1,242 likes, 52 comments - Gladys Bentley Society (@gladysbentleysoc) on Instagram: "This incredible human is a living testament to the power of faith, will, resilience, and service . Aside from her musical talent and success, Bentley is a significant and inspiring figure for some in the LGBT community and African Americans, and she was a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance. Advertising Notice We are sad to announce that on July 1, 2021, at the age of 87, Gladys Bentley of New York Mills, Minnesota passed away. And she didnt stop there. She was 96. Then, she made a jaw-dropping decision. The sponsor of a memorial may add an additional. Her parents tried to cure Bentley by taking her to numerous doctors. Gladys Presley died on August 14, 1958, at the age of 46 after suffering from heart failure. Years later, I was using her phone when I made an utterly chilling discovery. You are nearing the transfer limit for memorials managed by Find a Grave. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. In August 1928, she signed with Okeh Records company and recorded eight sides over the course of the next year up until 1929. Use Escape keyboard button or the Close button to close the carousel. And then Mrs West returned to education - working towards a PhD . Hansberry was so vengeful, he wasnt content to just sue Bentley; he also tried to prevent her from seeking any further success. Fictional characters based on Bentley appeared in Carl Van Vechten's novel Parties, Clement Woods' novel Deep River, and Blair Niles' novel Strange Brother. . He demanded she stop trying to perform on Broadway, and took his suit all the way up to the Supreme Court. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. Bentley recalled dreaming and being infatuated with her primary school female teachers but did not understand those feelings until later on in her life. Bentley began singing at rent parties and buffet flats. Or there might have been a more cynical reason, Gladys Bentley was a consummate show woman, and she simply didnt know how to let a publicity opportunity pass her by. 0 references. In her brief years, Bentley had seen America transform from a hedonistic party to a strait-laced society, and she came out the other side just as changed herself. For the Smithsonians Sidedoor podcast, host Haleema Shah tells the story of an unapologetically gay African-American performer in 1920s and 30s. His autopsy was legally sealed for fifty years but, in. Gladys Bentley joined New York's Harlem Renaissance jazz scene at age 16 and became an instant sensation and gender identity pioneer, performing piano and vocals at the most popular gay bars . On Thursday, Charlie Monk, music publisher and family friend of the country singer-songwriter, confirmed to The Tennessean that Weatherly died on Wednesday. It wouldnt be long before she shot to fame. His mother was the daughter of a cotton farmer and she met his father at church. In the early 1930s, she headlined at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. The world's biggest star was found in his bathroom at Graceland on August 16, 1977, and pronounced dead at Memphis Baptist Memorial Hospital. You are only allowed to leave one flower per day for any given memorial. "[5] She believed that growing up feeling rejected shaped her behavior; she never wanted a man to touch her, hated her brothers, wore boys' clothes, and had a crush on one of her female teachers in elementary school. The red flags were there from the start when it came to Charles Roberts. Please try again later. Try again. For many years, I lived in a personal hell, she wrote. The creativity that came out of that period shaped music, theater, dance, literature, intellectual thought and scholarship in a way that has shaped who we are today.. Though Bentley was in the process of finding herself, these discoveries only made her family more disgusted with her. There she received many complaints about her raunchy performances which resulted in the police locking up the doors of places she performed. The hit show about a Yorkshire corner shop, which starred Ronnie. On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player" and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". Try again later. [27] Bentley was one of the featured obituaries in Overlooked No More. Bentley didnt do anything by halves. Your Privacy Rights As one historian put it, She knew what was popular, what she could do, and what people would pay to see.. He wondered whether Bentley's father's sudden death resulted from an undiagnosed arrhythmia that triggered a . Here are bawdy facts about Gladys Bentley. 08/12/1907 . Langston Hughes praised Bentley as an amazing exhibition of musical energya large, dark, masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor while her fingers pounded the keyboarda perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm., As her star rose, Bentley began playing larger Harlem venues, like the Cotton Club and the iconic gay speakeasy the Clam House. | READ MORE. Learn more about merges. Ergo, no charges. After a lifetime of loneliness, she wrote that she had undergone medical treatment that awakened her womanliness. She claimed to have married twice, though Wilson says that one of the men denied ever having been married to Bentley. However, Floyd County Schools said in a statement Friday . Some pearl-clutching patrons complained, and the citys response was swift and brutal. Even as a teenage girl of 16, Bentley had grown into a headstrong young woman, and she was sick and tired of feeling rejected. Gladys Alberta Bentley (12 Aug 1907 - certain 18 Jun 1960) 0 references . She mostly sang in a deep, low range, but also reached high notes. Her songs revealed all her dirty little secrets. or don't show this againI am good at figuring things out. (Born on April 25, 1912, Gladys was actually 46 when she died.) Decades after his death, Baldwin's work is still celebrated, with his ruminations of life as a Black gay man still holding true for many today. A cause of death wasn't. In the 1920s, speakeasies ruled New York City, and Gladys Bentley ruled the speakeasies. Louisiana Death Records. On August 8, gravely ill, she was taken by ambulance to Methodist Hospital. One of Bentleys signature performance moves was to flirt shamelessly with women in the audience. James T. Wilson, Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010); Irene Monroe, Honoring Notorious Gladys, The Huffington Post Blog (February 12, 2010), http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-monroe/honoring-notorious-gladys_b_459929.html; http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Bentley/BentleyBio.html. Yep, the young cook later denied ever having a wedding ceremony with the singer. Her career continued after that point, though briefly. Date of death: August 5, 2017. Becoming a Find a Grave member is fast, easy and FREE. composer. Madame de Pompadour didn't just share King Louis XV's bed, she also shared his power. By some accounts, Bentleys marriage with Roberts was brief and tragic, but according to Roberts himself, it didnt happen at all. Gladys George was one of the movies' greatest hard-luck dames, both on- and off-screen. Close this window, and upload the photo(s) again. The teenage Bentley was in way over her head when she moved to Harlem, and she needed to find work, stat. Was Bentley slowly unraveling? As times progressed and federal laws continued to change, there became a point where Bentley had to carry special permits to allow her to perform in men's clothing. Catherine of Aragon is now infamous as King Henry VIIIs rejected queenbut few people know her even darker history. When the ship hit an iceberg and sank, she became its youngest survivor. Use the links under See more to quickly search for other people with the same last name in the same cemetery, city, county, etc. As a result of her lack of gender conformity, she was teased by her classmates and often ostracized by her family and peers. Unable to express her talent on Broadway, she was forced to move back to Harlem in 1934, where she then played at the Ubangi Club for three years before it closed in 1937. Gladyslived at address, Kentucky. "It broke my heart," Elvis Presley said. Gladys Bentley knew how to live life to the fullest, and with her large, bodacious build and flashy sense of style, she had no problem getting women to fall into bed with her. All Rights Reserved. Weve updated the security on the site. At the time of her much-too-early death in 1960 from pneumonia at age 52, she was waiting to be ordained as a minister in the Temple of Love In Christ, Inc. Bentley, illustrator Prentiss Taylor, and singer Nora Holt . On May 15, 1958 she appeared as a contestant on You Bet Your Life, engaging in discussion with host Groucho Marx before accompanying herself on piano as she sang "Them There Eyes". "Biblical Gender Bending in Harlem: The Queer Performance of Nugent's Salome. Langston Hughes recorded his reaction to the beginning of Bentley's career success: For two or three amazing years, Miss Bentley sat, and played piano all night long with scarcely a break between the notes, sliding from one song to another, with a powerful and continuous underbeat of jungle rhythm. This memorial has been copied to your clipboard. She had her own weekly radio program the following year. Please ensure you have given Find a Grave permission to access your location in your browser settings. Resend Activation Email, Please check the I'm not a robot checkbox, If you want to be a Photo Volunteer you must enter a ZIP Code or select your location on the map. Historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. even described the Harlem Renaissance being surely as gay as it was black. Then she proceeded to blow his mind. In the end, the booming, bodacious, and vivacious singer succumbed to the relatively common ailment of pneumonia, which came on quickly and didnt let her go. Her mother had desperately wanted a boy, and when the nurses told her she had a little girl instead, the matriarch refused to even touch her baby. Save to an Ancestry Tree, a virtual cemetery, your clipboard for pasting or Print. She rose to fame during Prohibition in New York City, entertaining speakeasy audiences with performances testing the boundaries of gender and sexuality. Then again, there were rumors that would have made her mother straight-up faint. BETSY LAYNE, Ky. The Floyd County school district is mourning the death of an elementary school teacher. 3 references. Bentley became an active member of the "Temple of Love In Christ" Church and was on her way to becoming an ordained minister at the time of her death from pneumonia at the age of 52. [2] She heard that Harry Hansberry's Clam House on 133rd Street, one of the city's most notorious gay speakeasies,[8] needed a male pianist. She quickly made a name for herself as somebody who sang ribald songs, says Wilson. Try again later. Despite those challenges Bentley likely encountered in New Yorks entertainment business, it is no surprise that she moved to Harlem. 0 references. The database also contains older death records for some parishes, such as deaths that occurred in Jefferson parish before 1911, and deaths that occurred in Orleans parish as early as . On Thursday (April 27) the singer's reps officially confirmed that Gladys Knight is not dead. All Rights Reserved. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers. Her mother had desperately wanted a boy, and when the nurses told her she had a little girl instead, the matriarch refused to even touch her baby. Try again later. Learn about how to make the most of a memorial. GLADYS BENTLEY Gladys D. Fleming Bentley, 77, of 1020 Virginia Avenue, Anderson County, died Friday, August 2, 2002 at Heritage Hall Care Center in Lawrenceburg. FLOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WYMT) - Funeral arrangements were announced for Betsy Layne Elementary School teacher Lea Bentley. based on information from your browser. Photograph of Gladys Bentley by an unidentified photographer, 1927-45. Quickly see who the memorial is for and when they lived and died and where they are buried. A system error has occurred. 0 references. "She was just defiant in who she was, and for gender and sexuality studies today, she shows the performance of . What she found was absolute infamy. It's a woman, Wilson says. Suddenly, she had to get a special permit to wear mens clothing for her performances, and endured heckling on the streets. Edit a memorial you manage or suggest changes to the memorial manager. Before long, Bentleys world got turned upside down again. Please enter your email and password to sign in. Bentley met Don when he phoned her up one day, claiming to know a mutual friend. She's still alive and well, stop believing what you see on the Internet, " they said. By the 1950s, Bentley was approaching middle age and the roaring 20s of her youth and the Harlem Renaissance community that flirted with modernism was now a thing of her past. Gipson passed, but the spitfire performer didnt wait until he was cold in his grave to jump into bedwith yet another man. In shock and disbelief Elvis rushed to the hospital. There's something about the family structure that encourages secrets. As Bentley put it, My hands fairly flew over the keys. And the response was legendary. Bentley made her spectacular debut on the Great White Way in 1933until it turned into an utter disaster. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tuxedo and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience. Just as Gladys Bentley was taking center-stage on Broadway, her old Clam House boss Harry Hansberry came out of the woodwork to ruin her life. [1][2][24] It was initially believed to be the "Asian flu" but later turned into "pneumonia". To view a photo in more detail or edit captions for photos you added, click the photo to open the photo viewer. Gladys Bentley's speakeasy from the Harlem Renaissance, "Clam Jam," was a gay nightlife scene 100 years ahead of its time. Gladys Bentley, one of the most flamboyant blues entertainers of the 20th century, began performing in New York City as a singer and male impersonator. The singer was infamous for making up juicy stories about herself, and this Don remains a vague figure in Bentleys life. Some even claimed that her infamous penthouse, complete with a coterie of servants and a car, actually belonged to one of Bentleys rich lesbian lovers. Eventually, Gladys grew old enough to notice this icy upbringingand the consequences were devastating. "She was always my best girl." Blues Singer. The best revenge might be living well, but that doesn't mean we can always turn the other cheek. Due to her inability to feel conformable and her family's inability to accept her as she was, Bentley ran away from home at the age of 16 to begin her life in New York City.[2]. Yow. She took a seat at the piano on the set and performed a song that showed a vocal range and confidence that hadnt diminished since her days in Harlem. She'd been lying about her age to conceal the fact that she was four years older than Vernon Presley. In an article she wrote about her life for Ebony magazine, she said that soon after arriving in Harlem she auditioned at the Mad House, a venue on 133rd Street, which was in need of a male pianist. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. In the summer of 1952, while married to Gipson, Bentley penned an article for Ebony magazine looking back on her stardom and her personal life. Gladys became severely ill in August 1958 due to undiagnosed hepatitis, brought on by alcoholism, while Elvis was serving in US Army in Germany; he . In 1931, Gladys Bentley was at the top of her game, and was one of the most sought-after performersand loversin the United States. When Bentley relocated to Los Angeles, she allegedly married J. T. Gibson, who died in 1952,[22] the same year in which she married Charles Roberts, a cook in Los Angeles; they were married in Santa Barbara, California, went on a honeymoon in Mexico. [2] In Bentley's Ebony article,[3] she wrote about trouble in the home as she was growing up and the relationship between her and her mother. Gladys Bentley should be remembered for being a gender outlaw, says Wilson. But she still had one more legacy left. Want just a taste of Gladys Bentleys scorching lyrics? [21] In 1931, Bentley had a civil ceremony in New Jersey, in a public union with a white woman whose identity is unknown. While Wilson says there is no record of that union taking place, the story is still a glimpse into Bentleys unapologetic openness about her sexual orientation, and her acute understanding of the power of shock value. Places would bill her as a male impersonator or even an actual male performer, thanks to her dapper styling and masculine energy. Unlike other notorious party girls -- including Barbara Payton and Lila Leeds -- she consistently delivered solid performances over the course of a half-century career. I won't pretend to know enough astrology to deduce any meaning from this, but it felt important to note. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era in the 1950s, she started wearing dresses and married (within five months of meeting) Charles Roberts, age 28, a cook, in a civil ceremony in Santa Barbara, California, in 1952. At the time of her death, she had been more involved in the church and had just been ordained as a minister despite never getting her official paperwork. Get the latest information about timed passes and tips for planning your visit, Search the collection and explore our exhibitions, centers, and digital initiatives, Online resources for educators, students, and families, Engage with us and support the Museum from wherever you are, Find our upcoming and past public and educational programs, Learn more about the Museum and view recent news, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Museum of African American History & Culture. You can customize the cemeteries you volunteer for by selecting or deselecting below. Openly lesbian, she sang raunchy remakes of popular tunes in a deep voice, dressed in her signature mens style of tuxedo and top hat. Gladys was diagnosed with hepatitis shortly after, and her symptoms worsened significantly after that. Gladys Bentley died suddenly from the flu in Los Angeles in 1960 at the age of 52. It's up there with being a communist, Wilson says. Even more, she often sang about "sissies" and "bulldaggers"[10] and, through innuendo or more literally, about her female lovers, and she flirted with women in the audience. 0 cemeteries found in Carson, Los Angeles County, California, USA. Whatever her reasons for marrying men, Gladys Bentley sure didnt know how to pick them. Michael Bekoev was a Ukrainian bodybuilder who died of a heart attack at age 54. She relocated to southern California, marketing herself as Americas Greatest Sepia Piano Player and The Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs, a cheeky nod to her inelegant lyrical double entendres. All photos uploaded successfully, click on the Done button to see the photos in the gallery. Bentley, who never seemed to look at a man before, married the very manly J.T. We want our readers to trust us. At the time, she didnt understand her desiresbut all that was about to change in a big way. Family and friends are welcome to send flowers or leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. This account has been disabled. It only got worse from there. Names. By 1934, just a year after her debut, Gladys Bentley had to give up on her Broadway baby dreams, and she slunk back to Ubangi Club with her white coat tails between her legs. Oops, we were unable to send the email. "She was always my best girl." At her funeral, Elvis was inconsolable. Are you adding a grave photo that will fulfill this request? Actress Lynda Baron, best known for her role as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in BBC TV sitcom Open All Hours, has died at the age of 82. Get it, Gladys. She's been a special interest of mine for quite some time, and in the 1920's and 30's she was especially prominent. Acclaimed singer Gladys Knight recently became the latest celebrity to fall victim to an online death hoax. The eldest of four children, Bentley was born on August 12, 1907 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to George L. Bentley from the U.S. and Mary (Mote) Bentley from Trinidad. Fed up and at the brink of her sanity, Bentley resorted to drastic measures. GladysCrawford1909IndianaGladys Crawfordin 1940 United States Federal Census Gladys Crawfordwas born circa 1909, at birth place, Indiana, to Lon H Crawfordand Pearl Crawford.