Fiesta Doll

Carlean Gill at Idlewild, circa late 1950s or early 1960s. (Photo donated by Carlean Gill to the Michigan Historical Museum)

Carlean Gill grew up as the youngest of six children in a black neighborhood in Ferndale, Michigan. Her father emigrated from St. Vincent and the Grenadines (a Caribbean island country) to work at the Ford Motor Company River Rouge plant. He also farmed and built houses in his limited spare time. “Ford …. put this neighborhood up for the black people coming from the South,” Carlean explained. “We had outhouses, we had dirt streets…. you know, this was an area where they said, ‘Okay, you’re black, this is where you stay, and you work for us.”

After graduating from Lincoln High School in 1956, Carlean attended business college and worked part-time as a model. She caught the eye of Ziggy Johnson and then Arthur Braggs, who gave her a job as a showgirl in his Idlewild Revue. As a “Fiesta Doll” she wore flamboyant costumes and strutted down the runway in fashion shows. In the off season, Braggs would take his Idlewild Revue on the road in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Idlewild

Founded in 1912 near Baldwin, Michigan, Idlewild became a popular resort for African Americans seeking refuge from racist “Jim Crow” laws. At Idlewild, blacks could relax and enjoy the outdoors without the burden and humiliation of segregation. Popular black singers, dancers and comedians entertained in clubs like the Paradise and Flamingo. Notable visitors to Idlewild were Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes, novelist Zora Heale Hurston, Madam C.J.Walker, and W.E.B. DuBois. At Idlewild, Gill met and befriended famous Motown entertainers The Four Tops and the Temptations.

An exterior view of Idlewild

The list of performers at Idlewild reads like a Who’s Who of black entertainers: Della Reese, Jackie Wilson, T-Bone Walker, George Kirby, The Four Tops, Brook Benton, Sarah Vaughan, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Sammy Davis, Bill Cosby, Moms Mabley, Fats Waller, Billy Eckstein, and many others.

“A Closeness”

“Idlewild had a closeness, and you’d see all these people come in all dressed up, on their best behavior,” Carlean Gill remembers. “They’d drive their cars up and the doorman would open the door for them. So it was like being in a big city but it was country living where you could wear shorts and just be very comfortable and people would invite you into their homes and cottages.”

Ironically, it was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that led to Idelwild’s downfall. Once black vacationers and entertainers were not segregated to blacks-only resorts, visitor numbers dwindled and the resort fell into decline. Idlewild is currently undergoing a rebirth, with the reopening of a motel, a museum and the Idlewild Jazz Festival.

Poster of a 1963 Idlewild Revue (Photo donated by Carlean Gill to the Michigan Historical Museum).

After Idlewild

After her career at Idlewild, Carlean Gill moved to Saginaw and attended beauty college before opening Carlean’s Beauty Salon. She then opened Saginaw Beauty Academy and Saginaw Barber College. She is renowned for her hair weaving technique for cancer patients, and has been honored by the City of Saginaw and the State of Michigan as an outstanding African American businesswoman. In addition to her modeling and business careers, she owned and operated a horse farm and raised a daughter.

You can read the full account of Carlean Gill’s adventures at Idlewild in the book The Sweetness of Freedom by Stephen G. Ostrander and Martha Aladjem Bloomfield, published in 2010 by Michigan State University Press.