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Pearl Bailey

Pearl Bailey, American actress and singer (died 1990)

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Born
March 29, 1918
Died
August 17, 1990
Zodiac sign
Aries
Birth year
1918

About Pearl Bailey

Pearl Mae Bailey was an American actress, singer, comedian and author. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946. She received a Special Tony Award for the title role in the all-Black production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale. Her rendition of "Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. Bailey won and was offered $35 a week to perform there for two weeks. In 1976, she became the first African American to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She later won a similar competition at Harlem's famous Apollo Theater and decided to pursue a career in entertainment.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Pearl Bailey timeline

  1. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in St. Louis Woman in 1946.
  2. In 1976, she became the first African American to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.
  3. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale.

The world when Pearl Bailey was born

Pearl Bailey was born in 1918. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1918

  • Best-selling book"The U.P. Trail" – Zane Grey

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentWorld Series played in September due to WWI
  • Top headlineWorld War I ends — Spanish Flu pandemic begins
  • Technology milestoneFirst regular airmail service
  • World population~1.78B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWoodrow Wilson
  • U.S. population102.0M

1918 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Pearl Bailey's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19182026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population102.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.