Belle Davis

Belle Davis was an African American song and dance artist, entertainer, choreographer, and director. She was a recording pioneer who toured Europe extensively during the period 1901-1929. Not only did she record on disc as early as 1902, she also performed in front of a movie camera at least twice during the early years of this century. In spite of these extraordinary achievements, little has been written about her; her biography, her discography and her filmography remain sketchy.

Belle Davis, was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 28, 1874, the daughter of George Davis. Of European and African ancestry, she spent most of her adult life abroad, largely in Britain, where she arrived in mid-1901 with two boys who were billed as Piccaninny Actors. Her performance style changed from ‘coon shouting’ and ‘ragtime singing’ in the 1890s to a more decorous manner, where prancing children provided the amusement. She directed their stage act, and with two, sometimes three or four, black children the act was a vigorous and popular entertainment in British and continental theatres.

Davis's troupe appeared on the reputable Empire Theatre circuit in late 1901, recorded in London in 1902 (including the song ‘The Honey-Suckle and the Bee’), continued touring London and the provinces in 1903, and ventured to the continent. Dozens of other African-Americans were entertaining the British at this time, and on June 9, 1904 Davis married one of the more successful, Henry Troy, in London. Following her marriage the act continued to tour, and was filmed, for commercial distribution. The Empire circuit continued to employ the group, as did other leading theatres. They presented their ten-minute stage act in Dublin, Cardiff, Swansea, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, Leicester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and Sheffield between May 1906 and August 1909, and appeared in Berlin, The Hague, Paris, Vienna, St Petersburg, and Brussels during the same period. Some leading performers had their apprenticeship as dancers in Davis's act; when they grew too large she recruited younger boys from America.

The act had been seen by hundreds of thousands of Britons by 1914, when war prevented continental touring and so exposed more Britons to Belle Davis and Her Cracker Jacks. She and the children performed in major cities as well as Ayr, Doncaster, Portsmouth, Ilkeston, and Weymouth during the war years. Her last known performance in Britain was in 1918. From 1925 to 1929 she directed the dancing in the revues at the Casino de Paris, and 1929 also saw Belle Davis Piccaninnies in Germany with Wunderland der Liebe, a revue set in the south seas. As early as 1915 she was describing herself as married to the African American entertainer Edward Peter (Eddie) Whaley (circa 1880–1960), and she took out an American passport in the name Belle Whaley in 1920. She and Whaley eventually did marry, on July 12, 1926, but they had divorced by 1936. In 1938 she boarded the Queen Mary in Southampton to return to a Chicago address.

Sometimes billed as a creole, Davis was a soprano whose songs were not from the minstrel show or spiritual traditions, but were graceful melodies. By contrast the children were energetic dancers who combined suppleness with comedy. Their well-dressed director's elegance was praised, and is evidenced by surviving promotional material. The mercurial entertainment business had few acts for whom top theatres provided employment for the length of time she worked in Britain. Her qualities both as a singer and as dance director, combined with her professionalism in travelling from town to town, country to country, in charge of boisterous children, were solid, and enabled her to have success at her chosen profession for three decades. Stately, well dressed, and showing faint African features, she presented American dance and song to countless Britons and kept top employers anxious to take her act for their shows.

Source: [Rainer E. Lotz]