Lillian Yarbo


Lillian "Billie" Yarbo was an American stage and screen actress, dancer, and singer.

Early life

Born Lillian Yarbough in Washington, DC, she made her way to New York, as did both her mother and at least one sister. When they travelled and whether they did so together is unclear.

Career

Stage

By her early 20s, Yarbo, credited prior to October 1928 as Yarbough, was a rising star both in Harlem night spots and on the Broadway stage. Writing in The New Yorker, reviewing the Miller and Lyles musical, Keep Shufflin', a young Charles Brackett alerted readers:
"There is a Miss Billie Yarbough, who must have been designed by Covarrubias and must be seen." With a style sometimes likened to that of her contemporary, Josephine Baker, Yarbo was embraced by audiences and critics alike, beginning in the late 1920s and continuing until her 1936 screen debut. As for her vocal stylings, just a few, fleeting, onscreen remnants exist. For example, she sings a few bars of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" in the film version of A Date with Judy.. That said, Yarbo clearly did not lack for confidence, having once told trumpeter Buck Clayton, "To hell with Billie Holiday! Come down and listen to me, the real Billie."

Screen

Yarbo appeared in at least two films in 1936 and one in 1937 before receiving glowing notices—and her first onscreen credit—the following year in the otherwise indifferently received Warren William vehicle, Wives Under Suspicion. For that and her equally acclaimed performance in Frank Capra's hugely successful adaptation of Kaufman and Hart's You Can't Take It With You, Yarbo was judged 1938's best Negro comedic actress by Pittsburgh Courier film critic Earl J. Morris. In 1939, she was awarded that same distinction by the short-lived Sepia Theatrical Writers Guild. Indeed, even prior to 1938, the then-as-yet thoroughly anonymous Yarbo—as Claire Trevor's maid in Alfred Werker's much-rewritten Big Town Girl—caught the eye of one reviewer who noted that "a Negro lassie—inexcusably omitted from the cast list—renders yeoman service and considerable comedy as the countess' maid".
Awards and favorable notices notwithstanding, and despite director King Vidor's personal support for her as early as 1937, she continued to be routinely cast in bit parts, primarily as a maid, cook or otherwise low-skilled worker, often uncredited, appearing in at least 50 films between 1936 and 1949.
In the fall of 1943, amid an already setback-laden half-decade, a potentially career-altering opportunity—being cast in a straight dramatic role opposite Canada Lee in a screen adaptation of Richard Wright's Native Son—failed to materialize when Orson Welles, who had directed Lee in the original Broadway production, proved unavailable. Adding injury to insult, just weeks later, a near-fatal car crash put Yarbo out of commission for the first half of 1944. She appeared in just one film that year, and over the next five averaged exactly two films a year, uncredited in all but one, ending her screen career much as it had begun.

Later years

On November 13, 1948, roughly four months after finishing work on her final film and roughly 13 years after her last stage performance, Yarbo returned to live performance. Perhaps inspired by having made, roughly two months prior, "one of her rare visits to a night spot," Yarbo, backed by Andy Kirk and His Clouds of Joy, performed at a benefit event staged at Club Congo by the Alpha Phi Alpha House Campaign Committee to help fund "much-needed housing and scholarship for 'forgotten' students".
On May 19, 1949, The California Eagle's Gertrude Gipson reported that "C. P. Johnson on along with a six-piece combo, and Billy Yarbo, who has returned to dancing, will open at the Fairbanks in Alaska around the first". If this planned performance took place, it is Yarbo's last documented public performance.
About the same time Yarbo received some very nice notices for her last credited screen performance portraying "a giggling, singing, four-times-married little maid" in Warner Bros.' long-shelved Night Unto Night, one more instance of Yarbo being one of the few reasons to watch—precisely as had been the case in her first credited role—in an otherwise "sleep-induc" picture: "Other characters include one who talks like someone out of a bad play, a couple of doctors, the heroine's sexy sister, and, fortunately, Lillian Yarbo as Josephine, the maid of all work, who provides the only bright spot in the generally murky atmosphere."

Personal life

In 2006, NYU Professor of Media Studies Cathrine Kellison, speaking on the DVD commentary track of You Can't Take It With You, briefly addressed Yarbo's known history: "Now Lillian Yarbo, here... she's... it's troubling how little information there is about her as a person. She was in probably 40, 50 films. Many of them, her name was not listed; she was uncredited." Kellison, who would die in 2009 with online newspaper archives still slim, did not live long enough to learn of Yarbo's illustrious pre-Hollywood heyday.
Yet taking into account the full scope of her career, it is curious that the close press coverage of Yarbo halted in the fall of 1949. After over two decades, it could be surmised that this was requested by Yarbo herself. One reason why she might have desired less attention appeared in a 1928 interview which, despite its condescending tone, portrays Yarbo as someone who did not aspire to fame and who—somewhat akin to her celebrated not-quite-namesake—genuinely valued her privacy.
Having finally secured that privacy, and adroitly handled her finances, Yarbo appears to have spent the remainder of her life in relative comfort in Seattle, Washington, where she died on June 12, 1996.

Stage work

Partial listing of stage work :
Opening dateClosing dateTitleRoleTheatreNotes
Jun 27, 1927Jul 13, 1927BottomlandChorus Princess Theatre
Feb 27, 1928May 26, 1928Keep Shufflin'Yarbo Daly's 63rd Street TheatreEye-catching caricatures by Al Hirschfeld, and by Vyvyan Donner in The New York Times, plus brief but enthusiastic mentions in The New Yorker, Variety.
Jul 09, 1928Jul 15, 1928Follies of ParisN/ALafayette Theatre
Oct 08, 1928Dec 15, 1928Just a MinuteMandyAmbassador Theatre
Mar 10, 1930Mar 16, 1930Fast LifeN/AThe Alhambra
May 26, 1930N/AHappy FeetN/AThe Alhambra
Oct 22, 1930Dec 13, 1930Blackbirds of 1930Performer, " Lindy Hop" Royale Theatre
Mar 16, 1931Apr 05, 1931Dave Peyton and His Regal Theatre OrchestraN/AGibson Theatre, PhiladelphiaLocal coverage featured one of the very few pre-Hollywood photos of Yarbo, published in The Philadelphia Tribune.
Sep 15, 1932Jan 25, 1933Flying ColorsPerformer, "Louisiana Hayride"; Performer, "Butlers"Imperial Theatre
Oct 07, 1933
Oct 21, 1933		Oct 13, 1933
Oct 27, 1933		Jimmy Lunceford and his BandN/ALincoln Theatre, Philadelphia
May 10, 1936May 23, 1936Harlem on ParadeN/AFollies Theatre, Los Angeles

Filmography