Kicha's photos with the keyword: Producer

Here she appears in costume for a play she co-produced, Midnight Steppers from 1930. Today Gertrude is mainly remembered as a rival for the affections of Bessie Smith's husband, Jack Gee, a situation that caused a violent reaction from the ever volatile Bessie. In 1921, however, Gertrude was one of the hottest properties in show business. Gertrude Saunders while her greatest fame and recognition came from being the original star of Shuffle Along , the groundbreaking musical and theatrical production by Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Flournoy Mille, and Aubrey Lyles in 1921, which some cite as launching the Harlem Renaissance, Gertrude Saunders went on to continue her varied show-business career in motion pictures, as well as with live stage performances. Born on August 25, 1903, in North Carolina, Saunders was still a teenager at the time she left studies at Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, to tour with stage and vaudeville entertainer and producer Billy King as a featured singer and comedienne, where her performances turned a number of his songs into hits. Saunders also starred in another King production in 1919, Over the Top , which dramatized the state of African Americans at the time of the Paris Peace Conference and presaged other Harlem Renaissance efforts to stage serious theatrical works and music revues. After Saunders was replaced by Florence Mills as the star of Shuffle Along , she continued to work in other revues during the 1920s and '30s, including one financed by Bessie Smith's husband Jack Gee in 1929, which led to a fight with Smith. After suffering a nervous breakdown and returning to her home in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1931 to recuperate, Saunders resumed performing in such revues as Red Hot Mama during the 1930s. Saunders was also highly recognized for her passion and style of performing the Charleston famous during the Harlem Renaissance period and singing Sweet Georgia Brown composed by musicians Maceo Pinkard and Ben Bernie for the musical show Runnin Wild on Broadway. She appeared in several films in the 1940s, including Sepia Cinderella and in 1943 the Broadway production of Run, Little Chillun . Saunders was honored by the Negro Actors Guild of America in 1964 in New York City, the benevolent organization for African American entertainers. Gertrude C. Saunders, a trailblazing entertainer, died on April 1, 1991, in Beverly, Massachusetts. She was eighty-seven. Sources: Florence Mills: Harlem Jazz Queen by By Bill Egan; Black Women of the Harlem Renaissance Era edited by Lean'tin L. Bracks, Jessie Carney Smith; BlackPast by Otis Alexander; NYPL Digital Collections

Louisa Melvin Delos Mars, was one of the first African Americans to graduate from the New England Conservatory of Music, and the first African American woman to have an opera staged and produced. The opera, "Leoni, the Gypsy Queen", was performed in Providence, Rhode Island in 1889. Louisa also directed, produced, and performed in her own operettas. She composed and copyrighted five full length musical dramas between 1889 and 1926. Details on her life are scant....born Louisa Melvin in Providence, Rhode Island around 1858. She was the oldest daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Melvin. During the 1880s she and her younger sister, Carrie Melvin Lucas, formed a duo, with Carrie playing violin and cornet with Louisa singing. Her sister, Carrie Melvin Lucas was the second wife of famous vaudevillian, Sam Lucas. The couple (who would later divorce) had a child who became a popular musician in her own right, Maria Lucas (Louisa's niece). [Info: American Opera by Elise K. Kirk] On a census site I found that she was married to William Delos Mars (1856 - 1927). The couple had two sons, Charles born May 19, 1883, and Christian born December 23, 1886 both in Providence, Rhode Island. Source: The Colored American Magazine, vol. 5, 1902