Viola Smith

Viola Clara Smith, born Viola Clara Schmitz on November 29, 1912, in Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, was an American drummer and Broadway performer whose career spanned from the 1920s until 1975. She died on October 21, 2020, in Costa Mesa, California, at the age of 107, recognized as the world's longest-lived female drummer and among the first professional female drummers in the United States.

Smith was the sixth of ten children — seven sisters and two brothers — raised by parents who operated a concert hall and tavern in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Her father organized the family's daughters into an ensemble, and all the children first learned piano before taking up other instruments. Smith chose drums because the instruments she preferred were already claimed by older siblings. That family group, initially called the Schmitz Sisters Family Orchestra and later the Smith Sisters Orchestra, performed on the Radio-Keith-Orpheum vaudeville and movie theater circuit on weekends and during summer vacations while several sisters were still in school. An appearance on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio program in the 1930s was identified by her nephew, Dennis Bartash, as her pivotal early break.

In 1938, Smith and her sister Mildred formed the Coquettes, an all-female orchestra that remained active until 1942. That same year, Smith published an article in Down Beat magazine titled "Give Girl Musicians a Break!," arguing that women instrumentalists were capable of filling positions vacated by male musicians being drafted during the national emergency. After Mildred married and the Coquettes disbanded, Smith relocated to New York, where she received handmade snare drums from her teacher Billy Gladstone, was awarded a summer scholarship to Juilliard, and joined Phil Spitalny's Hour of Charm Orchestra, a commercially successful all-female ensemble. She remained with that orchestra until it disbanded in 1954, and during that period she also performed with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, appeared alongside Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb, and played at President Harry Truman's inauguration in 1949.

As a member of the National Symphony Orchestra, Smith recorded music for two films: When Johnny Comes Marching Home in 1942 and Here Come the Co-Eds in 1945. She became widely known by the nickname "fastest girl drummer" and was noted for a signature setup of thirteen drums, including two sixteen-inch tom-toms positioned at shoulder height. She observed that Louis Bellson adopted the use of two bass drums after encountering her tom-tom configuration. Following the Hour of Charm's disbanding, Smith led her own ensemble, Viola and her Seventeen Drums.

Smith's Broadway career included an appearance in Swing! in 1937, as recorded in verified production credits. From 1966 to 1970, she performed as a member of the Kit Kat Band in the original Broadway production of Cabaret. She also appeared five times on The Ed Sullivan Show and made a television appearance on I've Got a Secret, both on CBS.

Smith never married. An earlier engagement ended when her fiancé was drafted during World War II. As of her 107th birthday in November 2019, she was reported to be occasionally still drumming with bands in Costa Mesa, California. She died at her Costa Mesa home on October 21, 2020, following a period of illness from Alzheimer's disease.