![]() In Bentley’s heyday of the 1930s, she owned a Park Avenue apartment with servants and other accoutrements of wealth. She created her own musical revue with a chorus of eight male dancers in drag, the primary attraction at the well-known Ubangi Club, 1934-1937. By 1933, Bentley headlined in nightclubs and theatres such as The Cotton Club and The Apollo. She had her own weekly radio program the following year. Okeh Race Records released eight singles of her music between 19. She moved to speakeasies and night clubs in Jungle Alley, the center of Harlem’s sporting life. A large, 250-pound woman, her deep voice appealed to straight, gay, black, and white audiences.īentley began singing at rent parties and buffet flats. In fact, she became the most prominent mannish lesbian of the Harlem Renaissance. She often dressed as a man in her signature black-and-white tuxedo. From early on, Bentley overtly included sexuality in her act with her song content, stage moves, and attire. The family struggled financially.Ī talented pianist and blues singer, she ran away to New York City at the age of sixteen. Her parents tried to “cure” Bentley by taking her to numerous doctors. Bentley reported wearing her three younger brothers’ suits to school when growing up. The eldest of four children, Bentley was born on Augin Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to George L. She was a pioneer in pushing the envelope of gender, sexuality, class, and race with parody and exaggeration, personally and professionally. She was one of the most well-known and financially successful black women in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. Gladys Bentley (stage name, Bobbie Minton) was a Harlem Renaissance blues singer and cross dresser. ![]()
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