Lou Swarz facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lou Swarz
Swarz in 1953
Born	Lucille Henrietta Schwartz May 1897 St. Louis, Missouri, US
Other names	Lou LuTour Linda Lou Caol Wallis
Occupation	Actress, columnist, beauty consultant, radio show host, teacher
Years active	1930s-1950s

Lou Swarz (born Lucille Henrietta Schwartz; May 1897 – date of death unknown) was an amazing American actress and performer. She was famous for her "one-woman shows" where she acted out many different characters by herself. Lou Swarz also appeared in films from the 1930s to the 1950s.

Her talent was so recognized that even Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady, invited her to perform at the summer White House. Lou Swarz also hosted popular radio shows and performed at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Besides performing, she taught theater and beauty classes. Later, she became a sports columnist for The New York Age newspaper. She also wrote several other newspaper columns that were read by many people.

Lou Swarz became a beauty consultant and later an editor and director for the Global News Syndicate. At the same time, she hosted her own radio show called The Homemakers Club. This show shared beauty tips, local news, and gospel music. She received many awards for her community work, especially with her sorority Zeta Phi Beta. Her radio show also helped the community with programs like "La Cheerios," which sent cheer cards to hospital patients. Her "Teen Town" program helped reduce problems among African American teenagers.

Early Life and Education

Lou Swarz was born in May 1897 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents, Amanda and Henry Boone Schwartz, named her Lucille H. Schwartz. As she grew up and started performing, she used different stage names. She first shortened her name to Lou Swarz. For a short time, she used Linda Lou and then Caol Wallis. Eventually, she returned to Lou Swarz and later, in the 1950s, she used Lou LuTour.

Lou Swarz's Career

As a Monologue Performer

In the mid-1930s, Lou Swarz became a dean at Douglass University's School of Expression. This school focused on theater and drama. Around the same time, she started performing skits and character acts for audiences. She was especially known for her drama monologues. In these shows, she used many different voices to play various characters all by herself.

For her one-woman shows, she acted as characters like Hattie Tyson from Zora Neale Hurston's novel Jonah's Gourd Vine. She also played a French mademoiselle, a gypsy fortune teller, Phillis Wheatley, and Sojourner Truth. People highly praised her performance as Sojourner Truth at the 1938 National Baptist Convention. In 1939, she also worked as a head English assistant at the Booker T. Washington Vocational Training School in St. Louis.

Lou Swarz had been performing in the Midwest and Southwest since 1933. However, her first official show in New York was in July 1939 at The Town Hall. After this, she became famous across the country for her "One Woman Show." This show featured her impressions of important African American historical figures. Her monologue work was often compared to that of Cornelia Otis Skinner.

In the months that followed, Eleanor Roosevelt invited Lou Swarz to perform at the summer White House. She also performed twice at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Even with all this success, Lou Swarz had some financial difficulties and had to file for bankruptcy in February 1940.

Starting in 1942, Lou Swarz performed for the United Service Organizations (USO) at army camps. She traveled across the country, bringing gifts to soldiers. This was part of the Red Cross relief efforts. Along with her Zeta sorority sisters, Lou Swarz toured with the USO three to four days a month until World War II ended.

After the war, she started national tours in 1945, adding new monologues to her shows. Besides acting in films, she became the Director of Negro Publicity for Jack Goldberg's Herald Pictures in 1947. She also hired her own press secretary, Wanda Macy, and a personal assistant, Cecile Walker, who was also a Zeta sorority member.

In the summer of 1947, Theodore Hubbard became Lou Swarz's professional theater manager. She later used her newspaper column to help him reunite with his sister, whom he hadn't seen in a long time. In late 1947, Lou Swarz went on another tour, performing across the Southern and Midwestern states, with a stop in Hollywood. In early 1948, she performed in North Carolina, focusing on black colleges and universities.

As a Columnist

In 1945, Lou Swarz became a columnist for The New York Age newspaper. She reported on sports events, including a boxing match between Jimmy Bivins and Archie Moore on August 22, 1945. This made her the first black woman to be a sports reporter for a national newspaper chain.

Later, she started her own newspaper column called "Lou Swarz' Jottings." When her column gained readers from all over the world, she thought about renaming it "Around The Globe" before deciding on "Global Jotting(s)."

As a Beauty Consultant

Lou Swarz ran a "School of Charm" in St. Louis. In 1947, she taught "Charm and Personality Development" classes for the Sepia Hollywood Modeling Group. She also worked as a beauty consultant for the Global News Syndicate until 1951. After that, she became an associate editor for the company and then an associate director by 1955. At the same time, she wrote a newspaper column called "Charm.." which offered tips on beauty, fashion, and how to present oneself.

As a Radio Host

Before she moved to New York for her theater debut in 1939, Lou Swarz had a radio show in her hometown of St. Louis. In September 1952, she got her own daily radio show on the WWRL station in New York. Her show, The Homemakers Club, aired every weekday morning at 9 am. It featured recipes, beauty tips, general news, and special community guests each day.

The show was an instant success! Because of this, she was signed to a daytime radio program with the WHOM station before the end of September. This new program was longer, broadcasting from Monday through Saturday for an hour and a half in the afternoon. The first half hour had the same parts as her WWRL program. The next hour was entirely gospel music in a show called Gospel Songfest, where Lou Swarz acted as the disc jockey.

Awards and Honors

In June 1938, Douglass University gave Lou Swarz an honorary master's degree in drama. This made her the youngest person at the time to receive one. She was also the first solo actress and third actress overall to get this honor. In 1939, the St. Louis branch of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks gave Lou Swarz an award. It was a wooden plaque with her image, given for her sorority and community work.

The Lou Swarz chapter of the Women's Defense Corps was named after her. This was to honor her efforts to support the US military during World War II. She personally received the citation given to the unit in July 1944. In May 1953, the Vocational Guidance and Workshop center in New York gave Lou Swarz an award for her radio work. In 1964, St. Louis Argus gave her one of their annual awards for her kind work with her sorority, helping to cheer up people in hospitals.

Community Involvement

In 1938, Lou Swarz helped create the Vogue League of Expression. This was an organization for speakers and monologue performers on stage. As a member of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority, Lou Swarz was very involved in helping the community and improving society. She started in the 1930s with the rank of Basileus in the Xi Zeta chapter.

In November 1938, Lou Swarz organized a "6 Point" program for the sorority. This program focused on six areas of activity: education, community service, social events, charity, culture, and spiritual outreach. In 1939, she introduced new projects to create and expand recreation centers and nurseries in "neglected areas" of big cities. By 1942, she had been promoted to the rank of national Epistoleus in the sorority.

In the mid-1940s, Lou Swarz started a program called "La Cheerios." This became an official program for the Zeta sorority in 1947. It involved sending cheer cards to hospitals across the country every month, especially around holidays. Around the same time, Lou Swarz also started the "Teen Town" system. This program focused on reducing problems among young people in New York, where she first created it. She developed this program with the Salvation Army Red Shield Club. In 1953, after starting her radio show in New York, Lou Swarz left her position as publicity director for the sorority.

Lou Swarz also led the women's group in the J. Finley Wilson Elks club. She had three sisters: Pearl Schwartz, Sarah Schwartz, and Vernedine Jennings.

Radio Shows

• The Homemakers Club on WWRL and WHOM
• The Black Spider (1942) (Radio play) on WEW

Films

• Big Timers (1945) as Cora Washburn
• Tall, Tan, and Terrific (1946)
• House-Rent Party (1946) as Mrs. Johnson