![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Piccadilly-Room-May-1937.png\")
<\/a>In 1934, Bentley headlined at New York\u2019s new Ubangi Club, attracting, according to The Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, her \u201cGay White Way clientele that goes all the way to make up New York after dark.\u201d Her act featured \u201ca chorus of boys whose entertaining is of that different style and appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Langston Hughes would write of Bentley\u2019s \u201camazing exhibition of musical energy\u2014a large, dark, masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor while her fingers pounded the keyboard\u2014a perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bentley\u2019s return to North Philadelphia in September 1935, at the Memphis Club on Warnock Street below Girard Avenue, was less than a mile from her childhood home. \u201cMiss B is a show in herself,\u201d wrote the Inquirer<\/em>, \u201cholding the audience from the moment she appears on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the summer of 1937, Bentley would perform in Center City at the Piccadilly Room, 1523 Locust Street. Billboard<\/em> called her billing intriguing, a \u201cnoble experiment,\u201d where, in one building, artists of both races performed. The \u201cpolicy of separate white and Negro niteries under one roof will be tried by 1523 Locust,\u201d reported Variety<\/em>. One manager ran \u201ccolored shows\u201d headlined by Gladys Bentley \u201cpresenting the gayest harlemania\u201d in the intimate Piccadilly Room, upstairs front.\u201d Elsewhere in the same building at the same time, Bubbles Shelby was featured as the white headliner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bentley quickly drew top billing. She \u201cgives out the risk\u2013gay ditties in that intimate manner that leaves no mistaken meaning. To rousing returns, she offers Just Give It To Tim, Gladys Isn\u2019t Gratis Anymore<\/em> and a Wally Simpson-inspired He Did It For Love<\/em>. And for the more intimate circles sings Goody Goody<\/em>. New to the villagers here, she\u2019s dynamite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the experiment didn\u2019t last. Ann Lewis completed her six-week run at the Piccadilly Room, returned to Harlem, and told a reporter that \u201cracial prejudice is breaking up the management\u2019s attempt to feature\u2026a white and colored revue just opposite each other.\u201d Bentley and others quit the show \u201cwhen the feeling between the two races became near the breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, \u201cthe double bill of entertainment\u201d was figured to be “an experiment doomed to failure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Philadelphia, \u201cthough very much in the North, has always surfaced a definite racial feeling between white and colored\u201d wrote reporter Billy Rowe. \u201cNot many months ago before the passing of the civil rights bill in the state of Pennsylvania, Negroes suffered Jim-Crow tactics used below the Mason-Dixon line in theaters and other Nordic owned enterprises.\u201d After the passing of the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Bill of 1935<\/a>, the \u201cage-old practice\u201d continued and \u201cas a direct outcome of such fights for equality a new hatred was born in the city of brotherly love.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n [Sources: \u201cGladys Bentley Stars at Ubangi Club\u201d in The Philadelphia Tribune<\/em>, August 23, 1934; \u201cBentley, Memphis Club,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, September 15, 1935; \u201cPutting White and Negro Niteries Under 1 Roof,\u201d Variety<\/em>, May 12, 1937; \u201cNight Clubs Star Stage Celebrities in Revue Programs,\u201d The Inquirer<\/em>, May 12, 1937; \u201cPiccadilly Room, 1523 Club, Philadelphia, The Billboard<\/em>, June 12, 1937<\/a>; Billy Rowe, \u201cBlack and Tan Revue Can’t Hit: Philly’s Piccadilly Room Tries New Experiment,\u201d The Pittsburgh Courier<\/em>, July 3, 1937; Giovanni Russonello, \u201cGladys Bentley (1907-1960): A gender-bending blues performer who became 1920s Harlem royalty.<\/a>\u201d The New York Times<\/em>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Gladys Bentley escaped her family\u2019s North Philadelphia rowhouse at the age of 16 and, for more than a decade, didn\u2019t look back. She joined the Harlem Renaissance, which in 1923 was kicking into high gear. A jazz performer, Bentley became \u201cone of the boldest performers of her era.\u201d Her reworked popular songs with homespun risqu\u00e9 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<\/a>
Bentley would soon leave New York again, this time for Los Angeles, “to become a leading entertainer there and in the Bay Area,” appearing onstage at Mona\u2019s 440 Club, “the first lesbian bar in San Francisco.” In short order, Mona\u2019s would become Bentley\u2019s West Coast home away from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n