Bill "Bojangles" Robinson

June 1935 George Hurrell
Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
June 1935 George Hurrell

Although he has been a professional entertainer for half a century, Bill Robinson—known to Harlem as "Bojangles"—only recently made his cinema début, in support of Miss Shirley Temple, in The Little Colonel. His latest film is Hurray for Love. Born in Richmond, Virginia, fifty-eight years ago, Robinson, at the age of eight, was working days in a Washington, D. C., racing stable and dancing nights in the local beer gardens. It was not until 1913, however, that he won national fame and began to he known as the world's No. 1 tap dancer, a position which he still holds unchallenged. He has danced in vaudeville and musical comedies all over this country and in Europe; he invented the famous and frequently imitated stair dance (shown in photographs at the left); and he has earned, in the course of his long career, a million dollars—all of which he has either spent or given away