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John W. Cooper
John W. Cooper (1873-1966) was an African-American ventriloquist of the early 20th century. Born in 1873 in New York City, Cooper experienced a very difficult childhood. His parents John W. Cooper Sr. and Annie Morris originally lived in the southern part of the United States; John Cooper Sr. was originally from Beaufort, South Carolina, and Annie Morris was originally from Georgia. In 1871, the family decided to move North. Before his thirteenth birthday, both of Cooper's parents died. The same year as the passing of his parents, John W. Cooper attended Professor Dorsey’s Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and developed an interest in ventriloquism. While in school at Professor Dorsey's Institute, Cooper took on a job as an exercise boy at Sheepshead Bay Race Track in New York. While working at Sheepshead Bay Race Track, Cooper met a white ventriloquist who introduced him to his first exposure of this form of entertainment. The ventriloquist attempted to convince and frighten Cooper into believing that the horses he was working with could talk. This was one of the various examples that many speculate prompted Cooper to become a ventriloquist. Significantly, he was the first black ventriloquist on the predominantly white vaudeville circuit, and later in his life taught ventriloquism to Shari Lewis.
==Career==
John W. Cooper began his career in 1886 with the Southern Jubilee Singers, touring parts of New England, Canada, and the Mid-Atlantic States for four years. While he toured with the Southern Jubilee Singers, he began to formulate his ventriloquism act. Cooper wrote and performed his pieces in front of predominantly white audiences.
In 1900-01, Cooper joined Richards and Pringles Georgia Minstrels. Unlike the other minstrel performers in the group, Cooper performed as a ventriloquist and did not wear blackface as part of their act. The minstrels, an act that got its start in the 1830s before Vaudville and Burlesque, typically participated in an overtly racist style of performance known as blackfacing in which the singers and dancers would paint their faces with black cosmetics that mocked African Americans. Cooper essentially performed in minstrel shows but was not a minstrel himself and introduced a performance style that contrasted blackfacing. After touring with Richards and Pringles Georgia Minstrels, he became known as “the Black Napoleon of ventriloquism.” He then joined Rusco and Holland’s Big Minstrel Festival at the end of 1901.
In 1902, Cooper participated in independent performances. One of his most famous acts was “Fun in a Barber Shop.” This act involved five different puppet characters where Cooper portrayed each one in different voices. It was a scene that took place in a barbershop for whites with black employees. Cooper operated all five dummies and the projection of six voices. The extra voice was his, as he also had a role in the performance. In this scene, he multitasked by one of the dummies “cut the customer’s hair” with his hands while using his feet to operate the other dummies. Two of the dummies were customers who talked while waiting their turn as well as a manicurist who sang while doing the fifth dummy’s nails.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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