Rosalie King

Rosalie King (August 23, 1902 – June 11, 1997), also known by her married name Rosalie Simpson, was an American character actress and singer whose Broadway career spanned from 1933 to 1970. She was recognized for the distinctive timbre of her contralto voice, which distinguished her work across stage, radio, and choral performance.

King made her Broadway debut in 1933 in Run, Little Chillun, in which she played Sister Mahalie Ockletree. The following year she appeared in Roll, Sweet Chariot. Her stage work continued across subsequent decades, including a role in the 1946 production Bal Nègre and an appearance in Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1939. She performed in both the original production of Porgy and Bess and its 1942 revival. In 1963 she took on the role of Mattie Morningside in Tambourines to Glory, and in 1964 she costarred in Jericho-Jim Crow, a play written by Langston Hughes. Hughes, who became a particular admirer of King's work, wrote original material specifically for her. King's final Broadway credit was Lovely Ladies, Kind Gentlemen in 1971, in which she appeared as an Okinawan/American character.

Beyond Broadway, King performed on radio in The Maxwell House Coffee Hour and sang with the Eva Jessye Choir. She was an original member of the Katherine Dunham Company but departed when the troupe planned a tour of Australia and New Zealand between 1956 and 1957, citing the distance from her children. Her departure also led her husband, basso profondo Gordon Simpson, to leave the company, a loss for which she later said Dunham never fully forgave her.

A stroke in the mid-1960s curtailed King's performing career. She recovered but stepped back from regular stage work, limiting herself to occasional performances and consultancies during the 1970s and 1980s. In her later years she was credited under the name Rosalie Simpson. Her credits are sometimes confused with those of her daughter, Rosalie King, Jr., a child actor who later became an educator. King died in Ocala, Florida in 1997.