View objects relating to Gladys Bentley Top image: Photograph of Gladys Bentley by an unidentified photographer, ca. In an effort to describe her supposed "cure" for homosexuality she wrote an essay, "I Am a Woman Again," for Ebony magazine in which she stated she had undergone an operation, which "helped change her life again.” She died of pneumonia in 1960, aged 52. Known fondly during her time as the Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Rhythm, Gladys Bentley was an openly lesbian and butch-presenting blues musician who rose to. Bentley also studied to be a minister, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. Roberts later denied that they had ever married. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era in the 1950s, she started wearing dresses and married (within five months of meeting) Charles Roberts, age 28, a cook, in a civil ceremony in Santa Barbara, California, in 1952. She was born in Philadelphia, the daughter of American George L. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tuxedo and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience. Gladys Bentley was a pianist, singer, and performer during the Harlem Renaissance. In the early 1930s, she headlined at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. Born in Philadelphia, she moved to New York City at the age of 16 and began her career as a performer at Harry Hansberry's Clam House on 133rd Street, one of the city's most notorious gay speakeasies.
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