like his daughter, but he was also the boss and Fanny looked up to him and listened to him.
Clarence wasn’t considered to be a lady’s man † and his friends insisted he was no pimp, either. For her part, Fanny accepted that her husband went out catting sometimes ‡ and she knew all about his relationship with a big white woman called Atlanta Shepherd, who worked as a dime-a-dance dancer at Remie’s Dance Hall on 66th and 67th Streets. Atlanta had borne Clarence a daughter called Mary, § on his birthday in 1932, but even that didn’t seem to bother Fanny; she always referred to Atlanta as ‘wife-in-law’ and the two of them were on friendly terms. But she hated Billie’s mother Sadie with a vengeance. She saw her as a serious rival who was always hanging around her husband and ‘dibbin and dabbin’ and following him wherever he went.
Fanny remembered an occasion when she and Clarence were at a club on Lenox Avenue, along with a whole party. He was minding his own business, but then Sadie came in and started to talk to him. Fanny was sure ‘she was trying to agitate me. My temper went up. I took up my fists and beat her. A guy picked me up and took me out of the club and wouldn’t let me come back.’ Another time she had a hunch that Clarence and Sadie were together somewhere and so she took a ride around 125th Street until she found them. And that was when she said she did her best to try to kill Sadie.
When Billie first came to New York, she wanted to stay with her father and her stepmother, but Fanny wouldn’t hearof it. She and Clarence had recently moved to an apartment on St Nicholas Avenue ‖ and they had three bedrooms as well as a sitting-room, so there was lots of space. Clarence was often away on tour with Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra while Fanny made herself a bit of money by running an ‘after-hours in-the-home place’ where you could go and ‘have a little taste’ and take your girlfriends up. But it was just for friends who knew the family well; she had to know who you were, and you had to be invited.
As far as Fanny was concerned, Billie was no better than her mother, what with calling Clarence
Daddy
, ‘just to be insulting to me’, and trying to win his sympathy in one way or another. She said that Billie was nothing but a ‘fat thing with big titties’, and she didn’t approve of the kind of life she was living and certainly didn’t want her to be ‘doing it in my home … She was growed up then. I couldn’t teach her nothing. Couldn’t do nothing with her. She didn’t look no thirteen. She looked like a growed woman.’
One night Billie turned up and complained that a boyfriend of Sadie’s had approached her; she pleaded to be allowed to stay in St Nicholas Avenue because she was scared. But Fanny was sure this was just a cunning way of trying to get Clarence’s sympathy and wouldn’t change her mind.
For a while, however, Billie did sometimes sing with Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra, and Clarence was pleased to have her around. But Fanny saw this as a threat and persuaded Fletcher to throw Billie out, saying that if he kept her it was going to cause the break-up of her marriage and there would be ‘a lot of hair pulling and a whole lot of things’.
Clara Winston had also known Fanny and Clarence at this time. Linda Kuehl described Clara as a ‘plump, bleached-blonde woman who had been one of the biggest madamsin Harlem’. When they met for the interview she was wearing a blue shortie negligee and at one point during the conversation she lifted it up to show off a naked buttock.
Clara explained that, as a woman, she’d ‘been through hell’ and nowadays she was a bit of a lush and liked to drink beer or maybe some Henessy brandy, because she figured it stimulated her a bit. She said in that way she was different to most of her friends because they didn’t ‘go for the wet stuff any more. They go for the dry stuff. They go for cocaine. Everybody is
Clarence wasn’t considered to be a lady’s man † and his friends insisted he was no pimp, either. For her part, Fanny accepted that her husband went out catting sometimes ‡ and she knew all about his relationship with a big white woman called Atlanta Shepherd, who worked as a dime-a-dance dancer at Remie’s Dance Hall on 66th and 67th Streets. Atlanta had borne Clarence a daughter called Mary, § on his birthday in 1932, but even that didn’t seem to bother Fanny; she always referred to Atlanta as ‘wife-in-law’ and the two of them were on friendly terms. But she hated Billie’s mother Sadie with a vengeance. She saw her as a serious rival who was always hanging around her husband and ‘dibbin and dabbin’ and following him wherever he went.
Fanny remembered an occasion when she and Clarence were at a club on Lenox Avenue, along with a whole party. He was minding his own business, but then Sadie came in and started to talk to him. Fanny was sure ‘she was trying to agitate me. My temper went up. I took up my fists and beat her. A guy picked me up and took me out of the club and wouldn’t let me come back.’ Another time she had a hunch that Clarence and Sadie were together somewhere and so she took a ride around 125th Street until she found them. And that was when she said she did her best to try to kill Sadie.
When Billie first came to New York, she wanted to stay with her father and her stepmother, but Fanny wouldn’t hearof it. She and Clarence had recently moved to an apartment on St Nicholas Avenue ‖ and they had three bedrooms as well as a sitting-room, so there was lots of space. Clarence was often away on tour with Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra while Fanny made herself a bit of money by running an ‘after-hours in-the-home place’ where you could go and ‘have a little taste’ and take your girlfriends up. But it was just for friends who knew the family well; she had to know who you were, and you had to be invited.
As far as Fanny was concerned, Billie was no better than her mother, what with calling Clarence
Daddy
, ‘just to be insulting to me’, and trying to win his sympathy in one way or another. She said that Billie was nothing but a ‘fat thing with big titties’, and she didn’t approve of the kind of life she was living and certainly didn’t want her to be ‘doing it in my home … She was growed up then. I couldn’t teach her nothing. Couldn’t do nothing with her. She didn’t look no thirteen. She looked like a growed woman.’
One night Billie turned up and complained that a boyfriend of Sadie’s had approached her; she pleaded to be allowed to stay in St Nicholas Avenue because she was scared. But Fanny was sure this was just a cunning way of trying to get Clarence’s sympathy and wouldn’t change her mind.
For a while, however, Billie did sometimes sing with Fletcher Henderson’s Orchestra, and Clarence was pleased to have her around. But Fanny saw this as a threat and persuaded Fletcher to throw Billie out, saying that if he kept her it was going to cause the break-up of her marriage and there would be ‘a lot of hair pulling and a whole lot of things’.
Clara Winston had also known Fanny and Clarence at this time. Linda Kuehl described Clara as a ‘plump, bleached-blonde woman who had been one of the biggest madamsin Harlem’. When they met for the interview she was wearing a blue shortie negligee and at one point during the conversation she lifted it up to show off a naked buttock.
Clara explained that, as a woman, she’d ‘been through hell’ and nowadays she was a bit of a lush and liked to drink beer or maybe some Henessy brandy, because she figured it stimulated her a bit. She said in that way she was different to most of her friends because they didn’t ‘go for the wet stuff any more. They go for the dry stuff. They go for cocaine. Everybody is
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