Russell, Julius (“Nipsey”)

(b. ca. 15 September 1918 in Atlanta, Georgia; d. 2 October 2005 in New York City), comedian, singer, dancer, and actor whose signature style was performing four-line comic verse, earning him the epithet the “Poet Laureate of Television.”

Russell was the second child of Albert Russell, an ice wagon driver, and Zora Russell, a homemaker. No birth certificate was issued, so the Social Security Administration estimated his date of birth as 15 September 1918, based on information provided in the 1920 U.S. Census. The incorrect birth date of 13 October 1924 appears in several published reports, raising the possibility that a publicist attempted to shave years from the performer’s age. Russell once said of his nickname, “My mother just liked the way the name ‘Nipsey’ sounded.”

At age three Russell was a member of a tap dance team called the Ragamuffins of Rhythm, and by age six he was performing professionally as a singing-dancing master of ceremonies for a children’s troupe in Atlanta. Russell recalled being intrigued at the age of nine or ten by a black performer named Jack Wiggins: “He came out immaculately attired.... As he [tap] danced, he told little jokes in between. He was so clean in his language and was lacking in any drawl, he just inspired me. I wanted to do that.”

Russell attended Booker T. Washington High School and worked as a carhop at an Atlanta drive-in called the Varsity, where he earned extra tips by telling jokes to the customers. After graduating from high school, Russell enrolled at the University of Cincinnati to study literature with the expectation of becoming a teacher. Although he claimed to have graduated with a bachelor’s degree, the school’s records indicate he was registered for just one semester in 1936.

Russell served his four-year army enlistment in Europe during World War II, earning the rank of captain. In the 1950s he gained popularity as a host and comic at black cabarets such as Club Baby Grand in Harlem, New York, where he shared the stage with stars such as Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, and Lionel Hampton. He also made record albums that were compilations of his stand-up routines. Unlike the typical baggy-pants, raunchy comedians of the black club circuit at the time, Russell wore a business suit and tie, but topped it off with a porkpie hat. He offered more sophisticated jokes and topical observations, sometimes blending rhymes and aphorisms.

Russell believed his humor had a universal appeal and preferred not to be labeled as a “black comic.” Yet race was grist for the satirical mill in the civil rights era. A favorite story he told during the early 1960s was of an African delegate to the United Nations who went to a Maryland restaurant and was told that blacks were not served there. “But I’m the delegate from Ghana,” the diplomat protested. “Well you ain’t Ghanna eat here,” the waitress replied.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Russell made numerous appearances on Arthur Godfrey’s morning radio program and became a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar, eventually serving as a guest host of the program several times during the Johnny Carson era. A performance on the Ed Sullivan Show led to Russell being cast in the role of Officer Anderson during the 1961–1962 season of the situation comedy Car 54, Where Are You?

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Russell was a popular celebrity contestant on game shows such as To Tell the Truth, What’s My Line?, The Match Game, Masquerade Party, and Hollywood Squares, often reciting one of the 600 poems he had committed to memory. For example, “Before we lose our autonomy/And our economy crumbles to dust/We should attack Japan, lose the war/And let Japan take care of us.”

During this period Russell also performed on variety programs, including spots on The Jackie Gleason Show and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and regular appearances on The Dean Martin Show. He had dramatic roles on the soap operas As the World Turns and Search for Tomorrow. In 1970 Russell was cast in the short-lived, all-black television version of Neil Simon’s hit play Barefoot in the Park.

His most widely recognized role was that of the Tin Man in The Wiz, a 1978 remake of the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. The film was a disappointment at the box office and was panned by critics. Russell’s vaudeville-style performance, though, was singled out as the highlight of the musical. More movie roles followed in the 1980s and 1990s, including parts in Nemo (1984), Wildcats (1986), and Posse (1993). He also reprised his role as Officer Anderson in the 1994 motion picture based on the television series Car 54, Where Are You?

Russell performed in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Las Vegas throughout the 1990s. In his last years, a younger audience discovered him through his many appearances on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and the Chris Rock Show on HBO. The Comedy Central cable network featured Russell in a one-man comedy special.

As a child Russell was introduced to classical literature and could quote from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales at age ten. He retained his love of literature and reading throughout his life. Russell died of stomach cancer at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He never married and left no survivors.

Russell belonged to the first generation of African-American comedians whose material was not based on exaggeration of black dialect or who did not rely on a “Stepin-Fetchit” persona of a fool. Russell’s comedy was not as barbed as that of Dick Gregory and not as blue as that of Redd Foxx; consequently, he reached a broader audience. “I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes,” he once said. “Anything that works.” Russell’s “color-blind” influence was apparent in the enormous popularity of the Cosby Show during the 1980s and continues to be felt in entertainment that emphasizes common human foibles rather than racial difference.

Surprisingly little has been written about the life of an entertainer whose career endured for more than fifty years. The article “Where Else?,” Newsweek (24 Dec. 1962), includes Russell along with Dick Gregory and George Kirby in a report on the status of black comedians. Obituaries are in the New York Times and Washington Post (both 4 Oct. 2005).

Mary Ann Watson