{"product_id":"stepin-fetchit-isbn-9781400096763","title":"Stepin Fetchit","description":"In the late 1920s and '30s Lincoln Perry, aka Stepin Fetchit, was both renowned and reviled for his surrealistic portrayals of the era’s most popular comic stereotype–the lazy, shiftless Negro. Perry was hailed by critic Robert Benchley as “the best actor that the talking movies have produced,” and Mel Watkins’s meticulously researched and sensitive biography reveals the paradoxes of this pioneering actor’s life, from Perry’s tremendous popularity to his money troubles and rowdy offscreen antics. As later generations come to recognize Perry’s prodigious talent and achievements, in \u003ci\u003eStepin Fetchit,\u003c\/i\u003e Mel Watkins brilliantly and definitively illuminates the life and times of a legendary figure in American entertainment.\"Beautifully evokes the 'times' of Stepin Fetchit, providing a surprisingly fresh look at the complex history of blackness and the silver screen.\" –\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e“Commendable . . . thorough and authoritative.”–\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\"Enthralling. . . .Watkins goes back . . . to the vaudeville road, the black-theater circuit, the tent shows, dance clubs, burlesque houses, carnivals, cabarets, race riots and lynch mobs. \u003ci\u003eStepin Fetchit\u003c\/i\u003e is a shadow history of performance as survival.\" –\u003ci\u003eHarper's \u003c\/i\u003e\"Fascinating. . . . An engrossing study of Perry.\" –\u003ci\u003eEssence\u003c\/i\u003eMel Watkins, a former editor and writer for \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review,\u003c\/i\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eDancing with Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e, a Literary Guild Selection, and of the highly acclaimed \u003ci\u003eOn the Real Side: A History of African American Comedy\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in New York City.In the late 1800s, Key West, Florida, still bore a faint resemblance   to the barren wilderness described in settlers' colorful tales about   the island's fierce Calusa Indians or the marauding pirates who had   kept the eighteenth-century French and Spanish pioneers at bay for   decades. The four-mile-long sand and coral island had officially   become part of the United States in 1826. Only ninety miles from   Havana, Cuba, it was the southernmost settlement in the continental   United States and still had the untamed aura of a frontier outpost.   By 1860, as the nation moved inevitably toward the Civil War, it had   become the wealthiest city per capita in America despite not having a   rail link to the Florida mainland. At the time, its economy relied on   shipbuilding, sponging, cigar packing, and the harvesting of snail,   shrimp, lobster, and stone crab.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The island's prosperity was fleeting, however. Still, the   mid-nineteenth-century boom along with the island's natural beauty   and reputation as an exotic getaway made it a haven and magnet for   adventurers, artists, eccentrics, and tourists, as well as for a   growing number of West Indians for whom it was a doorway to the   United States. Among the latter group were Joseph H. Perry, a skilled   Jamaican cigar wrapper, cook, and would-be entertainer, and Dora   Monroe, a Bahamian seamstress who grew up in Nassau. They were   married in 1898 and, leaving Nassau, arrived in Key West in 1902.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In addition to being something of a womanizer and traveling man,   Joseph Perry was, by many accounts, a fair hoofer, singer, and an   aspiring minstrel stage performer. He was a gregarious, cocky man who   took great pride in his Caribbean background and his status as a   subject of the British Crown--a fact of which he regularly boasted,   particularly when dealing with African Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Joseph and Dora had three children. Their second child, Lincoln,   would go on to far surpass his father's wildest aspirations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Lincoln Perry was born on May 30, 1902, in Key West. He later claimed   that his father named him for four presidents; his full name was   Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry. According to one account, \"he   was born as an American by a few hours only,\" since his parents   arrived in the Keys just prior to his birth. His older sister,   Lucille, had been born two years earlier, and his younger sister,   Mary, who later changed her name to Marie, was born a year and a half   later. Lincoln and his siblings rarely discussed their childhood or   family life publicly, and since no personal letters or firsthand   accounts related to that period have been found, the actor's early   years in Key West and his adolescent years in Tampa after the family   moved to the mainland are shrouded in mystery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Apparently, Lincoln Perry did not suffer from a lack of confidence.   Like many other Caribbean immigrants, the Perry family reportedly   displayed an assertiveness that, at the time, was most often held in   check by former African American slaves and their descendants. Years   after he reigned as a Hollywood star, Perry suggested that his   youthful self-esteem was derived from his Caribbean background.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"I'm a descendant of the West Indies,\" Perry told a reporter. \"I had   talent all my life.\" Far from being \"lazy and stupid . . . the white   man's fool\" that many made him out to be, he insisted that he was   \"the first Negro militant.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It was a defense of his by-then-tainted reputation and an affirmation   of pride in his West Indian heritage. Perry's attitude reflected a   culturally based rift between American-born and Caribbean-born blacks   that in the early twentieth century frequently sparked heated   clashes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Despite the mumbling, ostensibly cowering screen character that he   later immortalized as Stepin Fetchit, Lincoln Perry displayed his   aggressive racial and cultural pride in offscreen relationships with   both whites and blacks throughout his career.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Ironically, when his double-talk and roundabout public statements are   scrutinized, when his extravagant spending, cavalier lifestyle and   frequent clashes with the producers and moguls who controlled the   Hollywood studio system are put into context, Perry surfaces in sharp   contrast to the image inspired by previous knee-jerk assumptions.   Uneducated, but shrewdly intelligent, he parlayed his considerable   talent and folk wit (the equivalent of today's street smarts) into   screen stardom during a period of blatant racial oppression and   intolerance that make conditions in the twenty-first-century \"hood\"   look like a model of racial harmony and equality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    He was far deeper and much more volatile and complicated than the   portrait of a shallow, ingratiating buffoon drawn by many historians   and critics. Pronouncements of religious fervor aside, he was no   choirboy. Hot-tempered, prone to violent outbursts, egotistical, and,   at heart, a bit of a scoundrel--he was as confounding as any black   star who took to the stage and screen in the twentieth century. But   when the character he created on stage and in pictures is considered   as a carefully molded caricature that burlesqued mainstream America's   contemptuous vision of Negroes, Perry also emerges as a cagey   self-publicist and brilliant comic actor. Perhaps most surprisingly,   when his on-set hassles with studio executives are viewed in the   context of the era's twisted racial arrangements and his pioneer   achievements in the film industry are weighed objectively, he rears   as a prideful, race-conscious agitator for equal treatment in the   entertainment field. He was, and still is, largely misunderstood. If   not quite the \"militant\" that he sometimes claimed, he was a sly   provocateur. \"I didn't fight my way in,\" he once said, \"I eased in.\"   At the time, it was realistically the only way of bucking the system.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Pride and Caribbean heritage aside, the racial tenor of   early-twentieth-century America dictated that Perry and his family   exercise some caution around white Americans. Like many American   Negroes, they often resorted to a bit of subterfuge and trickery   developed in Southern slave quarters as well as the West Indies--a   survival tactic that would be sustained long after slaves were freed.   It was perhaps best described by the old saw \"Got one mind for white   folks to see; 'nother for what I know is me.\" The tactic found its   most frequent expression in what slaves had called \"puttin' on ole   massa.\" Lincoln Perry was an expert at it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At the peak of his Hollywood stardom--when nearly every black   shoeshine boy in America began copying his lazy drawl and slow,   shambling gait, and motion-picture-cartoon representations of Negroes   were invariably modeled on the character he created--Lincoln Perry   doggedly adhered to that bit of black folk wisdom. He misled   interviewers with fanciful anecdotes about his past, distorting and   reshaping facts regarding his childhood as well as other aspects of   his personal life in nearly all comments to the press, and, until his   last years, generally bedeviled any attempt to expose the real person   behind his carefully concocted public persona. For Perry the ruse was   also an expression of the waggish delight he took in mocking   America's middle-class mores by confounding and often outfoxing   assumedly \"superior\" adversaries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The rambling, circuitous accounts of his past with which he regaled   reporters were often calculated misdirections, reflecting a roguish   temperament and sly, double-edged wit that, despite his stature as   one of America's best-known comedians, most observers were reluctant   to concede he possessed. Throughout his life, Lincoln Perry remained   an enigmatic, chameleonlike, conflicted figure--an entertainer whose   name and reputation would assume mythic proportions, while the man   behind the myth remained as illusive as a shadow. Even today, while   most are familiar with the name Stepin Fetchit and may even have used   it in a derogatory manner, very few have ever actually seen the actor   perform onstage or in motion pictures. (Scenes in which he appeared   have been deleted from most of the few movies available on tape or   shown on television.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    What generally surfaced in the media was the specter of a   self-indulgent profligate and malcontent whose antic conduct--much   like the often outrageous stunts of latter-day comics and Bad Boys   Richard Pryor and Martin Lawrence--seemed driven by some   self-destructive, deep-seated internal demon. The assessment was in   part correct. In addition, however, like Madonna, Howard Stern,   Britney Spears, J. Lo, Paris Hilton, and many other present-day   celebrities, he realized that even bad press sells--that notoriety   can and often does confer power.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There is little doubt that at an early age Perry was a cutup and   prankster. \"Ah was terrible bright, but Ah never studied,\" he once   told a reporter, insisting (as he commonly did with the mainstream   press) that his remarks be rendered in stilted stage dialect. \"Ah was   a bad example. Ah was a thug, allus stealin'.\" Even his self-dubbed   childhood nickname, \"Slop Jar,\" suggests that early on he had an   outsider's irreverent, somewhat satirical view of both himself and   his life circumstances.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Still, he developed a keen interest in religion at an early age,   which lead a childhood friend to insist that \"Step was always a   church fanatic.\" It was Dora Perry who initially fired that religious   fervor. Unlike her husband, she was a pious woman and a devout   Catholic who reportedly insisted that her children attend church   regularly. Lincoln adored his mother and seems to have followed her   instructions or given the appearance of doing so without much   complaint. Long after her death, Lincoln's connection to the church   remained one of the most stable elements in his life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Dora Perry apparently exerted tremendous influence over her son, but   outside of her religious convictions she remains a vague figure. The   paternal side of Lincoln's background, however, is a little less   shadowy. He spoke glowingly of his father on the few occasions that   he talked about his childhood and seemed to have been genuinely   impressed by the elder Perry's talent as well as his itinerant   lifestyle, which contrasted sharply with the religious and family   values esteemed by Lincoln's mother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    A free spirit and sportin' man, Joseph Perry often took to the road.   Leaving the tedium of family life and his cigar-wrapping job behind,   he frequently journeyed to Miami and the surrounding areas to search   for more invigorating work as an entertainer. Later, he moved his   family to the Tampa area, where the Rabbit Foot Company, a famed   black minstrel troupe, was based. Despite the distress his jaunts may   have caused his wife or the burden and hardship they may have placed   on the family, he was idolized by his son. From an early age, young   Lincoln displayed an urge to follow in his father's footsteps.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"His mother wanted him to be a dentist,\" Joseph Perry told a Los   Angeles Times reporter during a rare interview in 1929. \"She sewed   for the wife of a dentist and tried to have the boy work as an errand   boy for the dentist and absorb the idea of some day becoming a   dentist himself, but he would have none of it. And his mother was   heartbroken.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"My boy was always tapping his feet. He would sit down to eat a meal   and under the table his feet would always go tap, tap, tap.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \"His mother threatened him many times and ordered him to stop. But I   always told mammy, 'You hush up and let him tap, because that tapping   is going to get him somewhere some day.'\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Although there is no evidence that young Lincoln Perry spent much   time fretting over it, the disparity between the lifestyles and   values extolled by his mother and those of his father was extreme.   Throughout his life, Lincoln Perry seems to have displayed an   exceptional ability to accept and, in his own life, effortlessly   embrace behavior that most others considered conflicting or contrary.   He apparently admired and was drawn to both his father's love for   show business and the secular life, and his mother's piety and regard   for middle-class respectability. This despite the fact that at the   turn of the twentieth century many pious Americans scornfully viewed   the entertainment profession as Satan's domain. Among the Negro   middle class, scorn was even greater if the entertainers happened to   be minstrel performers. Just as many churchgoing blacks vigorously   denounced the blues as the devil's music, the Negro elite typically   condemned minstrelsy's ethnic comedy as reprehensible and   distorted--a detriment to racial progress.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The minstrel show craze that had swept mainstream America in the   mid-nineteenth century was waning by the 1900s, but it had left its   mark on the face of black entertainment. With few exceptions, the   entertainers who worked the traveling medicine shows, carnivals, tent   shows, and circuses in the early twentieth century not only reprised   much of the material introduced by white minstrel performers but also   \"corked up\" and appeared in blackface.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    According to some historians, minstrelsy's traditional semicircular   format, which featured a staid moderator and comic end men, Tambo and   Bones, who clowned and bantered with him, was created around 1840 by   the John Luca troupe, a family of black traveling performers. But it   was Dan Emmett and a group of white entertainers billing themselves   as the Virginia Minstrels who formalized the presentation and brought   it to the New York City stage in February 1843. Performed by white   men in garish blackface makeup, the three-act minstrel show quickly   became the nation's most popular form of entertainment.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Only a few black performers broke the color line before the Civil   War. William Henry \"Juba\" Lane, who joined the Ethiopian Serenaders   in the 1840s and toured Europe and the United States with the   formerly all-white company, was among the first and most popular. The   success and acceptance of pioneers like Lane, who was later touted as   the father of modern tap dance, set the stage for other black   performers, and just prior to the Civil War, a few all-black minstrel   troupes began surfacing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    America's first professional black musicians and entertainers, many   the sons and daughters of former slaves, cut their teeth on the   minstrel stage. Although they were spurned by most respectable   colored folk and their performances condemned by some black critics,   black minstrelsy soon established itself as the cornerstone of   African American performing arts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Early blackface stars included Billy Kersands, the reputed originator   of such popular dances as the Virginia Essence and the Buck and Wing;   Ernest Hogan, whose popularity soared with release of the song \"All   Coons Look Alike to Me\" in 1896; James Bland, the performer and   composer who wrote Virginia's state song, \"Carry Me Back to Old   Virginny\"; and the comedy team of Bert Williams and George Walker.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Joseph Perry probably watched and patterned his own act after those   charismatic entertainers. Talking to his son at home or, when the boy   was old enough to accompany him, taking him along on an excursion to   watch or perform in one of the tent shows or carnivals that passed   through the Tampa area, the elder Perry would have certainly eagerly   praised the accomplishments of those pioneers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Kersands, Hogan, and Bert Williams had altered and subtly humanized   the Negro stage characters (originally known as Sambo and Zip Coon)   popularized by white minstrel performers. But their updated versions   (the shiftless rural rube and bombastic, dandified city slicker),   still had firm roots in a mainstream stage tradition that openly   satirized the behavior of America's former slaves.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305074839781,"sku":"NP9781400096763","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781400096763.jpg?v=1767737309","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/stepin-fetchit-isbn-9781400096763","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}