- Gladys Bentley (1907-1960), the talented pianist and blues singer, was one of the most notorious and successful Black lesbians in the U.S. during the 1920s and 1930s. She performed at the fanciest New York nightclubs, had an active recording career, and socialized among trendsetters and visiting European notables. Born in Philadelphia, Bentley ran away from home as a teenager. Like many African Americans of her generation, she traveled north to Harlem. She survived by playing piano and by inventing and singing scandalous lyrics to the tunes of popular melodies. For many years Bentley headlined at Harry Hansberry’s Clam House, where she performed in a white tuxedo and top hat. Poet Langston Hughes noted that Bentley “was something worth discovering in those days.” Throughout the 1930s Bentley continued her career, cultivating a large lesbian and gay following, but the repressive McCarthy Era forced her to “conform” and deny her lesbianism. Despite this, she never regained her former popularity.
|