#Apollo Amateur Night

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Performers on amateur night at the Apollo in 1944. Click/tap to see details.

Photo: Herbert Gehr via Getty Images/BuzzFeed News

[thedropnyc]

The Apollo Theater "Where Stars Are Born" Amateur Night Auditions

The Apollo Theater “Where Stars Are Born” Amateur Night Auditions

(more…)

[citizenscreen]

On the evening of November 21, 1934, 17-year-old Ella Fitzgerald won Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre. Fitzgerald brought down the house and became a legend. #OnThisDay

[dyingtobehim]

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Being From Jersey Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry • Send My Love To The Dance Floor, I'll See You In Hell (Hey Mister DJ) • The Church Of Hot Addiction • The Kids Are All F****d Up • It's Warmer In The Basement • Keep It Simple • It's Amateur Night At The Apollo Creed! • Bring It (Snakes On A Plane) • The Ballad Of Big Poppa And Diamond Girl • Pop-Punk Is Sooooo '05 • You Can't Be Missed If You Never Go Away

Spotify ♪ YouTube

[usnatarchives]

Promo photo for Jazz at the Philharmonic Concert in Paris 1957, NARA ID 20012478.

#OTD 1934: Ella Fitzgerald Debuts at Amateur Night at the Apollo! First Lady of Song AND Civil Rights activist By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

On the evening of November 21, 1934, 17 year-old Ella Fitzgerald took the stage on Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater and launched her longtime career as the “First Lady of Song.” She sang for presidents, was the first Black woman to win a Grammy (she won 13 Grammy awards) and sold over 40 million albums. 

She was also a Civil Rights activist who used her talent to break racial barriers. In recognition of her work she was awarded the NAACP Equal Justice Award and the American Black Achievement Award. The National Archives holds records documenting the discrimination she faced -- and fought.

Ella Fitzgerald et al v. Pan Am: Racism or “honest mistake”? On tour in 1954 en route to a concert in Australia she was denied the right to board a Pan American flight. She had to spend three days in Hawaii before other transportation to Australia could be secured, and she missed her concert dates.

She sued Pan Am, claiming racism and seeking financial compensation. Pan Am claimed it was “an honest mistake” due to a reservation mix-up. The district judge dismissed the complaint, but the plaintiffs appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed that decision, ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

New York Times, 12/31/1954.

Complaint, Ella Fitzgerald, John Lewis, Georgiana Henry, and Norman Granz v. Pan American, Inc., 12/23/1954 Records of U.S. District Courts NARA ID 2641486.

Ella Fitzgerald Performs at Birthday Salute to JFK at Madison Square Garden 5/19/1962, JFK Library ID ST-212-15-62.

President Gerald R. Ford and First Lady Betty Ford with Ella Fitzgerald at White House Bicentennial concert 6/20/1976, Ford Library, NARA ID 7840021.

Ella Fitzgerald Performs at the White House State Dinner for King Juan Carlos I of Spain, 10/13/1981, Reagan Library, NARA ID 75855955.

More online:

See the complaint in the Documented Rights online exhibit under “Challenging Discrimination.”

DocsTeach: Complaint in the Case of Fitzgerald v. Pan American Airways, 12/23/1954

DocsTeach: Judgment in the Case of Fitzgerald v. Pan American World Airways, 1/26/1956.

Hear Fitzgerald discuss this incident, the lawsuit, and her legal victory: Ella Fitzgerald kicked off a plane because of her race: CBC Archives.

[justforbooks]

The actor Michael Jayston, who has died aged 88, was a distinguished performer on stage and screen. The roles that made his name were as the doomed Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in Franklin Schaffner’s sumptuous account of the last days of the Romanovs in Nicholas and Alexandra (1971), and as Alec Guinness’s intelligence minder in John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on television in 1979. He never made a song and dance about himself and perhaps as a consequence was not launched in Hollywood, as were many of his contemporaries.

Before these two parts, he had already played a key role in The Power Game on television and Henry Ireton, Cromwell’s son-in-law, in Ken Hughes’s fine Cromwell (1969), with Richard Harris in the title role and Guinness as King Charles I. And this followed five years with the Royal Shakespeare Company including a trip to Broadway in Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming, in which he replaced Michael Bryant as Teddy, the brother who returns to the US and leaves his wife in London to “take care of” his father and siblings.

Jayston, who was not flamboyantly good-looking but clearly and solidly attractive, with a steely, no-nonsense, demeanour and a steady, piercing gaze, could “do” the Pinter menace as well as anyone, and that cast – who also made the 1973 movie directed by Peter Hall – included Pinter’s then wife, Vivien Merchant, as well as Paul Rogers and Ian Holm.

Jayston had found a replacement family in the theatre. Born Michael James in Nottingham, he was the only child of Myfanwy (nee Llewelyn) and Vincent; his father died of pneumonia, following a serious accident on the rugby field, when Michael was one, and his mother died when he was a barely a teenager. He was then brought up by his grandmother and an uncle, and found himself involved in amateur theatre while doing national service in the army; he directed a production of The Happiest Days of Your Life.

He continued in amateur theatre while working for two years as a trainee accountant for the National Coal Board and in Nottingham fish market, before winning a scholarship, aged 23, to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he was five years older than everyone else on his course. He played in rep in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and at the Salisbury Playhouse before joining the Bristol Old Vic for two seasons in 1963.

At the RSC from 1965, he enjoyed good roles – Oswald in Ghosts, Bertram in All’s Well That Ends Well, Laertes to David Warner’s Hamlet – and was Demetrius in Hall’s film of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968), with Warner as Lysander in a romantic foursome with Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren.

But his RSC associate status did not translate itself into the stardom of, say, Alan Howard, Warner, Judi Dench, Ian Richardson and others at the time. He was never fazed or underrated in this company, but his career proceeded in a somewhat nebulous fashion, and Nicholas and Alexandra, for all its success and ballyhoo, did not bring him offers from the US.

Instead, he played Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1972), a so-so British musical film version with music and lyrics by John Barry and Don Black, with Michael Crawford as the White Rabbit and Peter Sellers the March Hare. In 1979 he was a colonel in Zulu Dawn, a historically explanatory prequel to the earlier smash hit Zulu.

As an actor he seemed not to be a glory-hunter. Instead, in the 1980s, he turned in stylish and well-received leading performances in Noël Coward’s Private Lives, at the Duchess, opposite Maria Aitken (1980); as Captain von Trapp in the first major London revival of The Sound of Music at the Apollo Victoria in 1981, opposite Petula Clark; and, best of all, as Mirabell, often a thankless role, in William Gaskill’s superb 1984 revival, at Chichester and the Haymarket, of The Way of the World, by William Congreve, opposite Maggie Smith as Millamant.

Nor was he averse to taking over the leading roles in plays such as Peter Shaffer’s Equus (1973) or Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (1992), roles first occupied in London by Alec McCowen. He rejoined the National Theatre – he had been Gratiano with Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright in The Merchant of Venice directed by Jonathan Miller in 1974 – to play a delightful Home Counties Ratty in the return of Alan Bennett’s blissful, Edwardian The Wind in the Willows in 1994.

On television, he was a favourite side-kick of David Jason in 13 episodes of David Nobbs’s A Bit of a Do (1989) – as the solicitor Neville Badger in a series of social functions and parties across West Yorkshire – and in four episodes of The Darling Buds of May (1992) as Ernest Bristow, the brewery owner. He appeared again with Jason in a 1996 episode of Only Fools and Horses.

He figured for the first time on fan sites when he appeared in the 1986 Doctor Who season The Trial of a Time Lord as Valeyard, the prosecuting counsel. In the new millennium he passed through both EastEnders and Coronation Street before bolstering the most lurid storyline of all in Emmerdale (2007-08): he was Donald de Souza, an unpleasant old cove who fell out with his family and invited his disaffected wife to push him off a cliff on the moors in his wheelchair, but died later of a heart attack.

By now living on the south coast, Jayston gravitated easily towards Chichester as a crusty old colonel – married to Wendy Craig – in Coward’s engaging early play Easy Virtue, in 1999, and, three years later, in 2002, as a hectored husband, called Hector, to Patricia Routledge’s dotty duchess in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s translation of Jean Anouilh’s Léocadia under the title Wild Orchids.

And then, in 2007, he exuded a tough spirituality as a confessor to David Suchet’s pragmatic pope-maker in The Last Confession, an old-fashioned but gripping Vatican thriller of financial and political finagling told in flashback. Roger Crane’s play transferred from Chichester to the Haymarket and toured abroad with a fine panoply of senior British actors, Jayston included.

After another collaboration with Jason, and Warner, in the television movie Albert’s Memorial (2009), a touching tale of old war-time buddies making sure one of them is buried on the German soil where first they met, and a theatre tour in Ronald Harwood’s musicians-in-retirement Quartet in 2010 with Susannah York, Gwen Taylor and Timothy West, he made occasional television appearances in Midsomer Murders, Doctors and Casualty. Last year he provided an introduction to a re-run of Tinker Tailor on BBC Four. He seemed always to be busy, available for all seasons.

As a keen cricketer (he also played darts and chess), Jayston was a member of the MCC and the Lord’s Taverners. After moving to Brighton, he became a member of Sussex county cricket club and played for Rottingdean, where he was also president.

His first two marriages – to the actor Lynn Farleigh in 1965 and the glass engraver Heather Sneddon in 1970 – ended in divorce. From his second marriage he had two sons, Tom and Ben, and a daughter, Li-an. In 1979 he married Ann Smithson, a nurse, and they had a son, Richard, and daughter, Katie.

🔔 Michael Jayston (Michael James), actor, born 29 October 1935; died 5 February 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[fall-out-boytoy]

guy talking about smells like teen spirit voice Yeah I'm a big fan of cobra starship. I like their deeper cuts, like it's amateur night at the apollo creed!, pleasure ryland, and hollaback boy, and you know what? I fucking like you make me feel too. It's a good song, it's just overplayed.

[richardsphere]

Leverage Log: The Last Dam Job

"all a man has in this world is three things: His business, his posessions and his name". Well thanks for telling Nate exactly what to take away from you. I'll admit the name might be most difficult but should be doable. "They're my team..." "I certainly know them better then you"... Ok so that explains why we had the cocoa futures con. Because they were trying to seed the idea of a con-by-proxy. But that con relied in it being a mere distraction, which is why they could afford amateurs. Having the professional con-artist see through the con was part of the con. It wont be here.

Which means Nate's gonna outsource this con. Now im putting in the exact time in the episode where im analysing this. Its currently 1:49 in the episode. And im gonna make some guesses as to whom we're getting this episode.

Mastermind, Grifter, Hitter, Hacker, Thief.

I think Nate might still be the mastermind, because he doesnt have to be up front in the con for that. I mean there is

Grifter is gonna be Tara.

Hitter... I dont think we have much for that, there arent a lot of Back-up Elliots around in this show. There's his friend from the Boys Night Out, and there's his distaff counterpart from the Van Gogh Job. (by which i mean the first Van Gogh job, where everyone was up against their equivalents. The woman who was former Mossad or something?) Im betting on her,

Hacker: We literally only have Chaos, if there is a second hacker im forgetting then im blanking entirely. So i think we're going for "tell everyone Chaos will betray them. But we do with what we must" situation.

Thief: Its strange how Parker has three counterparts and everyone else has only 1 or 2 up for grabs. But Thief could be Archie, Himbo-lupin or Apollo. Now i've already bet on at least 2 members of that crew so its not gonna be Apollo, and i dont think Himbo is as likely as Archie is. (especially with last episodes plot being thematically linked to his debut episode, and this being a two-parter that is verry much about family and parental relationships) So my prediction: Nate is still mastermind, but he probably has a decoy. Tara Chaos and Archie are locked in. And I dont think that Distaff Elliot whose name isnt coming to mind RN would willingly work with Chaos again, so probably pull his friend back?

Those are my predictions. Time to let time resume ---" "welcome to the next time". Congrats on the directors and actor for selling a line that stupid. Its not a good line but they somehow made it work. (8/10)

"Dubenich is already in jail what's left to do to him" Sophie, you know Nate. There is so much left to do to him. --- Ok yeah, its a proxy-job like the Futures Con. Also shout out to last episodes creative use for duct-tape as an improv weapon, it was awesome but i didnt feel like stopping to write it. But combined with this seasons use of the Wurlitzer pipe and now the fire extinguishers for a blinding chemical excellerant gun that serves as a bludgeon i want to compliment the fight choreographer or whatever position is in charge of that decision. You did good work this season.

---

So to see if my predictions are right: Quinn. I have to admit i dont know who you are. I think you might've been a hired goon from an earlier episode but I did not remember you. Archie! I almost feel like I shouldn't score you. But also, Parker has the most non-imprisoned foils in the show so you actually had the most competetion for the thief slot. I wonder what is going through Bio-daughter's mind. "Dad has a second family?" Chaos. Because every episode needs a designated moment where the plan seems to get fucked, and a designated traitor was the simplest call.

Im counting three not five. Thats suspicious. Now Tara famously got introduced by being in disguise for an entire episode so she might be a man on the inside when our heists get called. But so far im gonna call it as 2/3, with a possible "nate is still mastermind" for 3/4 ---

Cant really read the glass-board. But also, every bone in my body says this episode could've ended right this moment as Dubenich looks at the glass board. I think it was the Season 1 finale where Hardison blew up HQ? Using Dubenich own signature move against him, in a way that directly parallels the S1 finale? That would've been the move. --- Hardison and Chaos in total agreement for the one time in their life. (they are right, this is legally a batcave)

Archie straight for the jugular. (also tasers, good to see where Parker gets it from) --- "How many fingers do you need to type? round down!" Im sorry for not remembering you existed allright. --- Ooh i love the invasive species ploy. Its simple yet genius. --- Double-heist! Stealing the sword and destroying the entire vault! Dubenich realises he fucked up in his conversation with Nate. (always love it when the mark is just smart enough to realise how he fucked up). --- Elliot almost shooting Dubenich... Quinn and him are bros. --- and that is Maggie! I'll admit, i expected Tara. But i guess she meets the "someone who is not in the game" requirement. Shows got one over on me twice. 2/4.

"if temptation counted as cheating no marriage would last for a year", and going straight for the jugular with Jim. --- Chemical Warfare! Drug a guy and smuggle him off to the fucking Cayman Islands. With all the goods you stole from him. (remember, if Nate has a "signature move" its framing them for Insurance Fraud.) --- -"I do care" -"how does that feel" -"getting used to it" --- "my son would be ashamed of me if I was a murderer... My father on the other hand, he's buy me an ice-cream". good line. 9/10. Ah, Now i understand the importance of the experimental job. Seeding Prisoners Dilemma in the audience awareness so Nate can play them against eachother in the finale. Good one. --- BIG KISS! --- I like how they ask nate if they can keep the cave, like little kids asking their parents about a stray dog that has been following them around.

[rivertigo]

in cobra starship’s first album on the song ‘It’s Amateur Night at the Apollo Creed’ he claims to love girls with Brooklyn haircuts. I am crazy parasocial and wanted to know what this hairstyle entailed to see if I wanted to get it. On genius, an annotator claims that it’s referencing the spiky styles of a scene haircut. But when I google Brooklyn haircut it only showed me a bunch of fucking fades. What is the truth? 🤨

[missellafitz]

Ella Fitzgerald & Frank Sinatra: Voices of America

Inside Ella and Sinatra’s remarkable similarities and essential divergences

Most fans of American jazz and pop vocalists would agree that Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra were the undisputed champs of their era. But in 1959, both at the height of their artistic prowess, Sinatra ceded the top spot, admitting, “Ella Fitzgerald is the only performer with whom I’ve ever worked who made me nervous. Because I try to work up to what she does. You know, try to pull myself up to that height, because I believe she is the greatest popular singer in the world, barring none—male or female.” The feeling was mutual, and they duetted on several high-profile occasions. Fitzgerald adored Sinatra, deeply respected his talent and, given her natural humility, would never have claimed superiority.

The career arcs of these two giants were eerily similar, beginning with their rough-and-tumble adolescences. Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Va., in 1917 but raised in Yonkers, as the crow flies about 15 miles north of Sinatra’s hometown, Hoboken, N.J. Sinatra, born in 1915, was expelled from high school due to misbehavior. Fitzgerald was early on an excellent student, but she began cutting class following her mother’s death in 1932 and was eventually sent to an orphanage and a reform school. He got his big break on Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour radio show in 1935. In November of ’34, Fitzgerald had ignited her career by winning top Amateur Night honors at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, famously aborting her planned hoofer routine when the preceding dance act proved too polished. Instead she sang, choosing Hoagy Carmichael’s “Judy,” whose lyric included the prescient notion “In a hundred ways/You’ll be shouting her praise.”

Before simultaneously launching solo careers in 1942, both were band singers, Sinatra with Harry James then Tommy Dorsey, Fitzgerald with Chick Webb’s hard-swinging orchestra, which she fronted after Webb’s death in 1939. In the wake of correspondingly serious lulls in the early 1950s, both navigated resurgences that lifted them to iconic heights, precipitated by strategic label changes: Sinatra moved from Columbia to Capitol; Fitzgerald transitioned from Decca to producer Norman Granz’s newly minted Verve. Both fought for good songs and, despite plenty of dross in their enormous catalogs, remain the definitive interpreters of the Great American Songbook. They continued to perform into their 70s. Their deaths, like their births, arrived less than two years apart. Fitzgerald passed first, in 1996, due to prolonged complications from diabetes. Sinatra succumbed to a heart attack in May of ’98.

Yet despite the remarkable parallels, Fitzgerald and Sinatra were fundamentally different as singers and as public figures. He sang for, and about, himself; she sang for others. As the New York Times noted in its Fitzgerald obituary, “Where [Billie] Holiday and Frank Sinatra lived out the dramas they sang about, Miss Fitzgerald, viewing them from afar, seemed to understand and forgive all.” Sinatra’s life was an open book; hers was, by and large, a blank page. Her life, though fraught with hardships and heartache, existed almost exclusively for the music and the joy of satisfying listeners. And despite incomparable success—she was the first African-American woman to win a Grammy, and has more performances in the Grammy Hall of Fame than any other female artist—Fitzgerald forever maintained a demure, often self-effacing modesty, coupled with a shyness propelled by a constant fear of appearing inarticulate.Ella Fitzgerald, c. 1935 (c/o Universal)

During a celebrity-packed salute at New York’s Basin Street East in 1954, she acknowledged a slew of accolades by quietly stating, “To know that you love me for my singing is too much for me. Forgive me if I don’t have all the words. Maybe I can sing it and you’ll understand.” Three and a half decades later, when accepting the Society of Singers’ inaugural lifetime achievement award, named in her honor, she softly observed, “I don’t want to say the wrong thing, which I always do; but I think I do better when I sing.” We remember Sinatra—to whom she presented the Society’s second annual “Ella” award—as much for the fisticuffs and high-flying revelry as for the Voice. Fitzgerald we revere exclusively for the immensity of her musical skills and the intrinsic, altruistic warmth that helped define them.

[tasteofyourblood]

okay i can't be the only person that thought for MONTHS that in amateur night at apollo creed gabe was saying "my pussy's shining son"

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

On Nov. 21, 1934, Ella Fitzgerald, the “Queen of Jazz,” made her debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She had planned to go on stage and dance for Amateur Night, but when the Edwards Sisters danced before her, she decided to sing instead. That break led to others, and she became a sensation after a song she co-wrote, “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” became a major hit in 1938. Fitzgerald battled racism and was ordered by Pan-Am to leave their flight to Australia. Despite missing two concerts there, she went on to set a new box office record in Australia. She helped break racial barriers by refusing to perform before segregated audiences. The NAACP awarded her the Equal Justice Award and the American Black Achievement Award.

She became the first Black woman to win a Grammy. In her music, she innovated with scat singing, sang be-bop, jazz and even gospel hymns. She performed with her own orchestra, the Benny Goodman Orchestra, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, and her Song Book series became a huge critical and commercial success. She performed in Hollywood films, and her most memorial take on television came when her voice shattered a glass. When the tape was played back, her voice broke another glass, and the ad asked, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

By the time she died in 1996, she had won 13 Grammy Awards, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mattel has now designed a doll in her image, part of the Barbie Inspiring Women Series, which “pays tribute to incredible heroines of their time — courageous women who took risks, changed rules and paved the way for generations to dream bigger than ever before.” 

- Jerry Mitchell

[Scott Horton]

[jinx-on-mars-19xx]

@ machinegunkelly: in 09' i got my first music check for $45 after we drove to harlem from cleveland and i won Amateur Night at the Apollo. first rapper to ever do it. never cashed the check, i framed it.

[morninkim]

Rise of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - NASADA’s Promethea Base

Meet some of the agents of the National Aerospace Science And Defense Agency‘s Promethea Base, Dr. Finster and Grace Oliver! And a... space garbage can?

Dr. Sean Finster is an eccentric old scientist who studies xenobiology and xenolinguistics. His oldest linguistic fixation is a strange artifact that was found in a crater on the moon during one of the final Apollo missions in the early 1970s. Over the years, he believes he has deciphered the symbols lade into it to say “Rita Repulsa” but no one is quite sure what that means. His current biology fixation is on these strange clay-like creatures this ‘Goldar’ uses to fight the newly appeared Power Rangers, wanting to find a way to replicate them.

Grace Oliver was relocated to Angel Grove to head up Promethea Base’ new study into Goldar and the Power Rangers, she believes they may be connected to the artifact Dr. Finster has been studying. She views the Power Rangers as untrustworthy and amateur, believing the team should leave the world-saving to those more qualified. Juggling running a secret scientific operation and raising a teenage daughter, while also keeping the nature of her secret scientific operation from said daughter, weighs heavy on her mind.

Several others working in the facility, including Grace, have noted the good Doctor’s bad caffeine habit. This, and the many late nights he’s taken in his lab may be contributing to claims that he’s been scattered, drifting off and talking to himself more and more recently. Grace has recommended he take some time off, but Finster has politely declined at every opportunity and continues to work.

[anarcho-occultism]

Tracy Jordan

Tracy Jordan (1966-March 17, 2026) was an American actor and musician active from 1978 until his death. Jordan was born in Yankee Stadium and, owing to both the unusual location and the simultaneous focus on the arrival of the world-eater Galactus by most public officials, was not officially issued a birth certificate. Jordan grew up in the Knuckle Beach neighborhood of the Bronx, which was infamous for high crime rates and general dysfunction. The Cult of Quetzalcoatl regularly abducted sacrifice victims from the neighborhood, a fate which Jordan only narrowly avoided on at least two occasions. Owing to his family’s precarious financial situation, Jordan eventually dropped out of high school and relied on sporadic odd jobs such as acting as a busboy at the legally dubious ‘McDowell’s’ restaurant in Long Island. Jordan longed for bigger things, however, being drawn to acting after a chance encounter with actor Charles Hayden Savage while he was filming an episode of Brazzos. Jordan was able to become a cast member on the short-lived show Ray Ray’s Mystery Garage which aired on IBC from 1978 to 1980. Once the show ended, Jordan became a street performer who specialized in basket drumming for cash on the streets of New York City.

Jordan’s ultimate break would not come until 1984. That year, Jordan heard about the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night and decided to perform stand-up during it. During the performance, Jordan proved popular with the audience which happened to include prominent comedian Jonathan Crunk. Crunk, viewing Jordan as having potential, took him under his wing and was able to get him his first big breakthrough of adulthood by joining the cast of Studio 60 in the 1987-1988 season. Jordan was a cast member on the show for over a decade, during which he played many notable roles. During the Gulf War and Eugenics Wars, Jordan regularly portrayed General Warren Boutwell giving bombastic and at times derailed press conferences and continued to depict him after Boutwell exited the military to start a restaurant. He also participated in many parodies of the children’s show Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood, including an infamous sketch where he portrayed the eponymous Robinson vandalizing the setting of My Friendly Neighborhood to reduce completion. Jordan additionally played a camera operator in Studio 60’s infamous Gordy’s Home sketch, which was never aired after the original airing in 1998. Jordan attracted praise for many of his performances and was able to leverage his new status to advance his career further.

Jordan began his music career in this time, intially mainly recording novelty songs in the vein of the late ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic. However, Jordan soon sought to branch away from this. He joined the Lethal Interjection Crew in 1994 but left two years later after a falling out with its leader Thugnificent. Jordan released several rap singles throughout the 1990’s but was never able to release a full album which thus prevented him from earning full-fledged stardom in the world of music. Jordan also acted in several B-movies during this era, including Cleaver II, Who Dat Ninja, Rescue Bay: The Movie, Hard to Watch, Angels With the Filthiest Souls and The Crows Have Eyes, as well as several episodes of the Night Springs revival. Jordan also dabbled in voice acting, primarily in English dubs of Japanese anime series thanks to connections with Japanese production companies he formed while filming Samurai I Amurai. Jordan notably participated in the English dubs of Tinymon, Pink Dark Boy and Mew Mew Kissie Cutie (a performance which was widely panned and Jordan claims was done ‘to buy a vacation house’). Jordan also got married during this time to Angie Shepherd, though initially he refused to acknowledge the marriage to maintain a playboy public image.

In 1999, Jordan expressed disappointment he was stuck with B-movies and comedies and announced he was quitting in favor of directing, announcing his first project would be a serious. biopic of President Douglass Dilman with he himself in the role of the nation’s first African-American president. However production hit snags quickly. Jordan had not asked the Dilman family for permission to make such a film and a spokesman denounced the idea of Jordan making such a movie. He additionally announced his friend Vincent Chase had been cast as a member of Dilman’s Secret Service detail before Chase committed to the role and the two had a falling out when Chase publicly said he had never signed on to the role. The production ground to a halt when his executive producer (who de facto was a second director) Roman Bridger was killed after becoming yet another in the infamous chain of Ghostface murderers. Despite this, Jordan continued to try to go through with the film, pouring much of his own money to salvage it, but in the end His Accidency would never make it to audiences.

Some have suggested the erratic behavior Jordan began displaying in the 2000’s was a result of frustration his more serious artistic intentions were blocked. It has been suggested Jordan’s infamous 2003 trip to Wadiya and public embrace of the nation’s dictator Haffaz Aladeen was a scheme to try to get money from Aladeen to sustain his movie. During the 2001 dot com recession, Jordan expressed a positive attitude towards the infamous Project Mayhem, drawing widespread criticism. Jordan also, on multiple occasions, assaulted paparazzi with various improvised weapons, including a prop from the original Galaxy Wars that Jordan had purchased for $2 million at a charity auction. These controversies caused significant damage to Jordan’s career and by the mid-2000’s, Jordan was nearly bankrupt and struggled to find work. However, he was able to secure a leading role in the sketch comedy series The Girly Show in 2006, which subsequently was rebranded as TGS With Tracy Jordan and took on a renewed life as a program no longer solely targeting a female audience. Jordan did continue to draw controversy–a PSA where he told African-Americans ‘don’t vote’ aired three times before Jordan requested it be taken off the air–but it did enable a greater deal of stability. Jordan was able to have the financial security to pursue a more stable interest in his hobbies such as American history, a passion he picked up after learning of his descent from Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings. He played a crucial role in funding the team that debunked the claims of the so-called ‘Washingtonians’ clan of cannibals that they were descended from George Washington. During Jordan’s time on TGS also involved recurring feuds with co-star Jenna Maroney, though the two would ultimately leave the show on amicable terms. Jordan’s career arguably peaked in this time period as he ultimately became an EGOT winner after winning all 4 of the entertainment industry’s most prestigious awards.

After the conclusion of the show, Jordan once again developed a controversial reputation. After the Awakening of Magic, Jordan would begin to espouse a number of human supremacist sentiments. He would be temporarily banned from The Circle after calling for killing vampire celebrity Lestat de Lioncourt and the expulsion of Prince Krel of Akiridion from Earth after he criticized Jordan’s comments. Jordan also was temporarily arrested after egging Justin Russo following his election as President of the Magical Congress of the United States in 2015. Jordan would announce a presidential bid on a human supremacist–but otherwise rather left-wing–platform in 2016, though he failed to obtain ballot access and was only able to earn status as a write-in in the states of New York, Illinois and Winnemac. Beyond this political drift, Jordan also was dogged by more mundane celebrity scandals. Jordan got into a physical altercation with pop musician Connor4Real in 2014 that led to him being hospitalized with a broken pinkie. His wife’s reality show Queen of Jordan drew controversy for an episode where the Jordans insisted on continuing a California vacation even in the midst of a kaiju attack which was accused of encouraging dangerous behavior by the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. Jordan did begin to calm down after his personal physician, Dr. Leo Spaceman, was arrested for helping manufacture Substance-D and Jordan revealed Spaceman had been giving him some of the said substance while claiming it was vitalizing medicine, a factor helping drive his erratic tendencies.

Citing a desire for more privacy, Jordan would move to Canada in 2019, where he remained through the COVID-19, Kongoli flu and Alvin virus outbreaks. Jordan was thus not in the US when the President’s Day Massacre occurred and installed David Jefferson Adams as President. Jordan denounced the coup attempt and expressed support for the efforts of the Left Eye and other groups to violently resist the far-right takeover of America, causing a rift between him and his old employer Jack Donaghy (who, while opposed to the coup attempt, favored a strategy of nonviolent resistance). Jordan announced another bid for the presidency in 2024 and gained some traction after the Adams-stacked court disqualified Governor Georgina Hobart from consideration. Jordan announced former Republican Senator Alex Keaton as his running mate and was, surprisingly, allowed to run by the Adams regime, though Adams’ allies within the New Founding Fathers movement likely only did so presuming Jordan’s status as a de facto exile and history of erratic behavior would weaken his chances. Jordan would officially received 12% of the popular vote and won a faithless elector from the state of Vermont who defected and voted for Jordan after another elector was arrested for voting for the state’s socialist former Senator Julian Felsenburgh. Jordan would remain in Canada for the rest of his life, as his poor physical health meant that when a resurgence of the Kongoli flu occurred in 2026, it proved to be a fatal infection. Jordan died on the same die as his TGS co-star Maroney, who also died of Kongoli flu in New York City–in an eerie parallel to Jordan’s ancestor Thomas Jefferson and his rival/friend John Adams.

References

30 Rock, Marvel Comics (The Coming of Galactus, ), Q: The Serpent God, Coming to America, Only Murders in the Building, Scrooged, Carter’s Army, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Star Trek, Undercover Brother, Saturday Night Live, My Friendly Neighborhood, Nope, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, The Boondocks, The Sopranos, Baywatch, Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek, Alan Wake, Johnny Test, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Undertale, The Man, Entourage, Scream, The Dictator, Fight Club, iCarly, Masters of Horror, Shadowrun, Interview With The Vampire, 3Below, Wizards of Waverly Place, Harry Potter, Works of Sinclair Lewis, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Pacific Rim, A Scanner Darkly, The End of October, The Sadness, The Handmaid’s Tale, Shattered Union, Sorry to Bother You, The Politician, Family Ties, The Purge, Lord of the World