Bert Williams #1324

Caption from poster__     “ I have never been able to  discover anything disgraceful  in being a colored man.  But I have often found  it inconvenient - in America.”   the preeminent   Black entertainer   of his era and one    of the most popular    comedians for all    audiences of his time.   He was by far the best-  selling black recording    artist before 1920.    W.C. Fields called Bert Williams    "the funniest man I ever saw,    and the saddest I ever knew."       Williams was an African-American vaudeville star in the early 1900s, and an influence on many future comedians, black and white. The customs of the times forced him to perform in blackface, playing a sad, luckless clown... but also a figure of wisdom. Comparisons to Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp are inevitable. As Elizabeth Yate McNamee reports, a small record company, Archeophone, has released a collection called Bert Williams: His Final Releases, 1919-1922. Williams had become wealthy and popular at the time