It has been a long day. I didn't forget about you guys. I got a a good one comming next week. This one is a lost legend that doesn't get the attention that she should. Ask your grandmother who the baddest chick is and she will say Moms Mabley.
Mabley was born Loretta Mary Aiken into a large family of twelve children in Brevard, Transylvania County, North Carolina. Her father, James P. Aiken, owned and operated several businesses while her mother, Mary, kept home and took in boarders. Her father died a sudden accidental death when she was eleven.By the age of fifteen Mabley had been raped twice and had two children that were given up for adoption. After being forced by her stepfather to marry a much older man she despised and being encouraged by her grandmother to strike out on her own, she ran away to Cleveland, Ohio with a traveling minstrel show where she began singing and entertaining.
She took her stage name, Jackie Mabley, from an early boyfriend, commenting to Ebony magazine in a 1970s interview that he'd taken so much from her, it was the least she could do to take his name. Later she became known as "Moms" because she was indeed "Mom" to many other comedians on the circuit in the 1950s and 60s. She was one of the top women doing stand-up in her heyday, and recorded more than 20 albums of comedy routines. She appeared in movies, on television, and in clubs.
Mabley was one of the most successful entertainers of the black vaudeville Chitlin' circuit, earning US$10,000 a week at Harlem's Apollo Theater at the height of her career. She made her New York City debut at Connie's Inn in Harlem.[3]
In the 1960s, she become known to a wider white audience, playing Carnegie Hall in 1962, and making a number of mainstream TV appearances.
(Bio via wikipedia)
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