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Thelma Carpenter was born January 15, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. As a child performer she had her own radio show on WNYC in New York and won an amateur night at the Apollo Theatre in 1938. She would go on to play such 52nd Street clubs as Kell’s Stables and the Famous Door and was discovered by John Hammond.
Carpenter subsequently made her debut as a band vocalist with Teddy Wilson’s short-lived orchestra in 1939, recording Love Grows On the White Oak Tree and This Is The Moment on the Brunswick label. She joined Coleman Hawkins’ orchestra in 1940 and recorded the RCA/Bluebird Records classic album He’s Funny That Way. She followed Helen Humes as Count Basie’s vocalist and over two years recorded several sessions with the band such as More Than You Know, Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me and My Ideal.
Thelma replaced Dinah Shore as vocalist on Eddie Cantor’s radio show for the 1945-46 season, marking the first time that a black artist had become a permanent member of an all-white show without playing a character. She would also sing with Duke Ellington in concerts and on television. She was a top nightclub and major theater attraction for most of her career, performing regularly at such chic clubs as Chez Bricktop in Paris and Rome and the Capitol and Palace Theater on Broadway among others.
As a Broadway performer she appeared with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, replaced Pearl Bailey in Hello Dolly!, performed along with Avon Long in Shuffle Along, co-starred in Barefoot In The Park and created the role of Irene Paige in Bubbling Brown Sugar. She toured nationally in Bob fosse’s Pippin and was the Good Witch of The North in Sidney Lumet’s film The Wiz. So in demand was she that Fosse and Lumet arranged their schedules so she could do both projects simultaneously. She was the mother of Maurice and Gregory Hines in the film The Cotton Club.
She also had a critically acclaimed album Thinking of You Tonight and Sepia Records posthumously released a 26-song compilation title Seems Like Old Times. Carpenter performed on television with Jackie Gleason, Eddie Condon, Duke Ellington, Diana Ross, Sammy Davis Jr. and Eric Clapton, as well as appearing on the Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, Paul Lynde and Cosby shows. Jazz vocalist and actress Thelma Carpenter passed away of cardiac arrest on May 14, 1997 in New York City.
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