Irving Sayles
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Irving Sayles (1872 – 8 February 1914) was an African-American vaudeville entertainer. He spent much of his life in Australia as a popular minstrel show performer, touring the Tivoli circuit. He performed coon songs and employed a self-deprecating humor involving comic interpretations of plantation slavery that reinforced negative racial stereotypes.
Irving Sayles was born in Quincy, Illinois, to Melinda (née Wilson) and Josephus Sayles.[1] He reported his year of birth as 1872. He became a member of Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels at a young age.[2] In 1888 he traveled to Australia as part of the Hicks-Sawyer Minstrels,[3] the second company that minstrelsy manager Charles Hicks brought to Australia. That September, the group played the Opera House in Sydney, where Sayles performed a solo piece and played the tambourine. Following a leg in Tasmania, Hicks wrote in 1890 that Sayles was the hit of their trip, saying that "[h]is song, 'Father of a Little Black Coon,' gets three and four encores nightly."[4] After the minstrel group broke up in 1890, Sayles went to Melbourne, where he worked for Frank Clark.[4] He met Charlie Pope and the two formed a double act, with Pope playing the straight man. They worked for theatre owner Harry Rickards.[2]
Later life
Sayles entered Australia prior to the White Australia policy and the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. He participated in amateur races[5] and in 1897 he married Englishwoman Edith Carter in Melbourne.[1] From 1909 until his death he partnered with Les Warton.[6] He made a long run as the cornerman "Tambo" and appeared on the cover of Theatre magazine in 1911.[7]
Death
Sayles died suddenly from a blood clot on 8 February 1914 in Christchurch, New Zealand, after performing on the Brennan-Fuller vaudeville circuit as part of Fuller's Vaudeville Company. He was 42.[1][8] He was buried in Linwood.[9]