Once America's foremost female stand-up comedian and still the top-charting comedienne ever tracked by Billboard, social satirist Jackie "Moms" Mabley remains little known to present-day listeners, although her influence on later waves of women and African-American performers stays beyond measure. Loretta Mary Aiken entered the world in Brevard, North Carolina, on March 19, 1894; tragedy struck early when her volunteer-firefighter father died in the overturning and explosion of his truck, leaving her one of twelve children, and her mother was later killed by a mail truck. Before she turned thirteen, Aiken suffered two rapes that each produced a child; she placed both infants with her grandmother and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where she lived with a minister's family. There she began performing song-and-dance numbers in neighborhood revues, befriending entertainer Jack Mabley, whose relationship with her ended unhappily; when her brother voiced shame at her stage work, she chose Mabley's surname, explaining to Ebony in 1974, "He took a lot off me, so the least I could do was take his name."
The performer now billed as Jackie Mabley soon traveled the African-American vaudeville route known as the chitlin' circuit; the virulent racism she met on tour later shaped her comedy routines. The nickname "Moms" arrived later, reflecting the maternal care she showed younger colleagues. In 1921 she joined Butterbeans & Susie on the road and made her first appearance at Harlem's Cotton Club; she also became a regular presence in New York City's rising Black theater scene, collaborating in 1931 with Zora Neale Hurston on the Broadway revue Fast and Furious: A Colored Revue in 37 Scenes. Two years afterward she appeared on-screen for the first time in Emperor Jones. Yet her greatest legacy grew from her comedy turns: dressed in house dresses and oversized hats modeled on her grandmother, Mabley delivered routines packed with sexual innuendo and sharp commentary on American race relations. Observers noted that her plain, grandmotherly look helped audiences of every background accept material few other comedians, nearly all of them white and male, dared to present with equal directness or explicitness.
From 1939 through the 1960s, Mabley performed at Harlem's Apollo Theater more often than any other artist; she co-starred in the 1947 film Killer Diller and the following year's Boarding House Blues. National recognition arrived only after she began recording comedy albums for Chess, beginning with the 1960 gold-certified On Stage (Funniest Woman in the World) and the Billboard Top 20 entry Moms Mabley at the "UN." Later charted releases included Moms Mabley at the Playboy Club, Young Men, Si - Old Men, No, Moms Mabley at the White House, and Moms Mabley Breaks It Up. Her television debut came in 1967 on A Time for Laughter; she subsequently appeared frequently on variety programs hosted by Harry Belafonte, Mike Douglas, and Merv Griffin. In 1969 she unexpectedly reached both the pop and R&B charts with a somber reading of Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John." After completing her first screen role in more than twenty-five years, the 1974 film Amazing Grace, Mabley died on May 23, 1975, at age 78. Posthumously she has inspired several off-Broadway shows, among them the Clarice Taylor vehicle Moms and 1999's Moms Mabley: The Naked Truth.
