Dr. Do-Diddily and the Dee-Dot's : Blog
DR. DO-DIDDILY AND THE DEE - DOT'S PRESENT
Bill Robinson pictured in 1934
Born May 25, 1878
Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Died November 25, 1949 (aged 71)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation Dancer, actor (1878-05-25)
MR. BO JANGLES
It's the title of the opening of the American page so who better than Mr Bill (Luther) Robinson, best known throughout the music world as Mr Bo Jangles.
Details of Robinson's early life are known only through legend, much of it perpetuated by Bill Robinson himself. He claims he was christened "Luther"—a name he did not like.
He suggested to his younger brother Bill that they should exchange names. When Bill objected, Luther applied his fists, and the exchange was made.
At the age of six, Robinson began dancing for a living, appearing as a "hoofer" or song-and-dance man in local beer gardens. He soon dropped out of school to pursue dancing as a career. In 1886, he joined Mayme Remington's troupe in Washington, DC, and toured with them. In 1891, at the age of 12, he joined a travelling company in The South Before the War, and in 1905 worked with George Cooper as a vaudeville team. He gained great success as a nightclub and musical comedy performer, and during the next 25 years became one of the toasts of Broadway. Not until he was 50 did he dance for white audiences, having devoted his early career exclusively to appearances on the black theater circuit.
In 1908 in Chicago, he met Marty Forkins, who became his lifelong manager. Under Forkins' tutelage, Robinson matured and began working as a solo act in nightclubs, increasing his earnings to an estimated $3500 per week. The publicity that gradually came to surround him included the creation of his famous "stair dance" (which he claimed to have invented on the spur of the moment when he was receiving an honor from the King of England, who was standing at the top of a flight of stairs; Bojangles' feet just danced up to be honoured), his successful gambling exploits, his bow ties of multiple colors, his prodigious charity, his ability to run backward (he set a world's record of 8.2 seconds for the 75-yard backward dash) and to consume ice-cream by the quart, his argot—most notably the neologism copacetic, and such stunts as dancing down Broadway in 1939 from Columbus Circle to 44th St. in celebration of his 61st birthday.
Robinson served as a rifleman in World War I with New York's 15th Infantry Regiment, National Guard. The Regiment was renamed the 369th Infantry while serving under France's Fourth Army and earned the nickname the "Harlem Hell fighters". Along with serving in the trenches in WWI, Robinson was also the 369th "Hell fighters Band" drum major Fifth Avenue on the 369th's return from overseas.
