one night in Vegas, Herb decided to attend his friend Mickey Rooney's show. But when he just as Fred. Yeah, yeah. When he was seen talking with Rooney, he was ordered off the premises by a security guard because hotel policy forbade fraternization between whites and blacks. Unbeknownst to Herb at that moment, Rooney refused to go on stage until hotel management apologized to Jeffries and invited him back in. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Mickey's a real one. Good. Yeah. So Jeffries agreed to come back in on the condition that the hotel would offer Harry Belafonte a room when he came there to perform the next week because he knew he was scheduled to perform there. The hotel agreed. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:28

Yep. As Herb says, Belafonte never even knew that I had anything to do with it, but he stayed at that hotel. That's right, he did. Yep. So that's also a cool thing to do. Cool thing to do. Yeah. And you know what? And and just like Mickey did it for him, he did it for Belafonte. You know, you right that when someone opens the door for you, you don't shut it behind you, you open it for others.

Pilot Life And A Crash Cliffhanger

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

That's right. So yeah. So I thought that was and then also like didn't try to like make it a thing. He's like, he didn't know I did it. Exactly. You know, yeah. So um, so now Herb was an amateur pilot and took which is just another thing he did. Just okay, okay. Sure, and Herb. Sure. And not only that, but he like he legitimately flew his like to to travel back and forth between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, like after performing, he would just travel back and forth that way. God, so which is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:32

So um and also awesome, and also awesome, because nothing is worse than that drive back to Los Angeles, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

And especially and I have to imagine he was doing this, like being like, screw this, I'm not gonna stay in this crappy hotel on the other side of town, whatever. Like, I'm gonna go home, kind of a thing. So I think that's what's really going on with that. But one night I will fly myself home, yeah, exactly. Like, screw you, I'm gonna get in my own plane, you fuckers. So one night he felt too exhausted to fly himself home and hired a pilot, which I find this this story is interesting because I'm like, where did you just like at night be like, I'm too tired? I'm gonna find a pilot at night after I've done this show. Like, he must have known someone anyway. That's not his buttons Herb and the pilot were both smoking on the flight, which was common at the time, and ashing, yeah, then they're ashing into this like magnetic ashtray that's like stuck on the on the Oh no no, you can't have magnets in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:34

Right. See, you're already onto it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:36

You're already onto it. So they didn't realize that it had unbalanced the compass and the plane went off course. And by the time they realized what was happening, they were running out of gas. So here's Herb, and this is you're gonna see Herb in his 90s now. This is him discussing that terrifying moment in the documentary called A Colored Life, the Herb Jeffrey Story. So let me let me find this moment here.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:04

My face is cracked. I'm like, oh my god, Herb! What happened?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:10

I know I had 15 minutes of flight before we were gonna go down. I was maydaying all over the place. I had the mic and mic, and it's Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, and I'd given the uh number out on my plane, and uh I got no response.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:30

Yep. So the music comes in. So the plane crashed. The plane crashed. Yes, the plane crashed, and that is my cliffhanger for part one, into part two.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:44

I mean, obviously, obviously he lives. He's he's talking about it, but still.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

He's in the 90s talking about it. Um, yeah, I just you just heard him talk about it, and um, you know, like he does not have the accent that I gave him at all whatsoever. Nope, that's okay. That's okay. You know, I feel like this is a bit of a trap of an accent. Like, what are you supposed to do with this man who's like, I am passing as a black man, um, and you put a cowboy on your on your tombstone?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:13

What am I supposed to do with that? And yeah. When's that gonna come in? When does he become a yogi guru?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:23

In the next episode. Um but I'm so excited to learn more. Thank you. You're welcome. This is obviously it's complicated. It has it has really made me think a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:37

And I imagine I'm having like a lot of feelings and and thinking a lot of thoughts, and just kind of, yeah, like it's all over the place because I just looked at that clip of that 90-year-old clearly not black man with blue eyes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:54

Yeah, he has blue eyes. That's the blue eyes, ladies and gentlemen.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:58

Yeah, he has blue eyes. He has blue eyes. Not that black people can't have blue eyes, but you know, it's very rare. Right. And um he yeah. I could see I could I could see why all those people are like, well, we gotta put some makeup on you. Yeah, like I mean it's thank thank goodness. I mean, I don't he wouldn't have been able to do what he did if if the pictures weren't in black and white. Like, no fucking way.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:27

I don't think so. So it's way I don't think so. It's it's it's a really yeah, he's weird, he's on this like weird trajectory. I just find it so here's here's where I'm thinking, like, and we're gonna go into like more of this in the next episode, but I just am like, okay, if it wasn't that time period with those kinds of like very harsh segregated rules, not just like frowned upon rules where it's like you can't even be seen talking to each other in a lot of places, right? And all of your idols and all the people you want to make music with are black people. What do you do? What do you do? Especially when they like your voice and they want to sing with you too. What do you do? Like, I think that the you know, like I I think this is less about You know what?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:19

If if those were my circumstances, the lie would come easy to me as well. Yeah, I've never now I don't have blue eyes. You could get away with it a little bit better. You know what? And you could tell he's white because he has the audacity of a white man. He does. He's like, I'll be the hero for this.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:40

I mean, I yeah, it's there right. He does, but I also, yeah, it's it's just I think it is giving me this like I've never I've never ever heard of a situation quite like this before. And um and so it it has it has made me think, and I hope it um, yeah, I'm sure it's making everybody listening think too. And we will have another episode to dig into his life, which you know, is still there's more. There's just more. So um, yeah, I guess we can we can end there and pick it up uh next time.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:12

Can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:13

We'll see you next time. See you next time. Bye. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:19

Thank you so much for listening. Your support and enthusiasm for the show are the reason we keep doing it. So thanks for the kind words. They really mean the world. If you liked the show or have ideas for episodes we could or should do, please drop us a comment in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube. And if you haven't yet, please follow the show and tell every Cinephile and Tapophile, fun fact that's a person who loves graveyards, about your new favorite niche podcast. And if you want to see transcripts, photos, and sources for our episodes, check out our substack Dead and Kind of Famous. Dead and Kind of Famous is written, produced, and edited by Courtney Blomquist. It is hosted by Marissa Rivera and Courtney Blomquist. And special thanks to Jesse Russell, my husband, for allowing me to yammer on about the episodes before I can spill it all to Marissa. He tends to have some good insights and ideas, so thanks. Until next time, you might not be famous, but you've got a story to tell and you're not dead yet.