FEATURING SALIENT HAPPENINGS DURING THE LIFE
OF THE WORLDS CREATEST ENTERTAINER
1885 Born, Asa, on May 26th, in the village of Srednick, Russia, to Rabbi Morris Reuven Yoelson and Naiomi Yoelson.
1886 Rabbi Yoelson emigrates alone to America to better his position as a canter.
1888 Rabbi Yoelson is appointed canter of a small synagogue in Washington D.C. Mrs Yoelson and her four children sail for America from Odessa, Russia. Her children are two older daughters, a son, Harry, eight years old and Asa, her youngest son, three years old.
1896 Asa's mother dies. Asa begins his chronic running away from home. One of the members of the group of boys that he associates with is Bill Robinson - "Bojangles", who was to become one of the greats of show business.
1898 Spanish-American War. Asa attempts, at the age of 13, to join the Fifteenth Pennsylvania Regiment. He is adopted as a mascot. Asa joins the Waiter L. Main Circus Show in Harrisburg, Pa. Asa gets part as one of mob in a production of Israel Zangwill's "Children Of The Ghetto" until, after three performances, Rabbi Yoelson interferes. Eddie Leonard hears the youthful Asa sing and predicts a successful career for him. Asa becomes a stooge in a vaudeville act for which Eddie Leonard is the manager - Asa sits in the audience and encourages community singing. Asa becomes a stooge for Steve Martin's vaudeville act, singing in the balcony. During this time, Asa adopts the name of AL JOLSON.
1899 The Jolson Brothers, Al and Harry, work for the Mayflower Burlesque Company.
1900 Al and Harry rehearse an act called "The Hebrew and the Cadet".
1901 Al Jolson sings from a box in the Star Theatre, New York.
1903 Al teams up with brother Harry and a song-and-dance man named Joe Palmer to form a vaudeville act.
1904 James Francis Dooley, a famous blackface monologist, suggests to Al that, with his deep southern drawl, he would be a natural in blackface. Jolson, Palmer & Jolson booked across the country on the Keith circuit for the overall sum of $90 per week.
1905 The Jolson,Palmer & Jolson act disbands and Al Jolson continues to do a single blackface singing act in the vaudeville houses of the Middle West and the West Coast.
1906 Jolson does his blackface act on the Sullivan & Considine vaudeville circuit. Lew Dockstader, a famous minstrel man, catches Al's act and immediately signs him for his popular minstrel show. Jolson marries Henrietta Keller. Jolson meets Harry Akst in Atlantic City.
1909 Lew Dockstader, one evening, sends Al Jolson to sing in place of his star singer who happened to be ill. Lew Dockstader is impressed with Jolson's success. Al Jolson takes over the solo part of the show permanently. Al sings a "mammy" song in blackface for the first time. Al, at end of session, comes to New York, debuts at Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre and is a sensation. Immediately, Lee Shubert signs Al to do a show at the Winter Garden.
1910 J. J. Shubert is impressed by Al Jolson.
1911 (MARCH) "LA BELLE PAREE". Jolson sings, "Get Out And Get Under". (NOV) "VERA VIOLETTA". Jolson sings, "Rum-Tum-Tiddle" and George M. Cohan's 'That Haunting Melody".
1912 (MARCH) "THE WHIRL OF SOCIETY". Jolson sings, "My Sumurun Girl" and "On The Mississippi". Jolson makes use of the runway into the audience on which to sing and dance and achieve intimacy. Jolson inaugurates his famous Sunday night concerts at the Winter Garden. Signs with VICTOR RECORDS in May. His first recording: Cohan's "That Haunting Melody" and "Rum-TumTiddle" by Ed Madden & Jean Schwartz.
1913: The Shuberts sign Jolson to a seven year contract. (FEB) "THE HONEYMOON EXPRESS". The billing: Gaby Deslys, AI Jolson, Ada Lewis, Fanny Brice, Harry Pilcer, Harry Fox, Ernest Glendinning. Jolson sings "My Yellow Jacket Girl", "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life," and 'Who Paid The Rent For Mrs Rip Van Winkle?" During one performance, when Al suffers intense pain due to an ingrown toenail, he gets down on one knee to ease the pain. This gesture greatly pleases the audience, thinking that it is part of Jolson's song delivery. Jolson, show-wise, retains this feature from that moment. Leaves VICTOR RECORDS. Signs exclusively with COLUMBIA RECORDS.
1914 (OCT) "DANCING AROUND". JOLSON GETS TOP BILLINC. Clifton Webb is in show. Jolson sings "Venitia" and 'When The Grown-up Ladies Act Like Babies".
1915 Jolson visits Bowie Race Track. This marks the beginning of Al's lifelong interest in horse racing. In "DANCING AROUND" in Boston at the Shubert Theatre.
1916 (FEB) "ROBINSON CRUSOE JR." Jolson sings "Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday On Saturday Night?","Where The Black-Eyed Susans Grow", and "Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula". Tours country with show for sixteen months. Gives a two and a half hour song recital at Symphony Hall in Boston with Harry Akst at the piano.
1918 (FEB) "SINBAD" FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WINTER GARDEN, A PERFORMER'S NAME (AL JOLSON) APPEARS IN BLAZING FOOT-HIGH LETTERS ON MARQUEE. Jolson sings "Avalon","Chloe", "Hello Central, Give Me No Man's Land", "I Gave Her That","l'll Say She Does", "My Mammy", "'N' Everything", "On The Road To Calais","Rocka-bye Your Baby","Some Beautiful Morning","Why Do They All Take The Night Boat to Albany?","You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet". He introduces a new song by a new writing team: "Swanee" by Irving Caesar and George Gershwin. The Friars Club in New York honors Jolson at a dinner. Jolson's nose is bruised in a friendly sparring match with Jack Dempsey.
1919 Jolson records one of the biggest song hits of the year, "Tell Me". After Enrico Caruso finished singing to tumultuous applause by Winter Garden throng, Jolson yells,"You ain't heard nothin' yet!". Jolson divorces Henrietta Keller.
1920 Appears in "SINBAD" in Boston at Boston Opera House. Jolson gives song recital concert at Boston Symphony Hall in May. He is accompanied by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and he sings seventeen songs.
1921 (OCT) "BOMBO".This musical opens in a theatre on 7th Avenue and 59th Street, in New York City, named in honor of Jolie, THE JOLSON THEATRE. (Previously, all of the musicals which featured Jolson had been produced at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway and 50th Street.) Jolson sings "April Showers", "Arcady", "California, Here I Come", "Dirty Hands, Dirty Face", "Morning Will Come","Toot, Toot, Tootsie","Who Cares?" and "Yoo-Hoo".
1922 Jolson takes "BOMBO" on tour. Jolson marries his second wife, Ethel Delmar, a dancer. (Alma Osborn).
1923 "BOMBO" returns to New York from tour and resumes playing to packed houses.
1924 Has breakfast with President and Mrs Calvin Coolidge at the White House, in October. Leaves COLUMBIA RECORDS and signs with BRUNSWICK RECORDS at a high figure - said to be the biggest figure ever paid to a recording star up to that time. First recording for BRUNSWICK: "California, Here I Come" backed by "I'm Goin' South".
1925 (JAN) "BIG BOY" at the Winter Garden. Jolson sings "Hello, 'Tucky", "if You Knew Suzie", "It All Depends On You", and "Keep Smiling At Trouble". (MARCH) Jolson is appointed an honorary deputy sheriff of Westchester County,White Plains, N.Y.
1926 (APRIL) Jolson makes a Four week guest appearance in "Artists And Models" at the Winter Garden. Jolson appears in an early talkie movie produced by Warner Brothers, "April Showers", a short subject. Al divorces Ethel Delmar. Jolson is sued by David W. Griffith for refusing to go through with a movie contract. (Jolson had seen the 'rushes' and thought he came off poorly.) Jolson resigns from the Biltmore Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, because of discrimination against his friend, Harry Richman.
1927 "THE JAZZ SINGER". TALKIE MOVIE SENSATION IN WHICH AL JOLSON IS THE STAR.
1928 "THE SINGING FOOL". Another talkie movie produced by Warner Brothers in which Jolson sings the famous "SONNY BOY". Jolson meets Ruby Keeler and marries her on September 28th. William Auerbach-Levy, the famous artist, has his well known blackface caricature of Al Jolson featured an the entire front page of the rotogravure section of a Sunday edition of the Herald Tribune in New York City. Jolson photographed by STEICHEN. Jolson goes to Chicago specialist to have his nose beautified. His BRUNSWICK recording of "SONNY BOY" backed with "RAINBOW ROUND MY SHOULDER" hits 2,000,000 record sale.
1929 "SAY IT WITH SONGS" produced by Warner Brothers.
1930 "MAMMY" produced by Warner Brothers."BIG BOY" produced by Warner Brothers.
1931 (MARCH) "THE WONDER BAR" is musical Jolson returns with at the Nora Bayes Theatre. For the first time, Jolson appears on the musical comedy stage without black-face. Jolie sings 'The Canter", "Elizabeth" and "Oh, Donna Clara".
1932 Jolson has his own Radio Show on CBS, with Martha Raye and Parkyakarkus
1933 Jolson socks Waiter Winchell and causes sensational newspaper headlines. "HALLELUJAH,I'M A BUM" produced by United Artists. In this talkie, Jolson sings .You Are Too Beautiful" and other Rogers and Hart tunes.
1935 "GO INTO YOUR DANCE" produced by Warner First National. Jolson co-stars with his wife, Ruby Keeler. The talkie features songs by Dubin and Warren and the singing of Helen Morgan "About A Quarter To Nine" and "She's A Latin From Manhattan". Jolson is elected mayor of Encino, California.
1936 "THE SINGING KID" produced by Warner First National. Cab Calloway and his band are in this talkie with Jolson.
1938 In a CBS Radio Tribute to irving Berlin, Eddie Cantor and Jolson join to sing Berlin's "Mandy".
1939 Jolson appears in the following talkies produced by 20th Century-Fox, "ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE", "HOLLYWOOD CAVALCADE", and "SWANEE RIVER". The marriage of Al and Ruby sours Ruby sues for divorce. Al and Ruby are divorced.
1940 Jolson returns to Broadway stage with musical,"HOLD ON TO YOUR HATS". Martha Raye and Jinx Falkenberg are in it. Jolson sings "Don't Let It Get You Down" and "There's A Great Day Coming, Manana". Critic Brooks Atkinson writes in his review for the New York Times: "it's alright, folks! Jolson's back!"
1941 WORLD WAR II. Jolson is one of the first performers to offer his services to the USO.
1942 (JUNE) With USO Camp Show: ALASKA - two weeks. (AUG.) With USO Camp Show: ENGLAND & IRELAND one month.
1943 (SPRING) With USO Camp Show Carribean Area. (AUG) Almost a one man show North Africa & Sicily two months.(OCT) Very ill with pneumonia. A malignant form of malaria, contacted while on his North African tour the year before,catches up with Jolson in America. One lung is removed. In all Jolson had done 120 USO Camp Shows.
1944 (Dec) Jolson ill with malaria. In "TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT", a 20th Century Fox production, Jolson is merely in a brief film clip singing "Toot, Toot, Tootsie"
1945 Meets Erle Galbraith, an x-ray technician, during a show given at a Naval Base in Texas - and Jolson falls in love for the fourth time. Jolson marries Erle Galbraith. Jolson appears in the Warner Brothers production of "RHAPSODY IN BLUE", a talkie about the life of George Gershwin, and plays himself as he appeared in "SINBAD" and introduced Gershwin's "SWANEE".
1946 Sidney Skolsky, a newspaper movie columnist, sells COLUMBIA PICTURES the idea of making a full length musical picture on the life of Al Jolson. "THE JOLSON STORY" is released to moviegoers in the fall. In the picture, Larry Parks plays "JOLSON", but Al Jolson's voice stars. Testimonial Dinner for Jolson at Hotel Astor in New York.
1947 Appears in "MINSTREL DAYS", a Warner Brothers production. THE KRAFT MUSIC HALL RADIO SHOW: Al Jolson has Oscar Levant as pianist with guest stars. Jolson appears in the LUX RADIO THEATRE productions of "ALEXANDER'S RAGTIME BAND" and "THE JAZZ SINGER". Jolson appears on the BING CROSBY RADIO SHOW as a guest five times during the year. JoLson is guest star on the Eddie Canter Radio Show. Jolson is guest star on the Bob Hope Radio Show.
1948 Adopts a son, Asa. THE KRAFT MUSIC HALL: Jolson has Oscar Levant as his pianist and guest stars. Jolson stars in the LUX RADIO THEATRE production of "THE JOLSON STORY".
1949 "JOLSON SINGS AGAIN", a COLUMBIA PICTURES production is released to moviegoers. Continuation of the Kraft Music Hall series with Jolson as star and Oscar Levant as pianist with guest stars. Jolson appears twice as a guest on the Bing Crosby Radio Show. Jolson is a guest on the Edgar Bergen Radio Show. Jolson is a guest on the Jimmy Durante Radio Show. Jolson is a guest on the Eddie Canter Radio Show.
1950 Jolson appears three times as a guest on the Bing Crosby Radio Show. Jolson appears as a guest on the Jack Benny Radio Show. Jolson is the star of the LUX RADIO THEATRE production of "JOLSON SINGS AGAIN". Jolson is guest star on the George Burns-Gracie Allen Radio Show. Jolson records Hany Akst's "No Sad Songs For Me".
SUDDENLY, ON OCTOBER 23rd, IN THE ST. FRANCIS HOTEL IN SAN FRANCISCO, AL JOLSON, THE WORLD'S GREATEST ENTERTAINER, DIES OF A HEART ATTACK.