BLANCHE CALLOWAY: SKIN DEEP BEAUTY

 


Blanche Calloway, in the late 1920's & early 1930's, was as popular as her brother Cab Calloway!  He is documented as saying SHE is the reason he wanted to be an entertainer.  Some say that Cab's flamboyance on stage was actually a facsimile of Blanche's onstage antics.  Others say she was the first (or one of the first) female bandleaders to lead an all-male unit called the Joy Boys - which consisted of members from the orchestra known as Andy Kirk & His Clouds of Joy.  With her skill, showmanship and direction as a leader, it is no surprise that that organization has now gone down in history for more than just the novelty of having a female leader in a time when women musicians were not taken seriously. 

Blanche Calloway's looks appeared fair and delicate but she was anything but!  She could be rough, ready and almost raunchy in her vocals.  She was a tough businesswoman and later played an extremely important role in the rise of singer Ruth Brown's career during the 1950's.  There is some talk that even before the quick rise (and fall) of her own career, Miss Calloway was a cosmetics "tycoon" with her own skin care "empire" that sold preparations designed specifically for women of color.

In this 1932 print ad for Black and White Bleaching Cream, the lady tycoon peddles a concoction made with peroxide that boasts a skin lightener so powerful that it sunk all the way "down beneath the four layers" of the skin where the "coloring" took place.  Already light, bright and damn near white, there was apparently more to Miss Calloway than met the eye!

Comments

[Greg]

This is an interesting post because here in NYC a Dominican artist had an exhibition at a local arts organization uptown which features the very obvious transformation of baseball star Sami Sosa. There were photos of a young Sami Sosa in baseball camp all the way to day showing the gradual gradations in his complection. Once a dark complected beauty, Mr. Sosa is now light, bright & damned near white also.

This sort of thing brings up so many questions, especially what happened to the "Black is beautiful" mentality of the late 60s and early 70s and why did this mentality die such a hard death. I know that Dominicans have a very toxic relationship with skin color, but damn! I heard that Trujillo welcomed Jews escaping the holocaust to the DR so that they could "...lighten up the population." Now thats deep!

I wish some well trained sociologist would do some research on this subject. I think it would be a worthy endeavour.

[Corey]

Skin color and SELF-LOATHING? Oh, I'm sure that research is out there somewhere, Greg! But, we've known Sosa had issues around this topic for some time now, haven't we?

[Greg]

Well yeah, but I just was shocked and so unprepared to the transformation. He's been out of the spotlight a bit lately and when I saw a recent photo of him & his lady, I was like DAMNED dude, what did u do?

But the fact that people are still doing this is frightening. I remember the commericals for Nambi and Nadinola and had thought that stuff was long gone! Now I know better.

[Derrick from Philly]

I had never heard of Blanche Calloway. Thanks for the historical info, Corey.

Yes, as for Sami Sousa, it's very sad. As fine as he was...now...oh, well. Somebody please tell Beyonce, "she'd better NOT!"

[Corey]

OMG, Guys! I just googled some photos of Sosa to see EXACTLY what you were talking about and what I saw literally BROKE MY HEART! I've never seen anything so disturbing IN and at the CORE of a person. I'm serious - it's quite unsettling! When I said he had "issues" I was remembering when he told someone NOT to refer to him as a BLACK MAN - and this when he looked like either me or you. But I had NO IDEA that his self-hatred had so infected him like it has. My LORD! WHAT HAPPENED?

[Greg]

You see my dude, I told you, Dominicans have an exceptionally toxic relationship with skin color. Recently there was report of a club in the DR that had a "no Blacks and no Gays policy." Now you take it from there!