Moms Mabley

Moms Mabley, born Loretta Mary Aiken in Brevard, North Carolina, was an American stand-up comic and actress. She began on stage in the 1920s and became a longtime Chitlin' Circuit performer in black vaudeville. In April 1939 she performed at Harlem's Apollo Theater, the first woman comic to do so. During the 1950s she took the name Moms and a toothless, bedraggled look with house dress and floppy hat, a harmless guise that let her tackle race and other subjects most comics then avoided. A wider white public discovered her in the 1960s, when she played Carnegie Hall and appeared repeatedly on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. She recorded comedy albums and guested on The Ed Sullivan Show, and her Abraham, Martin and John reached No. 35 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969. Her films included The Emperor Jones (1933), Killer Diller (1948), and Boarding House Blues (1948); Amazing Grace (1974) was her only starring role.