Gertrude Saunders

Gertrude C. Saunders (August 25, 1903 – April 1991) was an American singer, actress, and comedian whose career spanned from the 1910s through the 1940s. Born in Asheville, North Carolina, she studied at Benedict College in Columbia before leaving as a teenager to join a Chicago-based vaudeville troupe organized by Billy King. Working as a featured singer and comedian with that company, she performed hit songs including "Wait 'Til the Cows Come Home" (1918), "Hot Dog" (1919), and "Rose of Washington Square" (1920), and starred in King's 1919 stage production Over the Top, which dramatized the circumstances of African Americans at the time of the Paris Peace Conference.

In April 1921, Saunders became the original star of Shuffle Along in New York, the musical written by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, who composed "Daddy, Won't You Please Come Home" and "I'm Craving for That Kind of Love" specifically for her. The production was the first Broadway musical entirely written, directed, and performed by African Americans, and Saunders drew strong notices, with one critic observing that jazz with more pep than ever seen before was featured by her performance. She also recorded during this period for Okeh Records with Tim Brymn's Black Devil Orchestra. When vaudeville promoters Hurtig and Seamon offered her a higher salary to headline a burlesque show, she accepted, and Florence Mills replaced her in Shuffle Along. The career consequences of that decision proved lasting, though Saunders continued performing in revues throughout the 1920s, notably in several productions organized by Irvin C. Miller.

In 1929, Saunders was featured in a revue promoted by Jack Gee, the husband of Bessie Smith. Smith suspected an affair between Saunders and Gee, and physically attacked Saunders on two separate occasions, resulting in Smith being charged with assault. Smith's marriage to Gee ended shortly afterward. By 1931, Saunders had suffered a breakdown and returned to Asheville to recover.

She resumed her performing career during the 1930s, appearing in revues and attracting claims in some reports that she had, years earlier, originated the "boop-oop-a-doop" scat-singing phrase later associated with Helen Kane. Her screen work included an uncredited role as a servant in The Toy Wife (1938), and she co-produced her own stage show, Midnight Steppers, in 1939. On Broadway, she appeared in the play Run, Little Chillun in 1943, and her verified stage credits also include the revue Blackberries of 1932, Liza, and Shuffle Along in its 1952 production. She continued to work in films aimed at African American audiences, appearing in Big Timers (1945) and Sepia Cinderella (1947).

Saunders is portrayed in the 2015 HBO television film Bessie, in which the character Gertrude depicts her affair with Jack Gee. She died in Beverly, Massachusetts, in April 1991.