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| Studio Piaz, Paris, circa 1930-34. |
I hate how people disappear from history. People who "did things", things that are no longer considered important or interesting, or those whose work is credited to someone else. Artists and writers whose paintings or sculptures, books or poems are out of style and ignored, forgotten. And performing artists, particularly. Those whose art was of the moment, was always and only meant for an audience. And then when the audience leaves... forever?
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| George Platt Lynes, 1933. |
I couldn't find really anything specific about the dancer and singer Henri Wessels. Not when he was born, not when he died. Described as an "eccentric dancer", a "class hoofer", he's most frequently mentioned as a performer at the Cotton Club, from as early as 1925 until at least 1936, usually to the accompaniment of Duke Ellington's orchestra. He performed solo, but mostly with various female partners, the best known of whom was Mildred Dixon. (Who would soon become Ellington's longtime companion.) A friend of the family, he was apparently the sole teacher of the Berry Brothers, the great rivals of the Nicholas Brothers. And in the early Thirties he performed in Paris with the legendary Mistinguett; after a reported stay of three years, it is said he returned to the states speaking French as fluently as English. In 1936, a review of a performance at the Cotton Club mentions him thus:
Henri Wessels is the Adonis of the show, offering some fair singing and sock acrobatic dance specialties. Handsome and well built, he does a sexy dance [...] the Jungle Jingle.
The last reference to him I could find came in 1943, when he was stationed at March Field, the Army Air Force base, in southern California. And that, merely reporting that he was there. The middle of WWII. And then what...?
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(If anyone has any further information on Henri Wessels, I'd love to hear it.)
