![]() Louis Blues," "Porgy and Bess," "All the Fine Young Cannibals" and "The Landlord." Her television credits span from soaps to dramas to comedies to specials. Louis Woman" and returned several times before her triumph in the all-black version of "Hello, Dolly!" in the late 1960s. Her name has been up in lights at the Howard, the Apollo, the Village Vanguard, the Blue Angel, the Talk of the Town. When she was 15 she won an amateur contest and soon became a multitalented meteor in a glorious era of entertainment in the 1940s and 1950s. Until Georgetown, she had only a high school degree, which she had earned in Philadelphia. When she got to Georgetown, she learned that Coach John Thompson's mother had been her father's nurse once at D.C. Bailey, a construction worker, was a deacon and lay preacher in a Pentecostal church. Her apartment here wasn't her first residence in Washington.Īfter living in Newport News for three years as a girl, she moved to Washington. That was my worst period."īut it was worthwhile, Bailey says proudly, pointing out that she got only two Cs and made the dean's list two or three times. I was expressing what I learned from life on these matters. All the research and all, I left part of that out. But I wanted to express what I heard in class. Not that they don't think now, but you can regurgitate and get an A. You heard, you went home and did some homework, you didn't regurgitate, you thought. I expressed what I heard because that is the way I learned in school. That first paper - I did a terrible thing. Oh, Lord, I wrote five books, successful, they are in the library. No more going to Russia to perform for 10 days on a school break and coming right back to exams. Now the trauma and joys of courses like "The Path of Love in Hinduism," "20th-Century Jewish Thought," "Islamic Teaching," "Jesus the Jew," "Renaissance Art," French and Greek are all behind her. And here she learned to be a good listener," says White. Rabbi Harold White, a chaplain and instructor, went with Bailey to a banquet of the National Conference of Christians and Jews in New York when she sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." On another occasion he went to California to be part of a television special on her life. ![]() Some of the faculty were drawn into her circle of friendship. She ended up cleaning the kitchen for two hours. "I have never seen a house in that condition," she says. She spots a friend from ethics class who invited the class to his house. Now she quietly discusses a student's seminar on "The Bishops' Pastoral Letter." Everyone is greeted like family - "Wingate, how you doing, honey? Where's that girl?" When she enrolled a few months later, the students didn't know whether to categorize her as student, celebrity, competitor, mother figure or pal. I decided I wanted to go to school and I took off," she says. "Nobody encouraged me, not even my husband. At the Georgetown commencement in 1978, where she received an honorary degree, she announced she wanted to earn a degree. They laugh, and she points him in the direction of her husband of 33 years, drummer Louis Bellson. "How's things going? Now about the money." "Hey, Pearl, do I get a dance at the ball?" asks Redington. She waves to passing faculty and students, calling many by name, kissing a few, such as one of her theology professors, the Rev. why would you with all the fame that is there? I can't answer - there is no reason." People ask why, with a name on the marquee. Spiritually, I did it because it is God's will that we do, we have a choice to do or undo. I had wanted to be a teacher all my life. I have been reading since I was 3 years old, studying, all that. She has been its most famous undergraduate, along with Patrick Ewing. She fumbles for words to explain why she decided to become a Georgetown student. Just now, with a blue Hoyas hat perched on top of a black flowered kerchief, she sits outside on the steps near a stone memorial to Michael Foley, a history professor she admired. Bailey, 67, has earned a bachelor of arts degree in theology after seven hard years at Georgetown University. On Sunday she will add another - college graduate. For more than 50 years Pearl Bailey has had labels by the bucket: actress, comedian, blues singer, diplomat, Tony Award winner, mother, wife, cook extraordinaire, lecturer, author, ardent Republican and friend to presidents and kings.
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