Gladys Bentley - Tumblr Posts

Happy birthday Gladys Bentley!

Gladys Bentley was born on 12 August 1907 in Philadelphia. She became famous in New York’s Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s for her energetic piano playing, her bawdy lyrics, and her masculine dress - her trademark performing outfit was a white tuxedo. She was publicly known to be interested in women, and might even have participated in one of 1930s Harlem’s female-female weddings.

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