Sugar Chile Robinson

Join us for a very special event on the final weekend of Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898 – 1971. Preceding the 7:30 p.m. screening of Stormy Weather, the DFT will present an overture performed by Frank Isaac Robinson, known in his early musical career as Sugar Chile Robinson, an American jazz pianist and Detroit native who became famous as a child prodigy in the mid-1940s.

Robinson was born in 1938, the youngest of seven children of Clarence A. and Elizabeth Robinson. He taught himself to play the piano by ear and won a talent show at Detroit's Paradise Theatre when he was three. In 1945, he played with Lionel Hampton on the radio, and appeared in the Hollywood film No Leave, No Love. In 1946, Robinson played for President Harry S. Truman at the White House Correspondents' Association where he shouted out "How'm I Doin', Mr. President?" which became his catchphrase.

Free with admission to Stormy Weather.