View source for Gladys Bentley: August 12, 1907–January 18, 1960

'''Gladys Bentley''' (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was a United States blues singer prominent during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s.

[[Image:Bentley, Gladys, and Prentis Taylor, c.1935.jpeg]]

Gladys Bentley and artist Prentiss Taylor, about 1935.

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==Biography==
Bentley was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of American George L. Bentley and his wife, a Trinidadian, Mary Mote.<ref>Adapted from Wikipedia, accessed February 13, 2011.</ref>


Gladys Bentley appeared at Harry Hansberry's "Clam House" on 133rd Street, one of New York City's most notorious gay speakeasies,<ref>Garber, Eric. "A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem.</ref>


In the 1920s and early thirties Bentley headlined at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. 


She was a 250 pound woman dressed in men's clothes (including a signature white top hat and tails), who played piano and sang with tremendous passion and energy. Langston Hughes wrote that Bentley was "an amazing exhibition of  musical energy - a large, dark masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor while her fingers pounded the keyboard -- a perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm." A regular part of her act involved imposing her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in her deep, growling voice. As one contemporary put it, "if ever there was a gal who could take a popular ditty and put her own naughty version to it, La Bentley could do it." And all of that, while flirting outrageously with women in the audience.<ref>Hurewitz, Daniel. Stepping Out: Nine Walks Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past. 1997. Henry Holt.</ref>


On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to Southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player", and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She claimed that she had married a white woman in Atlantic City.


Bentley was openly lesbian during her early career,<ref>Gillian Rodger. "Gladys Bentley". glbtq.com at http://www.glbtq.com/arts/bentley_g.html</ref>. But during the McCarthy Era of the late-1940s and early-1950s, she started wearing dresses, married a man (who later denied that they ever married), and studied to be a minister, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones.<ref>QueerCulturalCenter.org. "Gladys Bentley" at http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Bentley/BentleyBio.html from Garber, in Hidden from History, ed. by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, and George Chauncey. 1990. Penguin. ISBN: 0452010675</ref> A wonderful clip of an older Bentley appearing on Groucho Marx's program "You Bet Your Life" and singing "Them There Eyes" is available [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-LTJNasTMc on Youtube].


She died, aged 52, from pneumonia in 1960.


Fictional characters based on Bentley appeared in Carl Van Vechten's ''Parties'', Clement Woods' novel ''Deep River'', and Blair Niles's novel ''Strange Brother''.  She recorded for the OKeh company, Victor Records, Excelsior, and Flame.


==Venues==
Gladys Bentley appeared at:
* Clam House - New York
* Ubangi Club - New York
* Joquins' El Rancho - Los Angeles
* Mona's Club 440 - San Francisco


==References==
<references/>


==See also: [[Gladys Bentley: Timeline]]==


==External links==
*[http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7634493 Gladys Bentley at Find a Grave]
*[http://www.queermusicheritage.us/jun2004gb2.html Collection of newspaper clippings about Gladys Bentley from Queer Music Heritage]

__NOTOC__


[[Category:African American singers]]
[[Category:American blues singers]]
[[Category:American female singers]]
[[Category:Deaths from pneumonia]]
[[Category:Drag kings]]
[[Category:Lesbian musicians]]
[[Category:LGBT African Americans]]
[[Category:LGBT musicians from the United States]]
[[Category:People from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]]
[[Category:1907 births]]
[[Category:1960 deaths]] <comments />