Maya Angelou and the Purple Onion

Another pioneer offbeat, avant-garde, and/or existential cellar, with a more or less continuous show featuring folk singers, monologists, and comics of the cerebral variety.

That was the legendary Herb Caen's appraisal of the Purple Onion. An off-shoot of of Enrico Banducci's legendary hungry i, the Purple Onion opened in early 1953.

Weep not for the hungry fellows who run the "hungry i" tavern on Columbus avenue. They'll do their own weeping in a branch they're opening across the street to be called "The Purple Onion"... (San Francisco Chronicle December 18, 1952)

According to Phyllis Diller, Keith Rockwell, a co-owner of the hungry i, left his partnership with Banducci to open the Purple Onion as a vehicle for the "chanteuse" Jorie Remes. Diller wrote that Rockwell, who "absolutely adored her," was also a musician who played string bass.

Jorie Remes (Marjorie Remes who was later was known as Jorie Remus) was a native of New York City. She perfected her craft in the early 1950s at La Boite de Sardines [Sardine Tin] along the Paris Champs Elysees. "Jorie Remus was too hip for the room before being too hip for the room was a thing, and almost even before there was a room worth being to hip in." That is the appraisal of Shawn Levey in his book In on The Joke: The Original Queens of Stand-Up Comedy.

source: San Francisco Chronicle May 9, 1953

She was a singer and monologist who sang and wrote her own material that she called "20th Century Laments." Historian and former Chronicle theater critic Gerald Nachman designated her as one of the "foremothers" of stand-up comedy. Phyllis Diller described her as "a willowy, sexy, French chanteuse-type with a husky voice, a droll sense of humor, and haughty, heaving affected manner." By November 1953, a Chronicle columnist remarked that crowds lined up outside the Purple Onion's door to watch her performance. When Variety magazine reviewed her act they noted that she projected "warm cynicism" and that she "has a knowledge of humor in its less blatant forms."

At the same time that Remes was putting the Purple Onion on the map as a destination for the night hawks of San Francisco, Maya Angelou, then going by Marguerite Angelos, was in the process of divorcing her husband. Her savings were dwindling so she went looking for work in San Francisco's International Settlement. This was the entertainment district that supplanted the former Barbary Coast occupying Pacific Avenue between Montgomery and Kearney Streets.

In her memoir, Singin' And Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas, Angelou remembered how the block had four strip joints. She found work as a showgirl at one of them -- the Garden of Allah. (Angelou may have changed the name of this establishment -- it is not listed in the city directories or phonebooks of that time). Once the management discovered her expressive skill as a dance, they had her perform her artistic routines fully clothed and she started bringing in a different clientele. The audience transitioned from lonely old men to "laughing open faced couples" who came to see her.

One night she noticed a party of four - three men and a woman. Angelou described the latter, Jorie Remes, as a "young Marlene Dietrich-looking woman" with a shock of "sunlight-yellow hair." They were all from the Purple Onion, just a few blocks away. Word had spread about this expressive dancer. Angelou wrote:

These beautiful people and their friends began dropping in each evening and I awaited their arrival. I danced indifferently until I caught a glimpse of their party near the back of the room, then I offered them the best steps I had and as soon as the dance was finished I hurried over.

Jorie Remes (from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)

Remes had accepted a gig at a New York nightclub for the new year and the club was looking for a new headliner to replace her. They learned that Angelou was being let go by her club and wondered whether she could sing as well as dance. She volunteered that she could and hey found her a vocal coach and helped her work up a repertoire of songs. She and the rest of them even brainstormed her new stage name. Maya (a truncation of Marguerite) was a nickname her brother familiarly called her and Angelou was adapted from her married surname - Angelos.

With Jorie Remes on her way to New York City, the Purple Onion debuted the name and persona Maya Angelou ("The New Singing Sensation") in their advertisement in the Chronicle of January 2, 1954. The Chronicle's nightlife correspondent, who went by "The Owl," excitedly announced on January 9, 1954 that:

The Purple Onion now has a bigger and better show with that young romantic baritone Patrick McVey and that new sensational find Maya Angelou. The Owl predicted she would make you forget Jorie Remes.

He later noted audiences frequently requested her rendition of the Louis Jordan song "Push ka pee she pie." He continued to gush:

The exotic Maya Angelou, now appearing at the Purple Onion, has more expression in her hands than most singers have in their faces. You really have to see Maya's graceful gestures to appreciate her.

Maya Angelou is the spellbinder at the Purple Onion. One moment the passion flower sings quietly and demurely and suddenly, she erupts in strictly spontaneous combustion. An artist with both delicacy and fire, Miss Angelou is certainly the most expressive singer in these parts.

After this auspicious start, her show business career took off. She continued her run at the Purple Onion through the end of August 1954. She then joined a European tour of Porgy and Bess as a dancer. While in Paris she headlined at a nightclub.

Mars-Club presents Maya Angelou (source: New York Herald Tribune October 2, 1954)

She returned to San Francisco in September 1955 where she headlined at a new nightclub called the Hollow Egg. We haven't found any photographs of Maya Angelou performing in San Francisco. Fortunately, the 1957 feature film, Calypso Heat Wave documented her act.

Maya Angelou, still shot from Calypso Heat Wave (1957)

Maya Angelou's show business career continued for several more years. She appeared in clubs in Los Angeles and New York. She also recorded a calypso album for Liberty Records in 1957. But her name and her fame started with the Purple Onion on Columbus Avenue.

The Purple Onion in 1964 (source: San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection)

Bibliography

"Americans Make Good as Paris Nitery Ops," The Billboard February 3, 1951.

Angelou, Maya, The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (Modern Library, 2004).

"The Bachelor," San Francisco Chronicle November 23, 1953.

Caen, Herb, Herb Caen's Guide to San Francisco (Doubleday, 1957).

De Beix, Maxime, "Paris," Variety October 25, 1950

Diller, Phyllis, Like A Lampshade in A Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy (J.P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2005).

Jennings, Dean, "It's News to Me," San Francisco Chronicle December 18, 1952.

Levy, Shawn, In on The Joke: The Original Queens of Stand-up Comedy (Doubleday, 2022).

"Maya Angelou in Calypso Heat Wave (1957)," Youtube.

Nachman, Gerald, Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s (Pantheon Books, 2003).

The Owl, "After Night Falls," San Francisco Chronicle January 9, 1954

The Owl, "After Night Falls," San Francisco Chronicle February 27, 1954.

The Owl, "After Night Falls," San Francisco Chronicle April 10, 1954.

"Purple Onion, S.F.," Variety August 12, 1953

Steif, Bill, "San Francisco," Variety July 6, 1955

Databases used:

Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive

Gallica
San Francisco Chronicle Historical

The San Francisco of Maya Angelou

The San Francisco Public Library is honored to be the home of “Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman,” Lava Thomas's monument to Maya Angelou. Angelou, born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis, Missouri in 1928, came to the Bay Area with her family in the 1940s. She documented her eventful life through several autobiographies. We also have clues to her activities in San Francisco through our print and database collections.

The 1950 Census, found in Ancestry.com, shows her living with her mother, Vivian Baxter, her brother, Bailey, and her son, Clyde at 948 Fulton Street in San Francisco. The Census mis-records her first name as Margaret and notes that she worked as a "saleslady" in "retail music" (i.e., a record shop).

She was listed twice in the 1949 San Francisco City Directory.

Her name appears as the misspelled Margrette Johnson, a dancer residing at 948 Fulton Street (her family's address) and as Marguerite Johnson, a clerk for David Rosenbaum (the owner of the Melrose Record Shop).

At the beginning of her memoir Singin' And Swingin' And Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), she described getting hired at the Melrose Record Shop at 1256 Fillmore Street.

San Francisco Chronicle April 29, 1951

The store featured jazz and rhythm and blues music not easily found in other stores. Louise Cox noticed the young Maya Angelou's knowledgeable taste in recordings and hired her as a clerk. 

The Billboard November 5, 1949

Husband and wife Richard and Louise Cox ran the operations of the store. Angelou met her future husband Tosh Angelos working there.

Angelou made an appearance in the November 28, 1951 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle with her married name -- Mrs. Marguerite Angelos. This family event happened at the Booker T. Washington Center and featured art and performances by children. Angelou assisted in putting the program together.

Her autobiography, Gather Together in My Name (1974), tells of her early forays into the performing arts. She told of being tutored by an experienced dancer named R.L. Poole. Angelou recalled her performing with him as the team Poole and Rita (Rita was a diminutive of Marguerite) at the Champagne Supper Club. This nightclub operated at 1849 Post Street between 1952 and 1955. The club frequently advertised in the Chronicle but there is no mention of Poole and Rita there. The dance team may have rated as "others" as shown in this blurb announcing comedy stars Red Foxx and Slappy White.

source: San Francisco Chronicle April 4, 1952

Around this time, Maya Angelou met dancer Alvin Ailey at the dance classes they took with avant-garde choreographers Walland Lathrop and Anna Halprin. Ailey's biographer described them forming a dance team, Al and Rita, that performed at small community events. Ailey, in his autobiography, noted they rehearsed frequently but never danced outside of her apartment.

Pearl Primus, the Trinidadian-American dancer and choreographer, also strongly influenced Angelou as a performer. She described being moved to tears watching Primus perform her dances rooted in African tradition. An awed Angelou auditioned for Primus who exclaimed, "You are a dancer. You are a dancer," and awarded Angelou a scholarship to study with her in New York.

Bibliography

Ailey, Alvin, Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey (Carol Pub. Group, 1995).

Angelou, Maya, The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou (Modern Library, 2004).

"David Rosenbaum [obituary]," San Francisco Chronicle January 6, 1998.

"Dealer Doings," The Billboard November 5, 1949.

Dunning, Jennifer, Alvin Ailey: A Life in Dance (Addison-Wesley, 1996).

"Notes And Addenda," San Francisco Chronicle November 28, 1951.

Polk's Crocker-Langley San Francisco City Directory (R.L. Polk & Co.,1949)

Schwartz, Peggy, The Dance Claimed Me: A Biography of Pearl Primus, with Murray Schwartz (Yale University Press, 2011).

Databases used:

Ancestry.com
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive

San Francisco Chronicle Historical

J. C. Cebrian's gift to the Music Department of the San Francisco Public Library

image source: Sigma Delta Pi website

Juan Cebrián Cervera (1848-1935) was a prominent Spanish-American citizen of San Francisco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although he was born and died in Madrid, he came to California in 1870 where he made his fortune. He appears in directories and in the press variously as J. C. Cebrian, John C. Cebrian or Juan C. Cebrian. A man of many skills and interests he was variously described as a civil engineer, an architect, a surveyor, a scientist and a capitalist. 

Educated as a military engineer in Spain, he came to the United States in the 1870s where he worked on Pacific coast lighthouse construction. He later worked for the Western Pacific Railroad. In the 1880s he was the municipal architect and town surveyor for Santa Barbara and was quite prosperous by the time he moved to San Francisco in the 1890s. A 1909 article described him as "a millionaire government contractor."

Cebrian prodigiously donated Spanish language books and scores to many libraries, including San Francisco Public Library, Stanford and UC Berkeley. These gifts were especially welcome in San Francisco where the 1906 Earthquake and Fire had required the Library to rebuild its collections from scratch.

source: News Notes from California Libraries August 1918.

The San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed with his gift, the San Francisco Public Library had the best Spanish collection the west coast. Cebrian's donation of musical scores is listed in the August 1914 and November 1915 issues of the San Francisco Public Library Monthly Bulletin, a publication that listed all the additions to the Library's collection.

Many of the donated scores were for zarzuelas, a form of musical theater popular in Spain, Mexico and the Philippines. He also contributed collections of Spanish sacred music as well as the collected works of famed renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria.

Cebrian also sponsored the Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Church at 908 Broadway, San Francisco, provide the land and the funds to build it. Along with E.J. Molera he commissioned Jo Mora to create the Miguel Cervantes Memorial in Golden Gate Park.

Bibliography:

An incomplete list of volumes contributed by Cebrian to the San Francisco Public Library's collections.

"A Bridge of (Probable) Sighs," Santa Barbara Daily Press May 28, 1880.

"Cebrián Cervera, Juan (1848-1935)." Archivo de la Real Academia Española.

"Cebrian Donation," San Francisco Public Library Monthly Bulletin May 1914.

"Has Best Spanish Collection on Coast," San Francisco Chronicle May 17, 1914.

"Juan Cebrián Cervera (1848-1935)" Biblioteca ETSAM.

"Le Breton and Laveaga Heirs at War," San Francisco Examiner August 8, 1909.

"Music by Spanish Composers: Cebrian Donation," San Francisco Public Library Monthly Bulletin November 1915.

"San Francisco," News Notes from California Libraries August 1918.

“Services for Ralph J. Cebrian, 81,” San Francisco Chronicle November 14, 1970.

Varela-Lago, Ana Maria, "Conquerors, Immigrants, Exiles: The Spanish Diaspora in the United States (1848-1948)," PhD Thesis, University of California, San Diego.

Vives, General, Juan C. Cebrián (Huérfanos de Intendencia e Intervención Militares, 1935)

The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz

We've written earlier about Ralph Chessé's first foray into bringing marionettes into television, the 1951 children's program Willie and the Baron. While it received accolades, it ceased after about six months due to a lack of funding.

Financial support came his way the following year. Chessé recalled in his memoir, "I was approached by a group of ladies who were very much interested in promoting kindness toward animals." This was the Oakland's Latham Foundation for Humane Education who had presented the Adventures of Brother Buzz on KLX radio in 1937 and 1938.

According to Chessé's recollection, the Foundation approached him in the spring of 1952 and by the fall of 1952 he had assembled a number of marionette animals and went on the air. However, look at the San Francisco Chronicle of March 5, 1952 already shows Brother Buzz as part of the broadcast schedule.

Advertisement for KPIX, Channel 5 (source: San Francisco Examiner June 4, 1952)

A later advertisement noted that the program was created for children aged 3 to 10, describing it as "Fascinating lessons from insect life in these charming marionettes, with Brother Buzz as the bee."

It's difficult for us to imagine today that in 1952 near all early television was broadcast live and there was a limited amount of syndicated programming. Chessé had to bring his puppet theater and fellow marionnettists into the KPIX studios at 2655 Van Ness Avenue once a week to film on Wednesday afternoons.

Brother Buzz and Busy Bee  (image source: Chessé Arts Limited website in Archive.org)

The show continued to be written by Dolores Wilkins Kent, president of the Latham Foundation. Charlotte Morris produced the show for KPIX. 

In the early seasons Ralph Chessé's son Dion voiced Brother Buzz; Lettie Connell Schubert voiced Miss Busy Bee. Later on Bruce Chessé's took over for his brother and Virginia Arnett followed by Marian Derby took over for Lettie Connell. Ralph Chessé voiced most of the animal guests on the program.

While The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz only broadcast for fifteen minutes a week, each episode required significant creative labor on Chessé's part. He had to continuously imagine, design and make every new marionette characters. Throughout his long career he eventually created over a thousand puppets. 

Gilbert Fox and Mr. Rabbit (image source: Latham Letter Winter 2014)

When a syndicated show displaced Brother Buzz from KPIX in 1960, Chessé and his team continued the program on KTVU. This coincided a change in production team to a Hollywood based firm who according to Chessé were less interested in marionettes. Nevertheless, they made arrangements to get the show syndicated nationally. The show's end was foreshadowed in 1963 when the station began to broadcast the program from videotape. It was then paired with nature documentary shorts. 

The show broadcast through 1969, although it's possible that as soon as 1966 the marionettes were replaced by animated characters.

Filming of The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz at KPIX-TV (image source: Latham Letter June 2015)

The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz was longest running children's television show in Bay Area history. The show received continuous fan mail. By the mid-1960s, the Brother Buzz Club boasted more than 45,000 Bay Area members.

Remember these are the closing days of the exhibit Ralph Chessé: A San Francisco Century in the Main Library's Jewett Gallery. The exhibit continues through August 18, 2024.

Bibliography:

Chessé, Ralph, The Marionette Actor (George Mason University Press, 1987).

Comer, Kellie and Kathy Foley, "Ralph Chessé," Puppetry International, (n. 51) 2022. in: https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=df2e6cf1-ec9a-36c4-b5c9-ceefc6c950fb

Holt, Tim, "Conversation With a Puppeteer," San Francisco Chronicle April 28, 1974.

"Latham Celebrates: A Year in Our Life and A Little Bity of History," Latham Letter (Winter 2004).

Newton, Dwight. "Kids and Commercials," San Francisco Chronicle August 6, 1972

O'Flaherty, Terence. "Television and Radio," San Francisco Chronicle April 16, 1953

"A Page from Our History Book: The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz," Latham Letter Winter 2015.

Wasserman, John L., "Buzz Pulled Some Strings and Has Gone National," San Francisco Chronicle February 16, 1964.

The Origins of Brother Buzz

The San Francisco Public Library is presenting Ralph Chessé: A San Francisco Century through August 18, 2024 in the Jewett Gallery. 

Ralph Chessé's most watched and appreciated marionette presentation was his children's program, The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz. His participation with the program ran from 1952 until 1966.

The character Brother Buzz originated with an organization called the Latham Foundation. Founded in 1918 and dedicated to artist Henrietta Latham (1838-1909) by her children Edith and Milton, it has been dedicated to the humane treatment on animals. (She was the widow of Milton S. Latham who represented California in the United States Senate from 1860 to 1863).

While San Francisco Chronicle television critic Dwight Newton wrote that Brother Buzz originated as a radio program, the earliest evidence for it appearing on the airwaves is 1937.

11 A.M. radio schedule printed in the Oakland Tribune October 13, 1937

11 A.M. radio schedule printed in the San Francisco Examiner October 14, 1937

"Adventures of Brother Buzz" was broadcast at 11:15 A.M. on Thursdays on KLX, a radio station affiliated with the Oakland Tribune. This 15 minute program was listed as an "Alameda City Schools" program in the San Francisco Examiner. The basic premise of the program foreshadowed the future marionette shown on live television. The bumblebee Brother Buzz, transformed from an elf, offered young listeners insights into the lives of other living things.

source: Oakland Tribune April 28, 1937

The professional journal California Schools listed The Adventures of Brother Buzz as part of the state's educational broadcasts from the Alameda School of the Air.  Since it was broadcast during school hours, doubtless, teachers throughout the Bay Area who had radio receivers in their classrooms may have shared the program with their students.

source: California Schools April 1938

Each episode was based upon stories written by Dolores Wilkens Kent of the Latham Foundation that were dramatized for radio by Marie Williams. The radio program also introduced two characters who were regulars on Ralph Chessé's program in the 1950s and 1960s, Miss Busy Bee and Flitter-Mouse the bat. There is no information about who voiced these characters. The radio program was broadcast for the duration of the 1937-1938.

Fifteen years later, Chessé more enduringly brought these characters back to life when the Latham Foundation approached him to create The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz for television audiences.

Bibliography:

"Devotees of Bridge to Hear Talk over KLX," Oakland Tribune May 5, 1937.

"Dude Martin Group Offers Cowboy Songs," Oakland Tribune April 28, 1937.

Holt, Tim, "Conversation With a Puppeteer," San Francisco Chronicle April 28, 1974.

Hughes, Edan Milton, Artists in California, 1786-1940 (Crocker Art Museum, 2002).

Newton, Dwight. "Kids and Commercials," San Francisco Chronicle August 6, 1972

Early Television Marionettes of Ralph Chessé

The San Francisco Public Library has been pleased to present Ralph Chessé: A San Francisco Century from May 16 through August 18, 2024 in the Jewett Gallery. As the exhibit shows, Chessé was a man of many talents who achieved success as a painter, lithographer, actor, director, playwright and marionettist.

He was also a pioneer of children's television programming most famous for his nationally distributed puppet show, The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz, that was on the air from 1952 to 1973. A year before, he had already stepped into the world of children's television a program called Willie and the Baron.

source: San Francisco Chronicle July 10, 1951

Alternating with Chris [Cut Cartoons] at 6 p.m. each Monday and Wednesday is WILLI AND THE BARON, a new program straight from the world of fable and fancy, featuring marionette Baron Woodly.

This 15 minute program aired live on KGO twice a week for six months. 

Willie and The Baron (image source: The Marionette Actor)

The show was sometimes also called Willie and the Baron or Baron Woodley and Friends. (The Baron's name was also spelled Woodly at times).

In his short memoir, The Marionette Actor, Chessé writes about the creative conditions in early television. Programming was scarce and its content difficult to pay for. He noted that the interview format became popular owing to its production simplicity. He auditioned a television program idea that would be a "marionette spoof" of the standard news interview, but his idea was not well-received. He tweaked it a bit using the interview format to change the subjects to characters from familiar nursery rhymes and folk stories. Thus, Willie and the Baron was conceived.

Chessé voiced Baron Woodley. His son Dion voice Willie who Chessé described as a "stooge office boy." Lettie Connell played all the women's voice. Even within that limitation the possibilities were vast. He described the challenge preparing a new set of marionettes for each show. He also had to conceive and write two scripts a week for the show presented live. When it first aired it was listed on the daily schedule as "Impossible Interview" or "Impossible Interviews."

Dwight Newton, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, was very enthusiastic about the show.

The "Baron" is a quaint, old world, pixie-like character with a big nose and horn rimmed glasses. He conducts "impossible interviews" with famed figures of history and fiction, assisted by "Willi," a wide-eyed busybody with bushy hair and big ears.

Into their mouths Chesse puts delightful dialogue. Into their movements he injects a sprightly and fascinating charm. But thin, no wonder! Mr. Chesse, who has been making and manipulating marionettes here for more than a quarter of a century, has a national reputation.

Recent "impossible interviews" have been with Rip Van Winkle, Ali Baba, the Long Stanger and his horse Chigger, and Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp.

Newton concludes by exclaiming that "Willie and Baron" is "conducted with charm and sincerity and high, good humor and good taste--a welcome and worthwhile contribution to local television."

While the intrinsic value of the show was evident, it did not contribute enough value to the bottom line for KGO and they cancelled the program after 6 months.

Musical Bear from Willie and the Baron (image source: Chessé Arts Limited website in Archive.org)

The Mad Hatter from Willie and the Baron (image source: Chessé Arts Limited website in Archive.org)

During this time, Chessé also created television commercials employing his marionettes for beer and Calso Water. He did soon find a reliable sponsor for his next marionette program, The Wonderful World of Brother Buzz, that allowed it to thrive for several years.

"Impossible Interview" at 6 PM, KGO-TV, Channel 7

Television Listing, July 11, 1951 (source: San Francisco Examiner)

Bibliography:

Chessé, Ralph, The Marionette Actor (George Mason University Press, 1987).

Franklin, Bob, "Show Time," San Francisco Chronicle July 10, 1951.

McPharlin, Paul and Marjorie Batcheler McPharlin, The Puppet Theatre in America: A History, 1524-1948, with a Supplement: Puppets in America since 1948 (Plays, Inc., 1969).

Newton, Dwight, "Day and Night with Radio and Television," San Francisco Chronicle August 4, 1951

Make Music Day, June 21, 2024

We are pleased to again celebrate Make Music Day once again with musicians from the San Francisco Symphony. 

This year we'll present a violin / string bass duo with David Chernyavsky and Daniel G. Smith. Come to the Main Library Atrium at 4 PM on Friday, June 21, 2024 to enjoy this informal concert.

Make Music Day is a global event celebrated annually at the Summer Solstice. Launched in 1982 in France as the Fête de la Musique, it is now held on the same day in more than 1,000 cities in 120 countries.