Bricktop - born Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louisa Virginia Smith in what she called “West-by-God” Virginia in 1894 to a former slave and a barber, took on her famous nickname in homage to her bright red hair. In 1924, she met Langston Hughes, then a starving artist, on her first night in Paris. Accustomed to playing big clubs, she literally cried when she saw the small size of Le Grand Duc, the club she was to play in the French capital. Hughes was a waiter at the club and assured her that most clubs in Montmartre were just as tiny. “Bricktop was simply a good old girl of the kind folks call regular,” Hughes once said of his friend who was able to attract demigods like Noel Coward, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, and Cole Porter when she opened her first club in 1924. Even the Prince of Wales was a friend and he hosted the opening night for one of her later clubs. Cole Porter gave her the idea to name her club “Bricktop’s” and asked her to teach him and his friends the ‘Charleston’. She was also the inspiration behind one of the most famous songs by the great composer, “Miss Otis Regrets,” after she relayed the story of man who had been recently lynched in the South, ending with the line, “Well, that man won’t lunch tomorrow.” Photo: Carl Van Vechten (1939) Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library
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