Nellie Small knew how to rock a suit. There’s a photo of her, taken in 1954, standing on a small mobile stage in Sydney’s Castlereagh hotel, dressed in an immaculate bow tie and sporting close-cropped hair, singing her heart out to a room full of men, their middy glasses lined up in half-drunk rows. There are no women in the audience because they were not allowed in the public bar back then, or allowed to get a chequebook or apply for a mortgage. But here was a Black woman, of West Indian/Australian heritage, a verifiable star of the entertainment firmament, tearing up the room with her deep, growling voice full of honey and cinnamon, the piano accordion a sparkling accompaniment to her song.
Born in 1900, Small was a cross-dressing, jazz- and blues-singing, third-generation Australian entertainer, known by the now creaky sobriquet “male impersonator”. Her career began in the 1920s and flowered in the 30s and 40s. She was at the height of her glory in the 50s before her career trailed off in the 60s until she died of a lung disease in 1968.
“But why haven’t we heard of her?” I hear some people cry. Scratch the surface of Sydney and the memories of her are still there. But show business is never so much a straight line as it is a series of circles, and it’s never too late for a spectacular comeback.
Small was never any less than utterly forthright about the racism she experienced. In a 1953 interview in the Daily Telegraph she is quoted as saying: “I’m proud of my Australian birth. But I’d be much happier if more of my fellow countrymen would forget my skin color is different from theirs and sit down to hear my views on life and people.”
Many years ago when I spoke to jazz musician Jimmy Somerville, who toured with Small when she fronted the Port Jackson Jazz Band, he recalled how hotels refused to accommodate her and she could not pick up her mail at the Brisbane GPO. “Is it a she or a he?” columnist Jean Hull mused in the Arrow.
Humiliatingly, when Small returned to Australia after a triumphant tour of New Zealand in 1953, immigration officials insisted she fill in a visitor’s permit and threatened to send her back to Auckland unless she signed it, refusing to believe she was a citizen.
Trawl the archives or pick the brains of those who remember Small and you soon come across Edith Meggitt, Small’s Catholic manager with whom she lived for 20 years in North Sydney (also with Ted Meggitt, a furrier and Edith’s husband). A small woman with her hair in permanent waves around her ears, Edith is described in a 1952 People magazine article titled “The Gentleman is a Lady” as being “behind Nellie, urging, criticising and encouraging”. Routinely Edith is described as Small’s “unofficial” manager but I suspect that is as much to do with women not being credited with the chops to be an “official” manager as it is with any formal business arrangement between them. Frequently in articles about Small from the time, the journalist describes Edith as sitting in the front row of every Sydney show.
The photographs of Small and Edith “at home” will put a radiant smile on the face of anyone who loves pure camp. In one photo in the New South Wales State Library archives, Small is pictured in a crisp shirt and silk tie, smoking as she reads a hardcover book titled Curious Habits and Strange Beliefs of Civilized Man. Edith sits demurely in the background, flanked by floral curtains and a portrait, one supposes, of her husband. Susan Sontag’s definition, 10 years later, of pure camp as “dead serious … the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails”, describes the scenario to perfection.
Miss Nellie Small. Before her time, of her time, inspiring at any time. Queer icon. Black icon. Trouper. Show business legend. It was the entertainer Bobby Limb, whom I interviewed back in 1991, who told me that when a variety show was lacking sufficient oomph to really swing, the catchcry would be “Send For Nellie!” So that’s what I’ve called our cabaret about Small’s life, which features Darktown Strutters Ball, Lydia the Tattooed Lady and Stormy Weather – all songs she may have crooned – and is co-curated with African Australian hip-hop artist Kween G. At last, Nellie Small’s time has come along.
Send For Nellie is on at Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1 theatre, as part of the Sydney festival, before touring to the Art House Wyong (19-20 January) and Merrigong Theatre Company in Wollongong (14-17 February).
