Chapter Three
"God don't sponsor no flops."
That was Ethel Water's response when her friends Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenberg asked her on their New York radio program if the forthcoming Billy Graham Crusade was going to be a success.
Not only did she firmly believe it was going to be successful, but she went on to predict that Madison Square Garden was going to be full and the meetings would be extended.
Ethel had never met Billy Graham or attended one of his meetings. But she had listened to him on the radio. When she finally saw a picture of him, she first thought he was "too young and too good looking to be trusted. And I was slightly annoyed that he was white." In her mind she questioned whether white people could have the same zeal for Jesus and the Bible as her folk did.
But the lanky North Carolina evangelist was getting through to her. "He didn't use a whole gang of Amens and Hallelujahs. Yet he spoke in a language my intellect could comprehend." "And the Bible says . . ." was his favorite phrase, so maybe he wasn't a phony.
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Although Ethel still had her home in Los Angeles, she had been living in New York for some time. At this time she was hoping to do another stint of Member of the Wedding with a stock cast. She also had a couple of her one-woman shows — An Evening with Ethel Waters — to do but demands for her performances were not many.
When Lane Adams, a member of the Billy Graham Team, heard Ethel's remarks on the radio show, he phoned to offer her tickets to the crusade. She readily accepted them — aisle seats in the loge which were comfortable and wide enough to accommodate her 350 pounds.
Ethel Waters entered Madison Square Garden that night in 1957 a disillusioned, lonely, sixty-one-year-old woman. She had become successful at giving out happiness, but her personal life lacked peace. She was in debt, was having physical problems, as well as being much too heavy to perform comfortably, and was worried about her career.
When she entered the Garden, she was amazed at the transformation. She had played there often for benefit shows when the noisy, unruly crowds jammed the gates until opening and then shoved in to find seats. But this crowd exhibited a peace and serenity while waiting and listening to the choir rehearse "Blessed Assurance," a song she had learned in her little church in Chester.
That night she hung onto every word Billy Graham said. "What he said seemed like he was answering every question I had in my mind," she recalled. "Above all he kept saying how close the Lord is to you. I began thinking along a different trend, that God wasn't far away — it was me shutting him out." The more he talked the more she knew the Lord was calling her to "come back home."
All her life she had felt caught and confused between her mother's staunch Protestantism and her grandmother's Catholicism. She knew that she loved God and He loved her, but she never had the feeling of peace with Jesus. As she
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went back to her hotel room that night she felt as though a weight had been lifted from her heart.
Night after night she attended the crusade meetings, but finally the strain of waiting in line before each service was too much for her. The second week of the crusade she called Lane Adams to ask if there wasn't an easier way to get in. She had seen people wearing buttons and badges walk right through the lines.
Lane suggested she join the choir and then with her red button there would be no waiting in line. She smugly got her button with no intention of singing with the choir. But she was trapped. A secretary was waiting to escort her to the alto section.
Bill Brown, associate crusade director at that crusade, recalls with laughter the dilemma that faced him when told that Ethel Waters, with well over 350 pounds, would be singing in the choir:
We felt honored to have her but we wished there was a little less of her — the seats in the choir section were designed for people of normal proportions. I first thought of taking the arm off the end of a row, but I knew only half of her would fit on the seat and with such a hangover she would be uncomfortable. Besides we were warned by the fire marshall not to block the aisles. I felt proud of myself when I came up with the idea of taking the second arm out, thereby making it possible for Ethel to occupy two seats at one time. Would you believe, even with that she still had to do some squeezing! The RESERVED sign kept that double seat waiting for that very special choir member each night.
Ethel said of her experience of singing in the choir, "Cliff Barrows proceeded to have me being like a jumping jack. I'd hardly get down in the seat before he'd have me up standing with the choir. I always felt that Cliff with his eagle eye was
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watching my mouth which was loud, wrong and strong. I didn't know how to read music, so when they rehearsed a hymn that I didn't know, I'd just work my mouth."
Cliff Barrows clearly remembers that time in New York in 1957, as he recalls Ethel Waters joining his massive choir:
She had been with us almost every night for six weeks, and I purposely did not refer to her being in the choir, since it was obvious to us she wanted to participate without being singled out and made reference to. I appreciated her spirit in this regard and certainly respected her wishes. When the time came for us to extend the meetings, I asked her quickly in front of the choir one evening if she would be willing to sing for us. Immediately the choir broke out in spontaneous applause affirming their desire as well, and of course, she graciously consented to do so.
I think one of the moving experiences of my life was leading her that first time in singing with the choir, "His Eye Is on the Sparrow." She did it so beautifully and seemed so obviously moved in her own heart and spirit, and I felt that the entire choir along with all of us on the music staff were caught up in it. Of course, during the next two-and-a-half months we sang it many times, and also worked on a couple of other songs which she and the choir sang. We had her appear at least once a week for the rest of the crusade, which went for four months.
Ethel recalled on the Word record Just a Little Talk with Ethel that she was scared to say yes to Cliff Barrows' request, because a woman had never sung at a crusade, but also because she couldn't really call herself a Christian — and besides she didn't have what she called "a church voice." Yet she wanted to stand up and publicly claim the Lord. If she sang "Sparrow," she would be making a public commitment, and she couldn't go back to show business.
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"I was afraid of losing the feeling I had now. If I went back I wouldn't have the incentive to get up on stage and sing some of the songs I knew I could put across that the public still loved hearing.
"Oh, when I was in show business, I was religious. I thanked Jesus each time for helping me please the people. But I hadn't faced that you're to completely relinquish yourself — you can't serve two masters, and the stage don't fit in. But it was my livelihood. And how could I make my living without it?
"But the long and the short of it was, I did sing 'Sparrow.' And the Lord has made me rich since then! I'm not talking financially. But I have found in Him everything I need. I feel secure. I never had that shoulder and lap, but I have it now in my spiritual strength and faith in Him. I have many laps — my children I wouldn't have known if I hadn't met Jesus."
When the crusade was over, Ethel returned to her home in Los Angeles. She was concerned as to how she could pay her mounting debts, but she trusted God to supply all her needs. She sold her home to make room for the freeway, and this provided her with the money to pay all her bills. She then shared a home with Donna and Elwood Wilson, who personally looked after her for over six years.
"Theatre and professional life is borrowed time. I don't care who you are," she said. "After you get to the top of the mountain you can't stay there. You got to descend, and that doesn't mean you're no good. But there's no place for you up there. The only thing that is eternal and everlasting is Jesus Christ."
Cy Jackson, who had first seen Ethel in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1955, when she appeared at the Radio Theatre in Member of the Wedding, tells of his association with her:
It was shortly after the Billy Graham Crusade in Madison Square Garden that I contacted Ethel about being the headliner
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at a concert I was involved in with Ralph Carmichael at Red Rocks amphitheater near Denver. She was at that time living in New York City. She was quite hesitant about accepting the invitation, and I recall giving her every argument in the book, and then it took another phone call or two to get an affirmative answer. The big question in her mind seemed to be how she could justify singing in a sacred concert (which was to be her first) and still not leave the impression she was just cashing in on the publicity she had received at the Garden crusade. But the vibes must have been right — she accepted on the basis of doing "Sparrow" and perhaps one other sacred number. She appeared in the concert and I know that her name very definitely was instrumental in giving us a capacity crowd of over ten thousand people.
In August of 1957 she arrived in Denver for the concert. I'll never forget as we met her at the airplane — all 350 pounds of her — the first thing she said to me was, "Well, here is your big fat sparrow"! I recall the evening following the rehearsal that we returned to the hotel and she took a seat on one of the chairs at the entrance of the hotel. Her weight was just too much for that chair — she and the chair both went down! It took several of us to get her up.
One of the first concerts Ethel did for her Lord was in Fresno, California. Dan Jantz, president and manager of the Fresno Bible House, sponsored the evening with Ethel. He remembers the night:
We rented the Roosevelt High School Auditorium which seats approximately twenty-six hundred people, and we began to advertise the concert and that Ethel Waters would be appearing in person in Fresno.
It was on a no-admission-charge basis, so we had no idea how many people would come. Before the concert began, the auditorium was filled to capacity. It was exciting to see the eager
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looks on the faces of the people just waiting to get a glimpse of Ethel Waters. Most of them had never seen her before, but knew her through her radio, television and theatrical appearances, and they were most anxious to see and hear her in person.
I remember meeting Ethel backstage and telling her, "Ethel, the place is packed and everyone is waiting to hear you."
She replied, "Well, glory be, they are going to get an earful tonight, because I feel like singing hallelujah tonight. My heart is overflowing."
Just the way she said it, I thought she would start singing backstage. I felt I had very little time for any kind of introduction, because I thought she'd come bouncing on the stage at any time. Just about that time, the curtain went up and all I did was come on stage to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, Ethel Waters." Everybody rose to their feet as she walked on stage singing the chorus of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."
During intermission when she came backstage, she told me, "I'm having a ball." She also told me she did not know how she could get along without Cy and Vera Jackson who were her escorts on the engagement as well as many others since that time.
Needless to say, Ethel Waters won the hearts of her listeners in Fresno. She had the audience laughing, crying, joining in and singing with her . . . what a night!
Shortly thereafter, Ethel recorded her first of three albums for Word, Inc. Cy Jackson recalls that she had a pretty good business head. "What's on the rail for the lizard?" she asked when it came time to talk about contracts.
For that first record, Ethel chose her favorite songs and spirituals, many of which had never been put down on paper before. She sang them to the arranger, Paul Mickelson, and he wrote the score. Among them was the Negro spiritual "I Just Can't Stay Here by Myself," which tells the story of a slave mother whose children were sold as slaves and who
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pleaded to be sold along with her last child. When Ethel was recording that spiritual and the song "Mammy," she broke down and wept, as the songs called up the pains and sorrows of her childhood and as she felt her own mother's and grandmother's experiences.
Another song on the record was "Partners with God," which she wrote herself with a young composer, Eddie Stuart, who heard her say one time, "I could never be destitute as long as I am partners with God."
During these years Ethel did concerts in churches, Youth for Christ meetings, conventions, etc. She was accompanied in many of these engagements by Dick Bolks and Paul DeKorte. The two men would sing and play during the early part of the program, and then Dick would accompany Ethel during her part.
In the spring of 1964, Ethel did a revival of The Member of the Wedding at the Pasadena Playhouse, Pasadena, California. Scheduled to run two weeks, the engagement ran five weeks and set house box office records. As a result, she followed with Member at the LaJolla Playhouse and the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara. Later she did a run of the play in a dinner theatre in Chicago. These were all successful engagements, but because of her health, she could not continue the heavy grind, even though booking agents continued to stay on her heels to get commitments for continuing to play in Member.
Cy Jackson continues his memories of Ethel:
In November in the early sixties, Ethel presented her one-woman show, An Evening with Ethel Waters, at the Sombrero Playhouse in Phoenix. She was interviewed by the Phoenix Gazette, and they asked her what she planned to do Thanksgiving Day. "Stay in my hotel room alone," she answered. A Christian family read the story and invited her to dine with them on Thanksgiving. She was elated and
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impressed that someone — strangers — just the sake of Christian love would ask her to their home. She graciously and humbly accepted their invitation.
My wife Vera and I would often take her to eat at her favorite cafeteria in Pasadena — Beadle's. She liked it because the menu included her favorite — halibut. The love for halibut stayed with her, and when she was unable to leave her apartment, I would take her the halibut every couple of weeks, along with another favorite of hers — pumpkin pie. It would give us a chance to sit and talk — and me to take in those verbal gems for which she will be long remembered.
Grady Wilson, an associate evangelist with Billy Graham and his wife Wilma were two of Ethel's closest friends. "Grady understands me," Ethel often told me on returning from singing at his crusades. She loved his sense of humor, and the two of them shared many belly laughs. However, one of Grady's fondest memories of Ethel is a serious one, about the time she helped bridge the racial gap in Barbados.
At a press conference prior to a crusade in Barbados, a reporter asked Ethel, "Miss Waters, don't you feel ill-treated in the United States because of your color?" In her frank and honest way she replied "Oh no, baby, no. It's about time instead of hating we start loving whitey." The next day the local newspaper headlined her response: "Ethel Waters pleads with Barbadians to stop hating and start loving." It pleased Ethel that "they got the message."
Ethel loved doing sacred concerts across the nation. They were squeezed in between the Billy Graham Crusades which were her first love.
When Billy Graham was going to hold a crusade in the Cow Palace in San Francisco, Ethel called Cliff Barrows and
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asked if she could come. He was glad to have her and let her sing each night.
From then on she watched Decision magazine for the crusade schedule. "I didn't wait for you to call me," she told Cliff Barrows, "I called you." A taping of the "Route 66" TV show delayed her going to Philadelphia, but when her schedule was free to go she called Cliff and shouted, "I'm coming on my own steam."
Ethel Waters became a familiar sight at Billy Graham Crusades as she sang in Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Charlotte, and Greenville.
The Rev. T. Eugene Coffin, executive pastor of Garden Grove Community Church recalls the time when, as minister of Whittier Friends Church, he was invited to participate in a worship service at the White House to which Ethel was also invited.
Just before the limousine came to take them to the executive mansion, Mr. Coffin and his wife invited Ethel into their hotel room for a prayer that God might use them in this great opportunity to touch so many lives. As they bowed their heads, Ethel said to Mr. Coffin, "You pray. I'm all prayed up."
Prayer to Ethel was a most important element of her life. Her prayer life, she often said, was "a continual running conversation with my precious Jesus."
Ethel Waters never really left show business — she just changed her message. She told everyone who would listen about her precious Savior. "He loves each and every one of you — and so do I," she told audiences. "As long as He lets me, I'm going to spend the rest of my days openly praising Him."
