90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody's interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.
A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don't do that on stage.
And so, in Dallas, like I said before, after I'd been there before - and people in Dallas loved me, that thought I was great, cause I had played in the Majestic theater there people in Dallas loved me, they... . And it was fabulous.
At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres.
Bubbles was a very good dancer. Tremendous dancer. He was one of our leading dancers of the country at that time. And, of course, he didn't have much of a voice.
Charleston was a good town. It was a nice town. I played there years ago before Porgy and Bess. And I think the conception wasn't bad. It was good.
Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any.
Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club.
George Gershwin was there. Visited there quite a few times. I think he liked me.
He was a silly guy. Out - do the other guy. That was his effort at all times.
I get to the Cotton Club about nine o'clock. We played dance music up until about eleven or twelve. Then we put on a show.
I think it was just an opera. Now, you go to opera, you expect to see and hear what the opera is. So, it was Catfish Row. It was singers. Marvelous voices. It didn't make no difference what color they were.
It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of course, if they had gotten the original company to have done it, it would have been very good.
My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it, was all for my audience.
Of course, nobody knows what Porgy was, whether he was on his knees all the time or was pulled by a goat or - they don't know what he was.
That's what George wrote! He wrote it. Why change it? There was this European company that I was speaking about awhile ago - course, didn't nobody know what Porgy was.
The boy that did Crown sang wonderful. The role of Crown I never hear as good as he did that. Porgy was Porgy. He was alright.
The only credit I can give them. They synchronize wonderful. That's all. They synchronize very - you would have thought that they were actually acting, but they were synching all the time, and that's a rough job.
They were all good. Can't say that none was best and none was worst. I don't know, they were all good as far as I was concerned.
Wasn't no scoop I ever heard of. The wanted to see a show. Wanted to see the opera.
We didn't have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free.
We had a great run in Paris. It was sold out every performance in Paris. People sitting in the aisles. They loved it in Paris.
We usually never got out of there before four or five o'clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough.
Well, he didn't have much of a conversation with me. Not that I can remember. I wasn't used to him. That's about all. I don't know. No conversation.
What opera isn't violent? Two things happen, violence and love. And other than that, name something else. You can't.
Wonderful singers. Leontine - Warfield at the time was fantastic. She had three Porgees, and had one, two, three Bess's. Leontine Price would do it one day. Oh, what's the girl's name.
You can't say they look up to him - if you did, you've got to look up to everybody in the show. But he's an outstanding character in the show.
You don't think it was because a white man wrote it, a black man wrote it, a green man wrote it. What - doesn't make a difference! Doesn't make a difference. I think he did a good job.
Cab was presented with National Medal of the Arts, by President Bill Clinton in October 1993.
Cab's 80th birthday, in 1987, was celebrated with a concert at Carnegie Hall, where he was reunited with several musicians from his original band.
Cab recorded a disco version of "Minnie The Moocher" in 1977.
Cab's most famous acting role to modern audiences was his portrayal of Curtis, life-long friend of Jake and Elwood in The Blues Brothers. (1980) He also performed his greatest hit song in this, "Minnie The Moocher," wearing his trademark white tuxedo.
Cab was guest judge in 1986 for the Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment's "Wrestlemania 2" at Nassau Coliseum for a boxing match between Mr. T and Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Cab wrote a book in 1944 about "jive talking" called The New Cab Calloway's Hepsters' Dictionary: Language of Jive.
Cab had a school named after him, the Cab Calloway School of The Arts in Wilmington, Delaware, which opened in 1992.
Cab became the bandleader of Harlem's famous Cotton Club in the 1930s, filling in for Duke Ellington whenever he was out on tour.
Cab's favorite way of dress was a white tuxedo.
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