Ada

Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia Smith (August 14, 1894 – February 1, 1984), better known as Bricktop, was an American dancer, jazz singer, vaudevillian, and self-described saloon-keeper who owned the famous nightclub "Chez Bricktop" in Paris from 1924 to 1961, as well as clubs in Mexico City and Rome.

She has been called "one of the most legendary and enduring figures of twentieth-century American cultural history"

Smith was born in Alderson, West Virginia, the youngest of four children by a Black father and a mixed-race Black mother, who had been born into slavery two years before the Emancipation Proclamation. Her grandfather was likely her mother's Irish-American enslaver. When her father died, her family relocated to Chicago, and she was raised there for her greater youth. It was there that saloon life caught her fancy, and where she acquired her nickname, "Bricktop," for the flaming red hair and freckles inherited from her grandfather.

She married saxophonist Peter DuCongé in 1929. Though they separated after a few years, they never divorced, Bricktop later saying that "as a Catholic I do not recognize divorce". According to Jean-Claude Baker, one of Josephine Baker's children, as recorded in his book about his mother's life, titled Josephine: The Hungry Heart, Baker and Bricktop were involved in an intimate affair for a time, early in their careers.

Bricktop had a professional relationship with Maya Angelou, which Angelou writes about in her book Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas. Angelou worked at Bricktop's for a time as a singer, though Bricktop nearly turned her away at the door at their first meeting, as she had a rule against allowing unescorted women into her club.

While in Rome, Bricktop befriended The Duke of Windsor. After being a big fan of hers since the early '30s, he visited her in Rome, asking her: "Brick, where were you born?" She told him West Virginia. The Duke responded with "That's just what I told the Duchess when we were in Hot Springs. I said to the Duchess: 'You know, Bricktop was born around here somewhere!

Bricktop died in her sleep at her apartment in Manhattan in 1984, aged 89. She remained active into her old age and according to James Haskins, had talked to friends on the phone hours before her death. She is interred in the Zinnia Plot (Range 32, Grave 74) at Woodlawn Cemetery.