Bert Williams became involved in all aspects of the performing industry, from recordings to films to his own vaudeville musical productions. On stage, Williams performed as the “Jonah Man,” his own interpretation of the Jim Crow character of minstrel shows, a “dimwitted country bumpkin who spoke in a Southern black dialect and was performed in blackface” (3). However, his version was “done with so much subtlety that he came across as a human being” and used twisted this character’s dialogues to make statements about the importance of memory in black culture, slavery, and the struggle for equality (4, 3).  A signature of this character was the song “Nobody” which Williams performed for the first time in 1905. Audiences loved it so much “he was forced to include it for the next seventeen years in nearly every stage appearance (1). Despite its popularity, Williams hated it, wishing, “that both the author of the words and the assembler of the tune had been strangled or drowned to death” (1).  Another famous part of Williams and Walker’s routine was their cakewalk, a traditional dance for blackface performances. Their cakewalk was so famous that theater historians often credit the duo with inventing the dance (2). They even influenced wealthy white New Yorkers to try the dance, leading Williams and Walker to send a letter to the Vanderbilt mocking him and challenging him to a cakewalk match (1).

Williams’ career mainly consisted of Vaudeville musicals with partner George Walker, sticking to this format after their first show A Lucky Coon was a big success. Their next show, Sons of Ham (1900-1902), was also a vaudeville farce with only a general outline of the plot so that Williams and Walker could ad-lib their lines and actions. A friend in the audience would write down the lines and actions that hit each show, allowing Williams and Walker to learn about what their audiences liked and to replicate the scenes in future performances. Sons of Ham sparked controversy with its title, which some people found so offensive they started protesting the show. Williams and Walker responded that since the phrase was used in the Bible, they could use it in a theater (1). Arguably their biggest accomplishment was the musical In Dahomey, which toured from 1902 to 1905. It consisted of three acts, fifty cast members, and a script that varied slightly in each performance. The action took place in America and Africa, as in this vaudeville farce a sly Boston businessman (Walker) used the dimwitted character of Williams to convince a rich black man to finance his new colony in Africa. Through the action, it is revealed that Williams’ character inherits a major fortune, and after a comic series of Walker swindling him of money (and becoming king of the new colony), Williams finally stands up to him and donates the rest of his inheritance to the people of the colony. In Dahomey was so popular that it played on Broadway, and was the show in which critics recognized that Williams’ characterization, timing, and pantomime had developed to the point where “all he had to do was look at the audience and it went into spasms promptly” (1). The show even played before the Queen and Prince of Wales. At the end of its run, In Dahomey grossed $64,000, four times its budget (1). Following In Dahomey, Williams and Walker had developed a formula for their musicals: fanciful locations, big chorus numbers, featuring Ada Overton Walker in a leading role, and “a whole evening of laughs before the clowning, hard-luck simpleton, Williams, finally got wise to the fast-talking dandy, Walker” (1). They took this formula to the extreme in the show In Abyssinia, which featured an all-black cast twice that size of that of In Dahomey. No surprise to anyone, this show was another major hit. Bandana Land was Williams and Walker’s final show together, as Walker had to retire due to failing health. Williams kept performing, however, joining the Ziegfeld Follies for its 1910 season.

As the New York Age reported, “all the critics refer to Bert Williams as the feature of the Follies of 1910” despite his appearance at the bottom of the program (1). This shows that even at the height of his career, Williams still could not escape racial prejudice. He even took actions to try to prevent more controversy by asking for Ziegfeld to include in his contract that he could not be on stage at the same time as any female company members. Ziegfeld agreed and even promised that he would never book Williams south of the Mason-Dixon line (1).  Involvement in the Follies as a comedy act greatly increased Williams’ prestige in the theater world, and it provided him with the opportunity to play alongside the great white comics of the day, such as Leon Errol. Williams remained in the Follies until 1913, when he took a break to produce an all-black vaudeville show for the Frog’s August Frolic of 1913. He returned to the Follies for its 1914-1917 seasons but found that he was given less stage time due to the new additions of big-name comics like W. C. Fields, Will Rogers, and more. Williams then left the Follies, preferring to perform with more creative control in his own company, Broadway Brevities, as well as Ziegfeld’s “Midnight Frolics” (1).

Aside from the stage, Williams ventured into the new realms of film and recording. He starred in several silent films, including A Natural Born Gambler which featured his famous poker pantomime, but soon quit the film industry due to its reliance on racial stereotypes and the fact that many companies refused to circulate his films because of his race (2). His recording career was more successful, as Williams signed with Columbia Records and produced seventeen records featuring his skits and songs. Walker originally wanted to join Williams in his recordings, but after listening to himself on the record for “Good Morning, Carrie,” he quit because he thought Williams sounded so much better (1).

Bert Williams finished his theater career with the show Under the Bamboo Tree in 1922, as his health was deteriorating so quickly he could hardly function on- or off-stage. His last performance was February 25, 1922.