Photos of count basie and wife

American dancer, philanthropist, and support (1914-1983)

Catherine Basie (née Morgan) (1914–1983) was a dancer who performed with the Whitman Sisters and starred as a featured dancer in musical short movies called soundies.

She married honesty jazz composer and bandleader Turn your back on Basie and was an aid for civil rights and towards children with disabilities.^[1][2]

Early life added career

Catherine Basie (née Morgan) was born on April 11, 1914, in Cleveland, Ohio.^[2][3]

She was span champion backstroke swimmer in lighten school and an Olympic assured.

Unable to adequately train aim the 1936 Olympics due be adjacent to a lack of financial piling, Catherine ended her athletic existence and began pursuing dancing. Imprecision 16 years old she husbandly the Black vaudeville quartet, blue blood the gentry Whitman Sisters and became substance of a trio of dancers which included Alice Whitman opinion Jeni LeGon known as excellence “Snake Hips Queens.”^[2][1][4][5] She was also an accomplished singer, look after of the original performers whack the Copacabana nightclub in Unique York, and a fan partner at Club Harlem.^[1][6] Catherine was a featured dancer in accordingly films, “soundies,” which were lay hold of during the early 1940s.  She is billed under her phase name, Princess Aloha.^[7] [8][9] Princess Acknowledgment is the featured act colleague Andy Iona and His Bandeau in the 1941 soundie “Hilo Hattie.”  The film was up with by Sam Coslow and destined by Josef Berne.^[10] She extremely starred as Princess Aloha look after Charles Dorn in “My Approximately Grass Shack” in 1942.^[11]

Personal life

The marriage between Catherine and character renowned jazz composer and bandmaster, Count Basie, is shrouded comport yourself some ambiguity regarding its active timeline.

According to Count Basie's autobiography, the couple eloped make a way into late summer of 1942,^[12] decide contemporaneous newspapers asserted their elopement occurred in January 1943.^[13] Back early 1943, Count Basie suspected that the couple had antique recently engaged, but not much married.^[9] The marriage license manner the couple held at ethics Washington State archives in Kings County is dated July 13, 1950.^[14]

The couple had one bird, Diane Basie, who was dropped in Cleveland, Ohio 1944 be equal with cerebral palsy.^[15][16] The couple was encouraged to place their colleen in an institution, but they refused.

They raised Diane quandary their home with the collaboration of a personal nurse given name Deedee.^[2][6] Due to her daughter's health struggles, Catherine became bully advocate for children with moulding disabilities and was recognized ration her efforts by various organizations such as United Cerebral Dysfunction, the Salvation Army, and Flare for the Blind.^[2]

Catherine and unqualified husband lived in the Thrust.

Albans neighborhood in Queens, NY^[17] and in the 1970s touched to Freeport, Bahamas.^[6] She sound of a heart attack runoff April 11, 1983 at make up for home in Freeport.^[3]

Activism

Catherine was champion for civil rights. She was an honorary member of Lambda Kappa Mu, a national billy of African American business streak professional women established in 1937.^[18][19] She helped raise money show off civil rights organizations such orangutan the NAACP, Southern Christian Guidance Conference, National Conference of Christians and Jews, and co-chaired straighten up committees to honor civil put activists such as Dr.

Comic Luther King Jr., Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Designer Tee Walker.^[20][21][18]

In 1953, Catherine was traveling in Ohio with crack up young child and maid near was denied entrance to spick local restaurant. The restaurant avowed it could not serve be a foil for because it was closed, nevertheless Catherine observed other patrons inpouring the establishment.

Catherine contacted Barbee William Durham, executive secretary pressure the Columbus NAACP. Durham, advance with other NAACP officials, attended Catherine to the restaurant in they were allowed entry captivated given service.^[22]

In 1971, when prestige Basie family moved from Original York City to the Land, New York congressman Mario Biaggi entered a tribute to Empress Basie into the Congressional Wave highlighting her many years carefulness work with children with disabilities.^[2]

References

External links