Vintage Photo Of The Week

The Legendary Nicholas Brothers with their mother Viola

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY WEEKEND!!

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Vintage Photo Of The Week

Lola Falana in Faberge's Tigress Perfume Ad

(Photo Credit: Temple of Schlock)

When Faberge selected singer/actress/dancer Lola Falana to be the face of their Tigress perfume campaign in the mid-1970s, they were making history. This would be the first time that an African American woman served as a spokesmodel for a cosmetic line that was not solely for Black folks.

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Vintage Photo Of The Week

Peggy Dillard-Toone - Vogue Aug. 1977

(Photo: Albert Watson)

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Vintage Photo Of The Week

Billie Holiday

Jazz Singer and Songwriter

(April 7, 1915 - July 17, 1959)

Must. Have. Those. Earrings. NOW!

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Vintage Photo Of The Week

Easter Sunday in Harlem, 1947

Henri Cartier-Bresson

(Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum/The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

 
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!
 
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Vintage Photo Of The Week

Paula Kelly

Dancer and Actress

Paula Kelly (b. October 21, 1943, Jacksonville, Florida) is an dancer and actress in motion pictures and television.

Daughter of a jazz musician, Kelly was raised in New York City's Harlem where she attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art, majoring in music. She continued her studies at the Juilliard School of Music majoring in dance under Martha Graham. Graduating with an M.S. degree, she performed as a soloist with major modern dance companies such as Martha Graham, Donald MacKayle, and Alvin Ailey. She also performed as guest artist and sometimes assistant choreographer for numerous television musical specials, including "Sammy and Friends" (starring Sammy Davis, Jr.); co-choreographer of the BBC production of Peter Pan, in which she also performed the role of "Tiger-Lily"; Quincy Jones' TV tribute to Duke Ellington, We Love You Madly; The Richard Pryor Show; and Gene Kelly's New York, New York, in which the two Kellys performed a duet.

Kelly made her Broadway debut as Mrs. Veloz in the 1964 musical Something More!, sharing the stage with Barbara Cook. Her other Broadway credits include The Dozens (1969), Paul Sills' Story Theatre (1971), Ovid's Metamorphoses (1971), and Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies (1981) with Gregory Hines and Phyllis Hyman.

Kelly performed a dance solo at the Academy Awards for the nominated song "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". She appeared on the London stage in Sweet Charity opposite dancer and actress Juliet Prowse as "Helene", for which Kelly won the London Variety Award for Best Supporting Actress. She starred in the record-breaking west coast premiere of "Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope" at the Mark Taper Forum, for which she was awarded the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, Variety, and the first of three NAACP Image Awards.

Kelly's film credits include the Bob Fosse-directed film Sweet Charity; Soylent Green; The Spook Who Sat By The Door; The Andromeda Strain; Uptown Saturday Night; Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling; Drop Squad; and Once Upon A Time. . . When We Were Colored.

Kelly had a recurring role as Liz Williams on the first season of the sitcom Night Court, for which she received an Emmy nomination. Kelly has also guest-starred in a variety of television movies and sitcoms, including Sanford and Son, Golden Girls, Good Times, Any Day Now, and in the groundbreaking Oprah Winfrey-produced The Women of Brewster Place (based on the novel by Gloria Naylor), in which she portrayed one half of a lesbian couple (opposite Lonette McKee) struggling against homophobia in an inner city ghetto. She was nominated for a second Emmy for her role in The Women of Brewster Place.

Kelly posed for the August 1969 issue of Playboy magazine in a full-frontal (though shadowed) dance posture and in a stop-motion nude dance sequence. Kelly was the first woman ever to be pictured in a full-frontal nude pose in the magazine, with Marilyn Cole being the first Playmate so pictured. (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

To learn more about Ms. Kelly, check out her website: http://www.paulakelly.net/


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Vintage Photo of the Week

Check out Miss Diana Ross getting her coordination on!

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Vintage Photo of the Week

This is South African jazz singer, Letta Mbulu. You might not recognize her name or face, but you've definitely heard her voice. She is the young lady that sings on Michael Jackson's "Liberian Girl". Ms. Mbulu has also worked with Quincy Jones on The Roots and The Color Purple soundtracks.

For more info on Letta Mbulu, check out her bio here.

Vintage Photo of the Week

Photo: Galos Publishing/AMNY.com

For this week's Vintage Photo of the Week, I thought I'd venture outside of the U.S. to Puerto Rico and share this picture of Ruth Fernández, the first successful Black female Puerto Rican singer. Here she is performing at the 1968 Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City.

Known as “El alma de Puerto Rico hecha canción" which means "The soul of Puerto Rico made song", this diva was the first woman to lead an orchestra and sing at the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC. Sra. Fernández also served as a Senator in the Puerto Rican legistature.

For more info on Sra. Fernández, check out Music of Puerto Rico.

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Vintage Photo of the Week

In celebration of Mother's Day weekend, I thought it would be fitting to post this beautiful photo of the late vocalist, Dr. Nina Simone and her daughter, Lisa Celeste (now known as Simone) taken in 1971.

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Vintage Photos of the Week

Today is the first day of NYC Fashion Week Fall '09, so it would only be appropriate to kick it off by paying homage to one of the pioneers of Black fashion, Dorothea Towles Church.

Ms. Church was the FIRST Black model to work for French couture designers in the 1950s. Her career began at Christian Dior in 1949, as a replacement for one of Mr. Dior's models. From there, she went on to grace the fashion showrooms and runways for couturiers Pierre Balmain, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jacques Fath and Robert Piguet.

“If you’re beautiful, they don’t care what color you are,” [Ms. Church] said of the French, describing her days in the couture salons and nights in postwar Paris.

“I got invited out all the time,” she said in Barbara Summers’s 1998 book “Black and Beautiful.” “I was the only black model in Europe and I just thought I was an international person.” (Source: NYTimes.com)

Upon returning to the U.S., Ms. Church organized her own fashion couture shows, using her sizable collection of couture pieces she amassed during her modeling days in Europe. Working with Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Ms. Church toured the country bringing never-before-seen fashion to the masses. In Barbara Summer's Black and Beautiful: How Women of Color Changed the Fashion Industry, Ms. Church says, “I feel that my going all over America with my show had a great influence on American black women dressing differently and feeling good about themselves...I saw them dressing more creatively, more internationally. They could say, ‘If she can do it, I can do it, too.’"