Cotton Club

Club De Luxe

Jack Johnson first opened the club in 1920 under the name Club De Luxe. Johnson had risen to prominence years before as the first African American to win a world heavyweight boxing championship, a distinction he held from 1908 to 1915. He was one of America's first celebrity athletes, leading a life marked by unparalleled successes and tabloid-worthy scandals; Great White Hope, the 1967 play and its 1970 film adaptation, both starring James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, is based on his life. By the time Johnson opened Club De Luxe, he was a hero in the black community for winning the so-called Fight of the Century, appearing in several films and radio shows, endorsing several popular products, and recording an album for Ajax Records. Club De Luxe was located in a busy area in central Harlem, at West 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue, only a block from where the famed Savoy Ballroom, a popular Harlem dance venue, would open in 1926.

In 1922, Johnson sold Club De Luxe to Owen “Owney” Madden, an Irish-born organized crime figure who had been recently paroled after serving nine years for the murder of rival gangster, Little Patsy Doyle. Madden reopened the club in 1923 as the Cotton Club. Madden lived lavishly, romantically linked to a number of women, and allegedly connected to even more killings. He had joined the Hell's Kitchen street gang, the Gophers, in his early teenage years, and developed a reputation as a dangerous and violent criminal. With Prohibition, which had been in effect in the United States since 1919, Madden saw an opportunity to use the Cotton Club to sell his bootleg beer. The police discovered the bootlegging business, and the Cotton Club was shuttered for a brief period in 1925.

Along with his business partners, William “Big Bill” Dwyer and George Jean “Big Frenchy” De Mange, Madden owned more than 20 New York nightclubs in the 1920s and 1930s. Before the end of the decade, Madden and his cronies even managed to gain partial ownership of the Stork Club, Manhattan's most exclusive supper club.

The Cotton Club Revues

The Cotton Club's real attractions were its African American club acts. White patrons were willing to make the long trek uptown to Harlem to see the most famous black singers, dancers, and instrumentalists in show business performing at the club. Among regular performers were Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Ethel Waters (where she introduced the standard “Stormy Weather” in 1933), the Dandridge Sisters (featuring a teenage Dorothy Dandridge), Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Adelaide Hall, the Will Mastin Trio (which included Sammy Davis, Jr.), Nat “King” Cole, and the Nicholas Brothers. At age 16, Lena Horne made her professional debut in the chorus; she was later promoted to a featured soloist.

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