Ernestine Wade as Sapphire 11:3:23 6.14 PM

Cover Art by: Gail Nobles

Hello! I'm Gail Nobles, and I hope you're enjoying Amos and Andy. I'm going to talk about Ernestine Wade; was best known for playing the role of Sapphire Stevens on both the radio and TV version of the Amos and Andy show. She enjoyed playing the demanding and manipulative wife of George Kingfish Stevens.

Ernestine began playing Sapphire Stevens in 1939, but originally came to the Amos and Andy radio show in the role Valada Green, a lady who believes she had married Andy.

One of the episodes that Ernestine Wade played in from Amos and Andy as Sapphire is Sapphire Disappears (1951). It was so funny.After Sapphire and her mama go missing Kingfish got scared and started thinking the worst. The first thing he does is call Amos and Andy telling them to rush to see him because it was a matter of life and death death.

When they got to Kingfish, he said, “Boy, my wife done disappeared!”

He makes me laugh. His eyebrows raised up and his eyes were full of fear. Kingfish really believed that something had happened to Sapphire. He went all out of his way to find out if anything was going on.

Andy said, “Maybe Sapphire don't runoff with some man.”

And Kingfish had a very funny response. He said, “Don't be silly Andy. Anybody that would runoff with her is under lock and key.”

But see, what it was, Sapphire was with her mother. Her mother wanted her to stay away from Kingfish until he found a job. Sapphire went away with her mother to go to Miami.
Kingfish and Andy took the subway to Brooklyn. I won't tell you the whole story but it was really funny.

Look for the television episode Sapphire Disappears. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. It will make you laugh.

In a 1979 interview, Ernestine said that she would often be stopped by strangers who recognized her from the television show saying, “I know who you, are and I want to ask you is that your real husband?”

They were asking about her TV husband Tim Moore. She had frame signed photos from the members of the Amos and Andy television cast. Tim Moore wrote the following on his photo: My best wishes to my darling battle ax from the Kingfish Tim Moore.”

I'm Gail Nobles. Today's topic: Ernestine Wade as Sapphire.

Amos n Andy
Usage: Public Domain Mark 1.0

Amos: .. what can I do?

Andy: Ain't nothin' you can do. I done told you when a gal get ready to change her mind, boy she changes it.

Amos n Andy
Usage: Public Domain Mark 1.0

Andy: I think she's been putting up a big bluff
Amos: We'll, what did Madam Queen tell you on the telephone?
Andy: She say to me she ain't been feeling so good.

Amos n Andy
Usage: Public Domain Mark 1.0

Andy: Me and you stick together. Member I is yo friend and yo pal and all that stuff.
Amos: We’ll now uh .. What I was gone tell ya … uh let me see now. What was that?

Today’s topic: Spencer, Tim, and Alvin

Spencer, Tim, and Alvin were the TV cast of The Amos ‘n’ Andy show from (1951-1953).

Spencer Williams was an actor and filmmaker. He portrayed Andy on TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show and directed films including the 1941 race film The Blood of Jesus. Williams was a pioneering African-American film producer and director.

Tim Moore was a vaudevillian and comic actor of the first half of the 20th century. He gained his greatest recognition in the starring role of George "Kingfish" Stevens in the CBS TV's The Amos 'n' Andy Show.

Alvin Childress was an actor, who is best known for playing the cabdriver Amos Jones in the 1950s television comedy series Amos 'n' Andy.

After the radio version, Amos N Andy, Amos N Andy was still Amos N Andy. Each character still had the same personality for the comedy. They were still funny and kept you laughing. The comedy really didn’t change.

I’m Gail Nobles. Today’s topic: Spencer, Tim, and Alvin. Amos N Andy.

Amos n Andy
Usage: Public Domain Mark 1.0

Andy: This is my bad foot the man is messing with now too.
Amos: Both of your feet are bad!
🤭🎬

Amos n Andy
Usage: Public Domain Mark 1.0

Ruby Dandridge was an actress from the early 1900s through to the late 1950s. She is best known for her radio work in her early days of acting. Dandridge is best known for her role on the radio show Amos n Andy. She is the mother of Vivian and Dorothy Dandridge.

On the Amos n Andy show, Dandridge played as Henrietta Smith in the episode titled “ Kingfish’s Secretary in 1951. She had various roles.

The episode was about The Kingfish’s first effort to improve the lodge hall with the money willed by departed brother hiring a beautiful secretary, Daphne Jackson. King Fish’s wife Sapphire Stevens was jealous. King Fish dictates a letter to an employment agency for a scrub woman. However, Andy has also dictated a letter to a mail - order bride. It is this letter that The Kingfish signs, without reading it. When the woman arrives, and the truth is revealed, he keeps it from Sapphire for a while.

The woman was Henrietta Smith. When she got the letter that Kingfish signed , she was screaming and yelling, “Grandma! I done got me a man! I’m going to New York! I got me a man! I got me a man! I got a man! I got me a man!” She was jumping up and down, and before you knew it, she was on the train.

When Henrietta went to see Kingfish, Kingfish didn’t understand Henrietta. Henrietta was real happy talking about she sold her farm. She was cackin’. When King Fish decided to hire her, she reached out to hug him excited, and Kingfish was like hold on. Henrietta explained to him about his letter. King Fish tried to run away with Andy, and Henrietta chased KingFish upset all out in the street shouting, “Somebody stop him! Somebody stop him!”

When Kingfish got home to his wife Sapphire, he didn’t know that Henrietta was staying over. When King Fish found out it was Henrietta, he left in a hurry.

Henrietta was vicious. She beat Kingfish’s lawyer with an umbrella. His office was torn up, but he stood up to her telling her that his client never wrote the letter in the first place and told Henrietta that Kingfish wasn’t going to marry her. The lawyer told her to accept the carfare and to get out of New York forever. Henrietta snatched the carfare from the lawyer and agreed to go back to Georgia.

In the meantime, Kingfish had a talk with the secretary and told her to make sure she knew what she was doing. … Look before you leap. Then Sapphire showed up after Kingfish left to apologize to the secretary for being jealousy. Then Kingfish made a big mistake by calling the secretary reminding her to look before she leaped. And told her not to tell Sapphire about him proposing to the woman down in Georgia which was Henrietta. Well, Sapphire paid KingFish a visit. It was a viscous one.

Ruby Dandridge was an excellent actress playing the character Henrietta Smith. I’m Gail Nobles. Today’s Topic, Ruby Dandridge as Henrietta Smith.

Amos n Andy
Usage: Public Domain

Hi! I’m Gail Nobles. I hope you’re enjoying the Amos n Andy episodes. Today’s topic: Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll.

Amos n Andy is an American radio sitcom about black characters. It was written and voiced by two white actors, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll. Freeman played as Amos and Charles played as Andy.

Amos n Andy began as one of the first radio comedy series and originated from station WMAQ in Chicago. After the first broadcast in 1928, the show became a hugely popular series, first on NBC Radio and later on CBS Radio and Television.

Gosden and Correll were white actors familiar with minstrel traditions. They met in Durham, North Carolina, in 1920. Both men had some scattered experience in radio, but it was not until 1925 that the two appeared on Chicago's WQJ. The pair hoped that the radio exposure would lead to stage work.

In 1930, RKO Radio Pictures brought Gosden and Correll to Hollywood to appear in an Amos 'n' Andy feature film, Check and Double Check . The cast included a mix of white and black performers (the latter including Duke Ellington and his orchestra) with Gosden and Correll playing Amos 'n' Andy in blackface. The film pleased neither critics nor Gosden and Correll, but briefly became RKO's biggest box-office hit before King Kong (1933).
Audiences were curious to see what their radio favorites looked like and were expecting to see African Americans instead of white men in blackface.

Later the main roles in the television series were played by blacked actors, Spencer Williams played Andy, Tim Moore played as Kingfish, and Alvin Childress played Amos. Adopted to television, The Amos n Andy show was produced from June 1951 to April 1953 with 52 filmed Episodes.