Eddie Cantor & Blackface

Eddie Cantor

Source: Travalanche

Born Isidore Itskowitz in New York City in 31 January 1892, film star, Eddie Cantor, began appearing on stage as a teenager. Among his first jobs was singing for tips as a waiter in Coney Island with Jimmy Durante at piano. He first appeared as a vaudeville performer in 1907 at the Clinton Music Hall. He may have begun performing in blackface at the Lyrics Theatre in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1911 while working with Joseph M. Schenck ("skenk") and Marcus Loew's People’s Vaudeville Company. Loew would later found the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) film studio in 1924 with Louis B. Mayer. Schenk would later found 20th Century Pictures in 1933 with Darryl F. Zanuck. That became 20th Century Fox in 1935 upon merging with Fox Film Corporation founded by William Fox in 1915. Fox had been another vaudeville impresario (running a chain of vaudeville venues) turned Hollywood producer. Joseph Michael Schenk is no relation to Joseph Thuma Schenck who was part of the vaudeville team, Van & Schenk, with Gus Van, and with whom Cantor composed the lyrics for 'Green River' in 1920. Cantor composed or partnered in the composition of numerous titles, such as 'Eddie (Steady)' recorded in 1923.

Cantor married in 1914 to one Ida Tobias in 1914. Their family would grow to five daughters. In 1917 Cantor formed a team with Al Lee that gained him a spot in the Ziegfeld Follies post-show on Broadway: 'Midnight Frolic'. Cantor then joined the Ziegfeld Follies, with which succeeding editions he performed for the next decade. Cantor performed in the Follies in blackface as well, just as he would throughout his career. Blackface, or whiteface, is probably about as natural as it gets with creatures dressed in different shades who have eyes and access to paint. It isn't known if the first children who ever painted their faces to look like someone else did so out of a sense of superiority, but it seems more likely that they were just playing around upon noticing things that simply are, like this webpage which is whiteface on blackface because it's easier on the eyes. Blackface arrived with the minstrel show in the early 19th century and it went two directions. Not a few used it, and the later coon song, as a means of seeming greater through ridicule of others, a damning sort of thing into which full-of-itself racism fits. At the other end of the spectrum were those for whom blackface was a means of including blacks in their experience of life. Minstrelsy was into its early heydays when black abolitionist, Fredrick Douglass, strongly condemned it in his Rochester newspaper, 'The North Star', in 1848. It's not difficult to see why, as people can be ugly. Blackface yet thrived throughout the United States until vaudeville arrived with a greater variety of faces than black. Likely being as stupid in his youth as most are, Cantor began doing blackface as a young man in a mixed zeitgeist where it was largely but a thoughtless way to have fun or pay the rent, no damage intended. For the relatively fewer who used blackface to outright degrade there were others who used it in tribute to blacks. Blacks performed in minstrels as well, though largely for the paycheck, often considerably more than what clearing farm fields of rocks could earn you. Blacks also performed in whiteface. So there was this tug of war with blackface in culture, some using it in vain self-glorification, most perhaps using it ill like apes of their times, intending neither harm nor intimidation, perhaps even meaning well, others thinking to lift blacks along with it from the inside. The entrenched situation of a cultural runaway ranging from puffed up self-image for not being black to silly homages. Insulting as some representations of black people were, others were endearing. Degrading as the culture could be, it also made of blacks a beloved people to who saw through the cartoons. Yet racism didn't (doesn't) need to be overt to exist. Like most things unfair it occurred behind the scenes in fixes untold, for bearing in silence, as goes most the portion of all who live, even noisemakers like Cantor. It's been a hard thing to be the elect in pulling humankind out of millennia of slavery. It's been bitter weather for humankind for a real long time, and the lives of those to come will probably remain the most difficult thing that they will do.

So what happens when a nation puts an end to slavery with millions black and white now desperately looking for a job after all the graves have been dug? Depending on your luck you could end up like some in a mean scenario, like others just going about their business trying to get along, or yet others for whom sympathy with life in general was a natural constitution simply because one was alive oneself. To what sociopaths may not have been disposed wasn't a major hurdle for all. Cantor probably recognized that he put on his pants the same way as blacks do. Whatever the reasons a young man like him would launch a career in blackface, it isn't likely that he, nor the majority of the population, were retarded and couldn't figure the particular troubles that past slaves could have in a world that isn't fair, or the enormous contribution that blacks had made in the building of America. Nor was there any deeply philosophical paradox in Cantor's use of blackface. Psychoanalyze it as will, but it was really pretty simple: he painted his face black because he liked black people. What? Kids dressed like Roy Rogers on Halloween because they thought they were better than him? Well, hell yeah, cowboys in general and wield a sign that says so! I, too, surround myself with all that I despise so that I can be happy. I paint my face blue just to let the sky know what I think of it. I don't paint it at all to let the air know. Quakers are next for which I've bought a blue hat like on the oats box. Quakers have been getting too big for their britches ever since they were children. I'm going to get some satisfaction every time they or someone even remotely like them takes a look at me. Like myself, Cantor's hatred of humankind didn't stop with blacks. He caricaturized the American Indian, gays, white people and Jews, one of which he was. Later in his career he thought so poorly of young Sammy Davis Jr. that he made special point of helping to further his early career via several appearances on 'The Colgate Comedy Hour' beginning in 1952. Blacks had, in the first place, contributed to his from the start.

The month prior to performing w the Follies for the first time Cantor held his first recording sessions [as listed at DAHR] on 12 July 1917, singing a couple songs that he would soon use in the Follies of 1917: 'The Modern Maiden's Prayer' / 'That's the Kind of Baby for Me' (Victor 18342). Music VF has that charting at #10 in December. Cantor would position 20 babies in the Top Ten to as late as 'What a Perfect Combination' at #7 in 1932. He topped the charts at #1 thrice per 'Margie' in February 1921, 'No, No, Nora' in November 1923 and 'If You Knew Susie' in July 1925.

'The Modern Maiden's Prayer'   Eddie Cantor

The King's Orchestra conducted by Rosario Bourdon

First recording on matrix B-20216

Recorded 12 July 1917 in NYC   Victor 18342

Music: James Hanley   Lyrics: Ballard MacDonald

'That's the Kind of a Baby for Me'   Eddie Cantor

The King's Orchestra conducted by Rosario Bourdon

Second recording on matrix B-20217

Recorded 12 July 1917 in NYC   Victor 18342   Charts: #10 Dec 1917

Music: J. C. Egan   Lyrics: Alfred C. Harriman

'You'd Be Surprised'   Eddie Cantor

Emerson 10102   Issued Jan 1920   Charts: #3 Feb 1920

Composition: Irving Berlin

Music: Walter Donaldson   Lyrics: Gus Kahn

Directed by Thornton Freeland w choreography by Busby Berkeley

Music: Walter Donaldson   Lyrics: Gus Kahn

Directed by Leo McCarey w choreography by Busby Berkeley

Music: Walter Donaldson   Lyrics: Gus Kahn