A FANTABULOUS LIFE ABROAD!

The American Prohibition Era , one can say, enhanced the lives of many black Americans who might have otherwise been relegated to a life of banal existence accompanied by predicable racial repercussions.  This would definitely appliy  to one West Virginia born Mullato, named Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith.

Born into humble circumstances to a Black American mother and Irish father, in Alderson West Viginia, she discovered early on that she was a party girl.  She left home at 16 to work in Vaudeville, touring with The Theater Owners Booking Association…the TOBA…better known by the Negro performers of the time as the ‘Tough On Black Asses” agency.

She became known as “Bricktop” beause of her bright red hair, inherited from her father (“I’m a hundred percent Negro with a trigger Irish temper”, she often said).  When she landed in Chicago during one of her tours, she found herself drawn to its bawdy raucous saloon life.

Somehow, through extraordinary twists of fate, this ordinary everyday sistah from ‘round the way, who enjoyed dancing the Charlston and knocking back Remy Martins, found herself the “Toast of Paris”…no pun intended.., as soon as she arrived in 1924.

Among the rabble….rousing, expat high society of Paris in the Roaring 20s she found a backer who helped her 

open her own Nightclub called Chez Bricktop.  There she partied with zillions of the legends of the Lost Generation including  Mabel Mercer, King Farouk, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, and others "down to the big boy himself”, the Prince of Wales, teaching everyone to dance the Black Bottom and the Charleston.

I mean…these were giddy times, as you can imagine.

Anyway, World War II arrived and she returned to the US until it was over.  She returned to Europe, opening a new Bricktops in Paris, until mobsters chased her straight to Rome.  Rome is where she opened another Bricktops where she welcomed and then introduced the old time “high end” customers to the newly minted Hollywood glitterati.  Fun times were had by all, until, again, she was chased by the Mob all the way to Mexico City, where she opened yet another Bricktops.

She has been called ”…one of the most legendary end enduring figures of the 20^th century American cultural history.”

Hummm….

Anyway, after all that partying and carousing “Miss Brickie” died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 89.

Ya gotta love her. Non?