Bill Robinson

Bill Robinson

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949) was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and most highly paid black American entertainer in America during the first half of the twentieth century. His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology. His began in the age of minstrel shows and moved to Vaudeville, Broadway theatre, the recording industry, Hollywood films, radio and television. According to dance critic Marshall Stearns, "Robinson's contribution to tap dance is exact and specific. He brought it up on its toes, dancing upright and swinging", giving tap dancing a "hitherto-unknown lightness and presence." His signature routine was the Stair Dance, in which he would tap up and down a set of stairs in a rhythmically complex sequence of steps, a routine that he unsuccessfully attempted to patent. He is also credited with having coined the word copasetic in popular culture via his repeated use of it in Vaudeville and radio appearances.

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