NAOMI WALLER
THE LINDY "PRIMA DONNA"
by Terry Monaghan

Naomi Waller was one of the classiest dancers for the short time she was a member of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and her brief but spectacular career in the late 1930's and early 1940's took her from the rural parts of South Carolina to Broadway. Driven by a steely determination, that was tempered by a distinctly Southern sense of elegance and propriety, she swiftly ascended the ladder of artistic achievement. Her first career move resulted from her father landing a job in the Philadelphia postal service which enabled the very young Naomi to not only dance on the streets of a big city for nickels and dimes but to progress to winning children's contests in vaudeville shows.

June, Naomi's mother, had entrenched religious convictions, that originally restricted Naomi's dancing proclivities but then weakened as the family moved further away from the South. Even in Philadelphia however she was still insisting that dancing was the province of fast and loose women. A move to New York in 1930, where her mother found work as a furrier and a caterer, tipped the balance in Naomi's favour. Naomi was even sent to the Grace Giles Studio on 131st and 7th Avenue, to learn ballet and tap. Just one block away though from where they lived on 137th Street stood the Renaissance Ballroom where Naomi soon discovered a new world of eager young males queuing up to swing out with such a gorgeous young dancer. Before long her mother was repairing and cleaning Naomi's dancing dresses, as the resolve to ensure her daughter looked her best overtook her religious certainties.

Curiosity drew Naomi into Harlem's Apollo Theatre one day in 1935 when she noticed a Lindy Hop competition had been announced. In the rehearsal room she encountered Herbert White, head of the famed "Whitey's Lindy Hoppers" trying in vain to teach a particular air step. Brazenly suggesting she could demonstrate how, Naomi executed it with style and was rapidly prevailed upon to enter the contest, which she won with ease with an unknown partner. Once again the limits of her Mother's tolerance were tested, when she followed up by going to the Savoy Ballroom for the obligatory triumphal demonstration. Arriving home way too late, she suffered a ritual thrashing with an electrical lead and was grounded for a week.

Her talent was not to be denied though and the concerned parties moved towards a solution. June took over the catering concession at the Savoy and introduced southern fried chicken to the menu. It also meant she could keep an eye on her daughter who Whitey had recruited and teamed up with Frankie Manning whom she partnered for the next three years. Rapidly they became such a formidable Lindy competition winning team that the ballroom manager, Charles Buchanan, forbade them from entering the Saturday night contest but paid them to demonstrate afterwards. Professional bookings followed as the company responded to the expanding demand for Lindy Hoppers all over the US, which included major Broadway theatres like the Roxy. In Summer 1936 they were resident at the Club Paradise in Atlantic City whilst in September they featured in the new Cotton Club production that opened in its new midtown venue with Cab Calloway and Bill Robinson.

Europe was calling in 1937, and the "Cotton Club Revue", as the New York production was renamed, was re-packaged with the Teddy Hill Band as the basis and the leading artists including Bill Bailey, the Berry Brothers and Alberta Hunter. Known as "Whyte's Hopping Maniacs" they became huge successes at the London Palladium, Paris's Moulin-Rouge and Dublin's Palace Theatre. The resident African-American community centred in Montmartre, which met regularly at Boudon's, made her especially homesick. This restaurant had an excellent cook from Chicago, who served up soul food to the assembled artists who sat at long tables and talked of home. (Apparently she never knew that the proprietor of this resteraunt willingly turned over names of jewish and black people to the Gestapo when the Nazi's invaded France during World War II) Naomi made the cover of "Paris Match" and the visit to London for a Royal Command performance took place as all the fuss surrounding the coronation of George VI was dying down.

On returning to New York her mother went to the William Morris Agency who had arranged the tour to complain about her daughter's earnings. Evidently word had got back about Naomi's potential and they suggested she became a regular showgirl. Chorus line work followed and she worked the main theatres of the east coast until 1941. Naomi's spirit and talent still precluded an easy life. 1939 saw what looked like her big break when she was recruited for the epic production of "Swingin' The Dream" quite separately from members of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers who were also in the production. Agnes de Mille, the Dance Director, however did not take kindly to Naomi's embellishments of her chorus line choreography, or at least pretended not to whilst taking careful note and including them subsequently. Despite packed houses, the show was top heavy with expensive talent and folded, leaving Naomi to return to more mundane bookings.

The onset of WWII changed the cultural geography of New York and Naomi decided it was time for a move and became a regular dancer at Moran's Club on 132nd Street. It was one of the new be-bop hot spots and many musicians came and went, but above all there were only two shows a day to be performed there rather than the exhausting five or more that a theatre chorus dancer was expected to perform at that time. Monroe's closed and in 1944 she joined the USO and toured Army Camps for almost two years working virtually every state in the union. She was just a hairsbreadth away from returning to Broadway where she successfully auditioned for the new Hammerstein production of "Showboat", but having bad memories of the collapse of "Swingin' the Dream" signed up to a travelling burlesque show on the Schubert circuit before she got the news that she had passed the audition. Happiness, that is Naomi's definition - two performances a day - prevailed in the Burlesque shows as well, so she was not complaining. Moreover it was left to the white girls to strip whilst the black girls excelled at "shake dancing." Show dancing kept her dancing for a while longer before finally retiring from the business when she married John R. Gay whom she had met whilst on the USO circuit.

Herbert "Whitey" White had labelled the impetuous Naomi as a "Prima Donna" when she walked out of his company after returning from Europe. He was right in more ways than he realised. Naomi could not accept the restrictions of show business at the time and kept searching. When finally out of the business she became a community activist, helping and pressurizing local politicians over a range of issues with special references to discrimination against black artists in the media in conjunction with her daughter June. She never regretted her dancing career, knowing that she invariably got the best possible out of it at the time and kept returning to the Savoy for its annual March 12 birthday celebration of its opening. The friendship created with Dizzy Gillespie on the 1937 tour lasted and he along with many other friends from her show biz days kept regular contact, including the chief Savoy hostess for many year Billy Carole and the other well known hostess Cissy Bowe. Needless to say her ex-Lindy partner Frankie Manning kept in contact right too the end. Dance for Naomi was an expression of that same collective involvement that her mother had embodied in so many ways, and now has found a new form in the work of her daughter June who works in special education.