Bert Williams

Egbert Austin 'Bert' Williams was born on 12 November 1874 in Nassau, in the Bahamas, and moved with his family to California as a child, developing an interest in performing during his youth before forming a comedy and singing partnership with George Walker, building a substantial vaudeville career together through the 1890s and early 1900s.

Williams and Walker built one of the most successful Black vaudeville acts of their era, and their 1903 production In Dahomey became the first full-length musical written and performed entirely by Black artists to play at a major Broadway theatre, a landmark breakthrough in American theatrical history that later toured successfully in London and elsewhere.

Williams performed, as was common practice for Black comedians of this era, in blackface makeup despite already being Black himself, a genuinely painful professional requirement reflecting the severe conventions of minstrel-derived comedy that dominated popular entertainment during this period, one Williams reportedly found personally difficult but professionally unavoidable given the industry's rigid expectations.

Following Walker's declining health and eventual death, Williams continued as a solo performer, and in 1910 joined the Ziegfeld Follies, becoming the first Black performer to headline in a major otherwise all-white Broadway production, a landmark breakthrough that drew significant controversy from white cast members who objected to performing alongside him, controversy Ziegfeld reportedly addressed by threatening to replace any objecting performer rather than remove Williams.

Williams became one of the most highly paid entertainers in America during his Ziegfeld Follies years, and was widely admired by contemporary performers, with figures including W.C. Fields reportedly describing him as the funniest man he had ever seen and the saddest man he had ever known, a poignant characterisation reflecting the genuine personal toll of performing within an industry that constrained him to demeaning conventions despite his evident, exceptional talent.

Williams continued performing until his health declined significantly, and he died in 1922 from complications related to pneumonia, collapsing during a performance shortly before his death. He remains remembered as a foundational figure in American entertainment history, his landmark Broadway breakthroughs representing genuine, significant achievement even as the painful professional compromises his era required of him reflect the severe constraints facing even the most successful Black entertainers of his time.