Ethel Waters

"Ethel Waters overcame a disadvantaged childhood to become the most famous African American actress, singer, and entertainer of her time. Having triumphed in black vaudeville during the Harlem Renaissance, she moved to Broadway in the mid-1920s. She brought much of the startlingly innovative and subtle character of black theatre into the mainstream and was almost immediately acclaimed by white critics and audiences alike." "Waters transformed such songs as "Dinah," "Am I Blue?," "Stormy Weather," and Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave" into classics and inspired the next generation of black female…