Swell Dames # 122 – Leslie Uggams

Leslie Uggams
Versatile singing star of television, stage, screen, and cabaret Leslie Uggams (b. New York City, May 25, 1943) is certainly best known across America for her role as Kizzy in the most-watched television series in history, Alex Haley’s Roots (1977). But more typical of her performance style was her work in Hallelujah, Baby! on Broadway, for which she won the 1968 Tony Award® for Best Actress in a Musical.

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Swell Dames # 118 – Annisteen Allen

Rhythm & blues in the 1950s was mostly a male affair, but there were a few talented and determined women who made their marks as singers and musicians during this decade. One of the first to do so was Annisteen Allen, a jazz-tinged blues singer born in Illinois and raised in Toledo, Ohio. She was a big-band singer in the style of Ella Fitzgerald when she was hired in 1945 to work with the band of Lucky Millinder, upon the recommendation of Louis Jordan. Millinder was a native of Anniston, Alabama, and changed her name from Ernestine to Annisteen Allen. The moniker stuck, and it was not until Allen's final recording session in 1961 that she used her real name on a record. 

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Swell Dames # 117 – Virginia O’Brien

Virginia O'Brien
Born in Los Angeles in 1919, Virginia O'Brien was attracted to dancing at an early age after seeing several movies starring Eleanor Powell, but she ultimately became a singer. She was hired for a 1940 stage production of Meet the People (she got the gig because the director was impressed with her spot-on impersonation of Ethel Merman).

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Swell Dames # 115 – Sheila Guyse

Sheila Guyse
Beautiful multi-talented Sheila Guyse was a popular, well-loved figure on the stage and screen of the Dorothy Dandridge era. Some critics even felt she was a better actress than Dandridge, some said if Sheila ever decided to go to Hollywood, she would give her a run for her money. She appeared in three independent black films, "Boy, What A Girl", "Sepia Cinderella" and "Miracle In Harlem" giving magnificent performances in all of them. Guyse wasn't an experienced or trained actress, but you never know it. She appeared in many stage productions such as "Lost in the Stars" and "Finian's Rainbow" which were both long running. Her singing voice was as beautiful as she was, divine, sweet, easy on the ears whether singing jazz, pop, or gospel. Very popular in the 1940s and 1950s, Sheila graced many covers of magazines like Jet, Ebony, Our World, Hue and many others, reviews were always flattering.

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Swell Dames # 113 – Dorothy Lamour

Dorothy Lamour
In addition to being Miss New Orleans in 1931, Dorothy Lamour worked as a Chicago elevator operator; band vocalist for her first husband, band leader Herbie Kaye; and radio performer. In 1936 she donned her soon-to-be-famous sarong for her debut at Paramount, The Jungle Princess (1936), and continued to play female Tarzan-Crusoe-Gauguin-girl-with make-up parts through the war years and beyond. The most famous of these was in the popular Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" pictures - a strange combination of adventure, slapstick, ad-libs and Hollywood inside jokes. Of these she said, "I was the happiest and highest-paid straight woman in the business." As she aged, however, the quality of her films dropped. Among her serious films were Johnny Apollo (1940) and A Medal for Benny (1945).

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