Carol King was born Charlotte Cheeks-Lewis on December 27th, 1907 in Detroit, Michigan to housewife Evelyn May Cheeks and musician Robert Burns Lewis. She was the second of five children. Due to the family's fairly light skin, the Lewis family frequently passed as white in US Census records.
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| Birth Certificate |
By 1920, the family had relocated to New York City, where Charlotte completed her education in 1925. For the next few years, she studied to become a designer but abandoned to move into another career as an entertainer.
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| Baltimore (1930) |
By 1929, Charlotte taught herself to dance, sing and play the piano. That summer, she was a chorus girl in Leonard Harper's musical revue “Hot Chocolates”, which featured a musical score by Thomas “Fats” Waller and Harry Brooks. The revue opened at Broadway's Hudson Theater on June 20th and ran for 219 performances before closing on December 14th. The show ran for another four months, touring across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland before returning to Harlem's Lafayette Theater in late-April 1930.
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| Sails to Europe (June 1930) |
In June 1930, 22-year old Charlotte announced suddenly that she was engaged to a British subject. Boarding the SS Rochambeau for France, the couple had plans to marry on the continent and settle in London. Unfortunately the marriage doesn't seem to have materialized.
Nine months later, During the spring of 1931, she was touring Spain as singer with Harry Flemming's “Follies of 1931” revue. Returning to Paris in May, she appeared in various cabarets around the French capital such as the Marine Club, Artists Club, Johnny's Bar and Chez Les Clochards. She dyed her hair blonde and was billed as the “Nègresse Blonde”.
From 1932-1933, she toured the French Riviera, appearing in cabarets and restaurants around Cannes, Nîce and Juan-Les-Pins.
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| Only known recording (1934) |
In January 1934, under the pseudonym Carol King, she signed a two-year contract with Radio Poste-Parisien, one of France's most powerful radio stations that broadcast across Europe and North Africa. She arrived daily at the Poste-Parisien headquarters on 116 bis Avenue des Champs-Élysées to appear alongside Alain Roman's Jazz Orchestra on the 8:00pm slot. On January 30th, she recorded “La-Da-Da” accompanied by the Jazz du Poste-Parisien orchestra for French Pathé Records. The song came from the 1933-1934 Casino de Paris revue, “Vive Paris!”, which featured Afro-Americans acts such as Alberta Hunter and Kent & Maxya.
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| Afro-American Newspaper (1934) |
Carol appeared on the covers of various French magazines and American newspapers such as the Bulletin de la Radio and the Chicago Defender, which celebrated her success as France's Joséphine Baker of Radio. After her radio performances, she would sing at Suzy Solidor's La Vie Parisienne nightclub and the Les Enfants de la Chance restaurant.
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| Appearing in French film (1936) |
She later appeared in a minor role in an unknown 1936 French film according to a January 1936 article.
From 1936-1939, she appeared in various nightclubs such as Chiquito 37, Caprice Viennois, Chapeau Rouge before headlining at the Coliseum Theatre for six months in 1938. In December 1938, she appeared at former boxer Al Panama Brown's new Kit Kat nightclub in Toulouse.
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| Chiquito Bar (1937) |
On April 1st, 1939, after nine years abroad boarded the SS Gerolstein in Antwerp and sailed home to New York, where she settled back at the Lewis household on Jefferson Avenue in Brooklyn. According to the 1940 US Census, she was listed as an unemployed singer.
On December 24th, 1941, she married 35-year old Swinton Seymour Lord and retired from the stage completely.
Mrs. Charlotte Lord died on September 30th, 1980 in New York City, three years after the death of her husband.
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