(1907 - 1994)
| Cab Calloway / Musician, Entertainer | (1907 - 1994) |
| Biography: | Cabell (Cab) Calloway, one of America's greatest bandleaders and stage entertainers, was born on Christmas Day in 1907 in Rochester, NY. Growing up in Baltimore, Calloway began singing as a teenager. While attending law school in Chicago, he realized that entertainment was his calling and became a bandleader with a group called Cab Calloway and His Alabamians. Moving to New York, he hit the big time when he introduced Fats Waller's song Ain't Misbehavin' on Broadway in 1928 in the musical Connie's Hot Chocolates.
Calloway became nationally known as a bandleader and star attraction at Harlem's famed Cotton Club in 1931. His popular tune Minnie the Moocher became the theme song of his band for many years. Always a premier showman on stage, wearing colorful zoot suits and singing nonsensical lyrics, Cab knew how to entertain a crowd. He appeared in numerous musical shorts and a few full-length pictures, with a gleam in his eye and sporting a devilish grin. As a further testament to his popularity, the "King of Hi De Ho" was still delighting audiences on stage and screen well into the 1980's. He appeared with Lena Horne in the movie Stormy Weather in 1943, Pearl Bailey on the Broadway stage in Hello, Dolly in 1965, and even dazzled Janet Jackson in her music video in 1988. Calloway died in a nursing home in Delaware on November 18, 1994, from complications of a stroke. |
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| Bibliography: | Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Centenary Edition; Encyclopedia Britannica (1977); Grolier's Encyclopedia Americana (1996). |
