Moms Mabley

Biography: From Difficult Beginnings to National Acclaim

Jackie “Moms” Mabley was born as Loretta May Aiken in the mid 1890’s.

(While many sources list her birth year as 1894, others list it as 1987. (1)  In later years, Mabley was famously evasive about her age. (2))

Born in North Carolina as one of sixteen children, Loretta Aiken’s childhood was wrought with tragedy. Both her father and mother suffered from untimely and violent deaths during her childhood. Additionally, Aiken was raped at the ages of eleven and thirteen , with both instances resulting in pregnancies. Unable to care for the children, Aiken gave both of them away. (1)

At the age of fourteen, Aiken ran away from home to join a traveling minstrel show headed by a duo called Butterbeans and Susie. She appeared as a singer and dancer on the TOBA (Theatre Owners Booking Association) circuit, which was a well known vaudeville circuit for African American performers.

Pictured: Butterbeans and Susie eating lunch with the then-named Moms Mabley

It was during this time that Aiken changed her name to Jackie Mabley. She acquired the name from her first boyfriend, Jack Mabley. In a 1974 interview with Ebony, Moms explained that “He took a lot off me and the least I could take was his name.” (2) By the late 1920’s, Mabley had adopted the nickname “Moms,” and with it, her signature style of an older, motherly figure. (3)

Pictured: Moms’ onstage style, which was designed to disarm audiences, consisted of “baggy gingham dresses, oversized clodhoppers, and oddball hats.” (3) Scholars have theorized that this style intentionally played into “mammy” stereotypes. (9)

In the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, Mabley began performing in popular Harlem clubs. These included spots like the Cotton Club, where Mabley performed alongside legendary artists like Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. Most notably was the Apollo, where Mabley became the first female comedian to perform. (4)

Mabley’s style of comedy can be described as “a bridge between vaudeville and confrontational standup.” (4) Her jokes often consisted of making fun of older men and lusting after younger ones. She “subtly ridiculed” the way older men “wielded authority over women” and even discussed their decline in sexual ability. (1)

“No honey, I don’t like no old man, uh-uh. No, no old men. I’d rather pay a young man’sway from here to California than to tell an old man the distance. Some old man sittin’ out there in the audience had the nerve to wink at me. Got his eye closed, and he so weak he couldn’t get it open. It stayed like that all night. Older than that old husband I used to have. And he was so weak that he got out of breath picking his tooth.” (3)

Her comedy also included sly commentary about the status of race in America, often leading audiences to feel like they were “in” on something. Comedian Arsenio Hall described her methods- “She talked about risqué stuff and was able to communicate the message without using language. She was a wordsmith and managed to get it across anyway.” (4) Joan Rivers theorized that Mabley got away with “telling the truth” because of her “homely” appearance, which disarmed audiences. (4)

“Passed through a red light. One of them big cops come runnin’ over to me. “Hey, hey woman! Don’t you know you went through a red light?” I said “Yeah, I know I went through a red light.” “Well, what’d you do that for?” I said, “Cause I saw all you white folks goin’ on the green light, I thought the red light was for us. I didn’t know.” (3)

Above: Mabley performing in a nightclub in 1948

Though Mabley frequently joked about her penchant for younger men, she was often seen with younger women. A contemporary describes sharing a dressing room with Moms and her “girlfriend,” though no one at the Apollo thought to call her a lesbian. Instead, the label “Mr. Moms” seemed to fit the bill for them. (4) However, modern scholars and biographers seem quite comfortable with the “lesbian” label. (1, 5)

During the 1930’s and 1940’s, Mabley also performed in several films and a Broadway production of Zora Neale Hurston’s Fast and Furious: A Colored Revue in 37 Scenes. Her first film appearance was in the 1933 film Emperor Jones, and she appeared in other titles such as The Big Timers, Boarding House Blues, and Killer Diller. (5)

Mabley continued to tour on the TOBA circuit and in Harlem nightclubs throughout the 1940’s and 50’s, making a name for herself and becoming one of the most frequently featured artists at the Apollo. Her national fame, however, came in the early 1960’s with the end of segregation. One of her first appearances for white audiences was at the Playboy Club, which helped to propel her into other popular white venues. (3) Additionally, a 1960 contract with Chess Records provided her with national recognition, with her first album rocketing to Gold status. (2)

Pictured: Moms Mabley’s popular record titled Her Young Thing

As Mabley’s popularity among white audiences continued to skyrocket, she began to perform on popular nationally syndicated television programs. These included The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Merv Griffin Show, and The Bill Cosby Show. She also performed at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center- giants in the world of entertainment venues.

Mabley’s discussion of gender and race continued during to define her comedy throughout her career, even as she was speaking to white audiences. In a 1960 interview, Mabley stated that her jokes were simply telling the truth about American society and that “very few” of the things she recorded were jokes. (7)

Above: Moms Mabley performing on national television in 1969

Mabley went on to release over twenty albums, covering topics from gender to racism. Near the end of her life, she starred in a film titled Amazing Grace, which included a call to action for black youth. (4) By the time of her death in 1975, she had garnered an estate of over half a million dollars. (6)

Moms’ Experiences as a Woman in Comedy:

While one might expect Mabley’s experience as a woman in comedy to be difficult, she was actually well respected by her male counterparts. In fact, Moms was considered to be “one of the guys” among her male counterparts at the Apollo. During her time in Harlem, she even wore men’s clothing offstage and earned the nickname “Mr. Moms” from her counterparts. (4)

Pictured: Mabley dressed in men’s clothing during her time at the Apollo Theatre

Joan Rivers theorized that Moms could get away with performing risque comedy as a woman by appearing “homely” onstage, which disarmed audiences. (4) Others have theorized that Mabley’s self-depiction of a “gender appropriate” motherly figure created “kinship” with audiences, allowing  her to make political and sexual jokes that bypassed traditional gender norms. (8)

Impacts and Influences:

Mabley’s impact on the field of comedy was major. She was one of the first African American comics to move from away from vaudeville to perform monologue humor, preceding even the famous Richard Pryor. (3) As the first African American woman to perform comedy at the Apollo and other venues, she opened the door for other women to perform. (4) She was also one of the first, if not the first, female comic to discuss men in a playfully degrading manner- something that male comics had been doing to women for years. (4) Her discussion of racism and gender was also unusual for a female comic of the time, which helped to shape the styles of future female comics. Mabley’s intentionally non-threatening appearance and motherly manner have also influenced modern comediennes, who use similar tactics of familiarity to prepare audiences for their risque comedy. (8)

“Moms opened a door for women to stand up and be funny.” – Whoopi Goldberg

In terms of specific comedians that were influenced by Mabley, several prominent names come up. Whoopi Goldberg described Mabley’s impact on her as “profound,” and stated that “Moms opened a door for women to stand up and be funny.” Kathy Griffin and Joan Rivers also cite Mabley as a major influence, with Griffin remembering Mabley as “the first female comedian I saw on television.” Sammy Davis Jr. described her as a “mother to every young performer that came along,” and Eddie Murphy even crafted a character based on Mabley for his film The Nutty Professor. (4)

Though Mabley’s impact on comedy as a whole and female comedy specifically was major, she has largely been lost to history. In my experience, there is little to no name recognition among young people, and no news stories have been released about her in the past decade. Luckily, there is a small amount of recent academic scholarship on Mabley, though her popularity outside of the academy remains scant.

Moms Mabley and Feminism:

Though there are no records of Mabley discussing feminism, scholars have framed her comedy as feminist in nature. Sarah Wolk states that “Mabley used her comedic performances to covertly protest racial and gender inequality” during the Civil Rights movement, adding that Mabley provided insight into the experiences of black women.

“Colored fellow down home died. Pulled up to the gate. St. Peter look at him, say, “What do you want?”
“Hey, man, you know me. Hey, Jack, you know me. I’m old Sam Jones. Old Sam Jones, man, you know
me. Used to be with the NAACP, you know, CORE and all that stuff, man, marches, remember me?
Oh, man, you know me.” He just broke down there, “You know me.” He looked in his book. “Sam
Jones,” he say, “no, no, you ain’t here, no Sam Jones.” He said, “Oh, man, yes, I am; look there. You
know me. I’m the cat that married that white girl on the capital steps of Jackson, Mississippi.” He said,
“How long ago has that been?” He said, “About five minutes ago.” (10)

Wolk adds that Mabley’s combination of the “mammy” stereotype with use of wisdom and sexual joking subverts the stereotypes of the “asexual” elderly black women. She also theorizes that Mabley’s ridicule of old men and impotence protests “the
exploitation of the female body through role reversal because men had traditionally
exerted control over the female body.” (9)

Works Cited

(1) Bennetts, Leslie. “The Pain Behind The Laughter of Moms Mabley.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 9 Aug. 1987, http://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/09/theater/theater-the-pain-behind-the-laughter-of-moms-mabley.html.

(2) “Moms Mabley.” Google Books, Ebony, books.google.com/books?id=LN4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88#v=onepage&q&f=false

(3) Watkins, Mel. African American Humor: the Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today. Lawrence Hill Books, 2002

(4) Goldberg, Whoopi, director. Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley . HBO, 2014

(5) “Moms Mabley.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 19 Jan. 2018, http://www.biography.com/people/moms-mabley-38691.

(6) Thompson , Cordell. “Moms Mabley Leaves $1/2 Million Estate; Disinherits Daughter.” Google Books, Jet, books.google.com/books?id=aLEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA59&dq=Moms%2BMabley&as_brr=1&ei=nqd4SdjcKoj-lQS76aQu#v=onepage&q=Moms%20Mabley&f=false.

(7) Studs Terkel, The Spectator: Talk About Movies and Plays With the People Who Make Them (New York: The New Press, 1999), 281.

(8) Fulton, DoVeanna S. “Comic Views and Metaphysical Dilemmas: Shattering Cultural Images through SelfDefinition and Representation by Black Comediennes.” JSTOR, University of Illinois Press, 2004, www-jstor-org.lp.hscl.ufl.edu/stable/pdf/4137614.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae058fa4459d83b27df36de3f65b3c00f.

(9) Wolk, Sarah Michelle. “Moms Mabley and the Civil Rights Movement.” California State University San Marcos, 2012

(10) Mizejewski, Linda. Hysterical! Women in American Comedy. University of Texas Press, 2017

(Photo number one: http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/moms-mabley-honored-by-hbo-888#axzz56YcTB84N)

(Photo number two: https://books.google.com/books?id=LN4DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA88#v=onepage&q&f=false)

(Photo number three: https://3chicspolitico.com/2014/06/03/tuesday-open-thread-black-comedians-moms-mabley/)

(Photo number four: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/112308584429237502/?autologin=true)

(Photo number x: http://kellyrowland.guff.com/moms-mabley-americas-first-black-comedienne/under-the-housecoat)