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Lew Leslie
Producer, Director, Vaudevillian
(1886 - 1963)
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Lew Leslie got his start in vaudeville in his early twenties. During the 1920s and 30s he produced a series of popular revues for the London and New York stages. Starting with the Plantation Revue in 1922 and later the well-known Blackbird revues, Leslie become known as the “Black Ziegfeld” despite the fact that he was white. Performed by African Americans, the Blackbird revues enjoyed great success. Blackbirds of 1928, starring Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Adelaide Hall, and scored by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, ran for an impressive 519 performances.
- Sandra Burlingame |
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