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Lillian Yarbo(1905-1996)

  • Actress
  • Soundtrack
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank
Lillian Yarbo in You Can't Take It with You (1938)
The 'Real' Billie

Lillian--aka "Billie"--Yarbo. A forgotten name, to be sure (at least ever since the 1949 release of Look for the Silver Lining (1949), featuring Yarbo's final onscreen appearance, uncredited as were the great majority, in a career spanning not quite 15 years), yet the face that goes with that name will likely prove familiar to connoisseurs of Hollywood's "Golden Age."

Yarbo (née Yarbough) was an African-American actress, comedienne, dancer and singer, of both stage and screen. Born in Washington, D.C. on Friday, March 17, 1905, parents unknown (although it should be noted there is a "Yarbough, George; fireman," listed in the 1904, -05 and -06 D.C. Directories), Billie eventually made her way to New York, as did both her mother and at least one sister--though exactly when this happened and whether they made this pilgrimage all at once or separately and at different times remains unclear. By her early twenties, Yarbo--credited, prior to 1928, as Billie Yarbough--was a rising star, both in Harlem night spots and on the Broadway stage. Her early stage work, occasionally likened to that of her contemporary, Josephine Baker, was embraced by audiences and critics alike, beginning in the late 1920s and continuing until her 1936 screen debut.

Indeed, just a few years prior to launching his own screenwriting career, a young Charles Brackett, writing of Yarbo's breakout performance in the Broadway revue, "Keep Shufflin,'" registered his most emphatic 'thumbs up' in the March 10 New Yorker: "There is a Miss Billie Yarbough, who must have been designed by Covarrubias and must be seen." Granted, the Covarrubias reference may have been entirely lost on a sizable portion of TNY's readership; nonetheless, the near-simultaneous publication of both Vyvyan Donner's eye-catching New York Times caricature / caption and Ibee's characteristically terse yet unambiguously positive Variety blurb makes a compelling case that Billie's time had indeed come.

Yet despite what seemed a thriving stage career, both as a highly acclaimed dancer and, at the very least, a hugely self-assured singer ("To hell with Billie Holiday," as Yarbo later admonished jazz trumpeter Buck Clayton, "come down and listen to me--the real Billie!"), it is strictly her film work--undeniably more lucrative but affording relatively little margin for creativity or self-expression--for which Yarbo's face has come to be remembered. She appeared in at least two films in 1936 and another the following year before getting great notices and her first onscreen credit in the otherwise indifferently received Warren William vehicle, Wives Under Suspicion (1938). For that performance and her equally acclaimed turn in director Frank Capra's star-studded, award-winning comedy, You Can't Take It with You (1938), Yarbo was judged the year's best Negro comic actress by Pittsburgh Courier film critic Earl J. Morris. (In 1939, she was officially awarded that same distinction by the short-lived, Hollywood-based Sepia Theatrical Writers Guild). Indeed, even prior to 1938, the then thoroughly anonymous Yarbo--in Alfred L. Werker's much-rewritten Big Town Girl (1937)--managed to catch the eye of one discerning Philadelphia Inquirer critic, the suitably inquisitive Mildred Martin:

"... and a Negro lassie--inexcusably omitted from the cast list--renders yeoman service and considerable comedy as the "countess' " maid".

Awards and critical plaudits aside, and notwithstanding the career-building intentions ascribed to her erstwhile director King Vidor (following Yarbo's sophomore screen turn, appearing uncredited alongside Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas (1937)), Yarbo continued to be routinely cast in bit parts, primarily as a maid, cook or otherwise low-skilled worker, often uncredited, appearing in close to 50 films between 1936 and 1949.

One melancholy footnote:

In the fall of 1943, amidst an otherwise setback-laden half-decade (with her immediate family beset by both sudden death and serious illness), a potentially career-altering opportunity for Billie--appearing in a straight dramatic role alongside Canada Lee, under Orson Welles's direction, in what most likely would have become the definitive screen version of Richard Wright's "Native Son"--fell by the wayside when Welles proved unavailable. Not quite one month later, a near fatal car crash added injury to insult, putting Yarbo out of commission for the first half of 1944, and setting the stage for an uncharacteristically light workload over the remaining five years of her screen career; going out much as it had come in--i.e. with an almost entirely uncredited whimper.

As if to add one final insult, said career concluded with this onetime must-see musical comedy wunderkind--forever denied the opportunity to translate her own unique, exhilarating and much-lauded skill set from stage to screen--reduced to portraying the maid of the celebrated but considerably less distinctive stage-AND-screen musical comedy star Marilyn Miller (as portrayed by June Haver, no less; a movies-only song-'n'-dance star of decidedly lesser proportions then either Yarbo or Miller, who nonetheless, in the course of her own relatively short-lived, nondescript career, achieved far greater fame than Billie Yarbough ever would).
BornMarch 17, 1905
DiedJune 12, 1996(91)
BornMarch 17, 1905
DiedJune 12, 1996(91)
IMDbProStarmeterSee rank

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Known for

James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, and Edward Arnold in You Can't Take It with You (1938)
You Can't Take It with You
7.8
  • Rheba
  • 1938
Destry Rides Again (1939)
Destry Rides Again
7.6
  • Clara
  • 1939
Bruce Cabot in Wild Bill Hickok Rides (1942)
Wild Bill Hickok Rides
6.2
  • Daisy
  • 1942
Albert Dekker, Sheldon Leonard, Constance Moore, and Lloyd Nolan in Buy Me That Town (1941)
Buy Me That Town
7.2
  • Nancy
  • 1941

Credits

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IMDbPro

Actress



  • Ray Bolger and June Haver in Look for the Silver Lining (1949)
    Look for the Silver Lining
    6.2
    • Violet (uncredited)
    • 1949
  • Ronald Reagan and Viveca Lindfors in Night Unto Night (1949)
    Night Unto Night
    5.8
    • Josephine
    • 1949
  • A Date with Judy (1948)
    A Date with Judy
    6.5
    • Nightingale (uncredited)
    • 1948
  • Jackie 'Butch' Jenkins, Peter Lawford, Beverly Tyler, and Pal in My Brother Talks to Horses (1947)
    My Brother Talks to Horses
    6.1
    • Psyche
    • 1947
  • Jack Carson, Carmen Cavallaro, Dennis Morgan, Janis Paige, S.Z. Sakall, and Martha Vickers in The Time, the Place and the Girl (1946)
    The Time, the Place and the Girl
    5.9
    • Jeanie - Elaine's Maid (uncredited)
    • 1946
  • Van Johnson, Xavier Cugat, Pat Kirkwood, Guy Lombardo, and Keenan Wynn in No Leave, No Love (1946)
    No Leave, No Love
    5.8
    • Maid (uncredited)
    • 1946
  • Faithful in My Fashion (1946)
    Faithful in My Fashion
    5.9
    • Celia (uncredited)
    • 1946
  • The Sailor Takes a Wife (1945)
    The Sailor Takes a Wife
    6.0
    • Mary - Freddie's Cook (uncredited)
    • 1945
  • Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Jerry Austin, and Flora Robson in Saratoga Trunk (1945)
    Saratoga Trunk
    6.3
    • Hotel Maid (uncredited)
    • 1945
  • Bud Abbott, Lois Collier, Lou Costello, Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson, Joe Sawyer, and Henry Travers in The Naughty Nineties (1945)
    The Naughty Nineties
    7.0
    • Effie - Bonita's Cook (uncredited)
    • 1945
  • June Allyson, Jimmy Durante, José Iturbi, and Margaret O'Brien in Music for Millions (1944)
    Music for Millions
    6.6
    • Jessie (uncredited)
    • 1944
  • Carmen Miranda, Phil Baker, James Ellison, Alice Faye, and Benny Goodman in The Gang's All Here (1943)
    The Gang's All Here
    6.6
    • Maid (uncredited)
    • 1943
  • Sam Levene, Rags Ragland, Jean Rogers, Ann Rutherford, and Red Skelton in Whistling in Brooklyn (1943)
    Whistling in Brooklyn
    6.6
    • Maid (uncredited)
    • 1943
  • Ann Sothern in Swing Shift Maisie (1943)
    Swing Shift Maisie
    6.2
    • Myrtlee
    • 1943
  • Michael Duane and Lupe Velez in Redhead from Manhattan (1943)
    Redhead from Manhattan
    6.6
    • Polly
    • 1943

Soundtrack



  • Ronald Reagan and Viveca Lindfors in Night Unto Night (1949)
    Night Unto Night
    5.8
    • performer: "Down by the River Side", "Going to Shout All Over God's Heaven" (uncredited)
    • 1949
  • Destry Rides Again (1939)
    Destry Rides Again
    7.6
    • performer: "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea"
    • 1939
  • The Family Next Door (1939)
    The Family Next Door
    6.0
    • performer: "That Foolish Feeling"
    • 1939

Personal details

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  • Born
    • March 17, 1905
    • Washington, District of Columbia, USA
  • Died
    • June 12, 1996
    • Seattle, Washington, USA
  • Other works
    (27 June 1927-13 July 1927; 19 performances) Stage: Appeared under the name Billie Yarbough (as Chorus) in "Bottomland". Book, lyrics, music by Clarence Williams. Staged by Williams and Aaron Gates. Princess Theatre. 104-106 W. 39th St., New York, N.Y.

Did you know

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  • Quotes
    [as recalled by trumpeter Buck Clayton in his 1986 memoir, Buck Clayton's Jazz World] To hell with Billie Holiday. Come on down and listen to me-the real Billie!
  • Nicknames
    • Billy
    • Billie

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