Wet it - Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon
Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon (February 3, 1895 – 1944?) was an African American vaudeville singer, female impersonator, stage designer and comedian, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, orphaned, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname of "Half Pint" referred to his 5'2" height. He started in show business around 1910 as a singer in Kansas City, before travelling extensively with medicine shows in Texas, and then touring the eastern seaboard. His feminine voice and outrageous manner, often as a female impersonator, established him as a crowd favorite. By 1917 he had begun working regularly in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Chicago, Illinois, often with such performers as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, whose staging he helped design. In the late 1920s he sang with top jazz bands when they passed through Chicago, working with Bennie Moten, King Oliver and Freddie Keppard among others. He also perform...