Olivette Miller

Olivette N. Miller (February 26, 1914 – April 27, 2003), who later took the name Olivette Miller-Briggs, was an American singer and swing harpist who also performed on Broadway. She was born in Chicago, though some sources cite New York as her birthplace.

Miller came from a family deeply rooted in American entertainment. Her father was actor and writer Flournoy Miller, and her mother was performer Bessie Oliver Miller. Her uncles, Irvin C. Miller and Quintard Miller, were both performers and producers. She received her education at the Ethical Culture School in New York and the East Greenwich Academy in Rhode Island, and went on to study at the University of Pennsylvania. Her harp training took place at Juilliard and in Paris under Marcel Tournier.

Her Broadway appearance came in 1934, when she performed in Africana. That same year she was married to Athos B. Guy. Miller joined Noble Sissle's orchestra in 1937 and subsequently toured Europe with the organization under the USO during World War II. As a solo performer in the 1940s and 1950s, she appeared on tour and in Las Vegas, where she was billed as the World's Greatest Swing Harpist.

Miller's work extended across multiple media. On television, she appeared on Toast of the Town in 1955, The Ed Sullivan Show in 1962, and The Rosey Grier Show in 1968. Her film credit includes A Rage in Harlem, released in 1991. In 1974 she performed a solo show in Reno, and in 1976 she wrote and co-produced The Show Folks, a syndicated television situation comedy starring her former husband, dancer Freddie Gordon, alongside Carole La Mond and DeForest Covan. She also worked to develop a biographical film about her father that examined how his comedy act was exploited by white producers. In 1972, Miller filed a lawsuit against comedian Flip Wilson, Michael Jackson, and others, seeking $500,000 for infringement of her father's intellectual property.

Miller was married multiple times. Her husbands included Orion N. Page, whom she married in 1930; Channing Price in 1933; Athos B. Guy in 1934; saxophonist Oett Mallard in 1938; actor Freddie Gordon, from whom she divorced in 1952; comedian Albert Gibson in 1954; Eric Darby; and tap dancer Bernard "Bunny" Briggs in 1982. She had a son, Alvin Miller Mallard, born in 1939 and died in 1943, and a daughter born in 1949. Miller died on April 27, 2003, in North Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 89. Her papers are held as part of the Flournoy E. Miller Papers at Emory University.