Comedian Wonderful Smith, whose edgy routines helped break racial stereotypes, dies at 97
The comedian was featured in Duke Ellington's musical revue 'Jump for Joy' and regularly brought the house down with his 'Hello, Mr. President?' monologue.
Wonderful Smith, whose boundary-pushing comedy routine in Duke Ellington's satirical revue "Jump for Joy" -- staged in Los Angeles in 1941 -- helped the black cast counter against racial stereotypes in entertainment, has died. He was 97.
Smith died Aug. 28 of natural causes at an assisted-living facility in Northridge, said his niece Lois Johnson.
His “Hello, Mr. President?” monologue lampooned the New Deal and World War II preparations -- from which blacks were generally excluded -- and it invariably stopped the show at the Mayan Theatre downtown.
Pretending to talk on the telephone, he would ask an operator to get the president on the line, telling her to "just charge it to the New Deal."
"This is buck private Wonderful Smith of Arkansas. . . . No sir, I'm not related to Governor Al Smith," he would say, referring to the former governor of New York. "There's quite a difference in us. As much difference as night and day."
Tame by today's standards, Smith's comedy was audacious for its time. The routine was controversial partly because it imagined a phone conversation between the president, then Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a black man, "an unthinkable scenario for the day," The Times reported in 1999.
"He was courageous for getting out there and doing what he did. His comedy was groundbreaking," said Jill Watts, a professor of African American history at Cal State San Marcos who had interviewed Smith.
In staging the show, Ellington said he wanted to "take Uncle Tom out of the theater and say things that would make the audience think." Later, he called the musical one of his most significant achievements.
Smith became a part of the 60-member cast that included tap dancers, former minstrel comics and singers after seeing an announcement for an "all-colored revue." A newcomer, actress and singer Dorothy Dandridge, performed, and Duke Ellington's orchestra played in the pit every night.
When Charlie Chaplin saw Smith rehearsing, he suggested the comedian refine his material in private, said Patricia Willard, a writer who interviewed Smith for a 1988 Smithsonian audio recording that documented parts of "Jump for Joy."
Chaplin said, "If he rehearses out in the open, Bob Hope's and Jack Benny's legmen will steal his material, and his routine will be stale," according to Willard.
At the end of his audition, Smith was asked where he was appearing and replied, "Grace Hayes Lodge's parking lot."
