Blondie Robinson collection of African-American Minstrel and Vaudeville photographs (MS.2015.018)

Biographical note

Blondie Robinson was an accomplished African-American vaudeville performer whose comedy routines included skits, singing and dancing, acrobatics, contortions, and juggling. Based on what scant biographical information is available about him, he was mostly likely born in California sometime towards the end of the 19th century. He began working in vaudeville theatre at a young age, and appeared on stage as early as 1909.

Robinson performed alone and with others, principally in comedy duos, with both male and female counterparts. He portrayed a variety of characters on stage and wore a colorful assortment of costumes, which included blackface caricatures. He was a featured performer in various vaudeville circuits throughout the United States, traveling to such major metropolitan areas as New York City, Boston, Chicago, Memphis, and San Francisco. He also performed on international vaudeville circuits, including stints in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Along with Marjorie Sipp and the quartet, The Plantation Four, Robinson appeared as a principal performer in Plantation Days, a traveling musical revue directed by musician James P. Johnson and produced by Maury Greenwald, which began its inaugural run in Chicago in 1922. He also appeared in blackface as an endman in the troupe, Ye Olde Nigger Minstrels, which toured Australia in 1926 and was part of the American minstrelsy revival that began to surge in the late nineteenth century and continued through the early twentieth century. One of Robinson’s last documented stage appearances occurred in December of 1936, at the Federal Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, in the vaudeville show, "The Sepian Stars" which included a minstrel revival segment with Robinson cast as one of the leading roles.

Documentary evidence also indicates that Robinson was a song writer. He is listed in the Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical Compositions, Part 3, as the composer of the song, Molly from Mount Holly, copyrighted in 1938.

Blondie Robinson Performances

Chronology