Cherry Adele

(active 1945-1949)

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Cherry Adele [pictured on the far left] first appeared in the UK in August 1945, appearing with the Blue Hawaiians, led by Al Shaw. At Liverpool Shakespeare she sang ‘first class modern and “hula” numbers’ (Liverpool Echo, 04/09/1945, 2). Adele’s performance as a singer is commentated on through various racialised terms, advertisements listed her as the ‘singing blackbird’ and ‘the sophisticated blackbird’ variously, reviews commentated on her ‘seductiveness’. She was in the May 1948 production of Calypso in London’s West End. After this, she became part of Les Ballets Nègres, Berto Pasuka’s company. She appeared in Sauce Tartare alongside Audrey Hepburn in 1949 (see above), but no further mention can be found of her. She can be seen in Ballet Black see ::: Arts on Film Archive ::: 

~Sources: British Newspaper Archive

Further Reading

Very little exists about Adele, though you can see her in Ballet Black. She is also mentioned in An Inconvenient Black History of British Musical Theatre.