Queen of Swing

MAN: It's 1932, and every night, uptown in Harlem, music can be heard echoing through the streets.

It's a new sound--swing.

It draws people from all over the city to the famous dance halls and ballrooms of Harlem, and one woman is at the center of it all.

She experiences a transformation in American culture that will leave its mark in history for all time.

ANNOUNCER: This program was made possible in part by Jensen's Twin Palms Resort and Marina, located on Florida's Captiva Island.

[Fingers snapping rhythmically] [Swing music playing] WOMAN: Give me the beat.

Give me the beat.

Give me the beat.

Feel the beat.

Get the beat.

BILL COBBS: This is Norma Miller.

It's a long story about how we became friends, but at 95 years young, Norma is one hip chick.

And, believe me, I've got to live to be 100 to get out of debt.

COBBS: It was on the set of the movie "Captiva" that I first worked with Norma.

That's good, you suckers.

Ha ha ha!

I knew she was talented, but I had no idea that she was truly a queen-- the Queen of Swing, that is.

NORMA: No, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing COBBS: Seems like everybody has a story about how they first met Norma, but to me, it's Norma's story that's most interesting.

It's a story about a little girl who danced her way out of the ghetto right into the hearts and minds of a worldwide audience.

Along the way, we'll meet a few of Norma's friends-- household names in the jazz era who invented a thing called swing.

Dance is about attitude, and according to Norma, to become a pro, the first step you'll need is to learn how to love.

NORMA: I say "Believe in each other, love one another," because you must replace hate with love.

Listen.

As you make your bed, so will you lie This is what you do before you die Before I die, there's just one thing I'll do my thing and swing, baby, swing Keep on swinging, and it'll keep you going.

Duke Ellington said it.

It had to be true.

COBBS: Yes, Duke said it, and Norma's been doing it ever since.

She was born in Harlem on December 2, 1919.

Her father Norm had died just one month earlier.

He was forcibly taken off the streets of New York by the army, enlisted, and soon caught double pneumonia while working in a freezing cold Brooklyn shipyard.

By the time Norma is 5 years old, she's helping her widowed mother raise money at house rent parties.

Here, for 25 cents, you're served "jump steady"-- a bathtub liquor-- along with a dance from young Norma.

NORMA: My mother was a real extraordinary woman, and she taught me-- she said-- like you'd say, "My goodness, "I'm having such a difficult time now.

What am I gonna do?

How am I gonna do this?"

My mother used to phrase it--she said, hen you ain't got a horse, you ride a cow," and that has been my policy all through life.

When I can't do it one way, then I try to find another way.

COBBS: When Norma's mother can't come up with enough rent money for their Harlem apartment, the family's forced to find a new place to live.

They do so on 141st Street in a tiny third-floor walk-up apartment.

But it isn't all bad.

After all, Norma and her older sister Dot get to sit on the fire escape and listen as the sounds of big-band music blast out of the Savoy Ballroom down below.

The year is 1932, and at 12 years old, Norma is determined to combine her love for music and dance to become a star-- a dream shared by another aspiring young dancer named Frankie Manning.

She happened to be standing out in front of the Savoy Ballroom.

She was about 12 at the time.

And I heard somebody call me.

I heard somebody say, "Hey, kid!"

She met this fellow Twistmouth George, which was a very prominent dancer at the Savoy.

WOMAN: Savoy, the home of sweet romance NORMA: This tall man was there, and he was dressed all in white-- white hat, white suit, white vest, white shoes.

You never saw anything like it.

Breathtaking.

But I knew who he was, because he had a mouth all the way on the side of his face, and he was called-- he was Twistmouth George.

And, uh, he say, "Hey, kid, "I've seen you out here dancing here.

Want to get in a contest with me?"

"Yeah, man, I want to go.

Take me up to the Savoy to dance?

Yeah, I'll go!"

NORMA: He swung me out.

I don't remember my feet ever touching the floor.

It was the greatest thing.

The people were screaming, and it was-- I was flying through the air, because I came up to his legs.

He was that tall.

MANNING: They won the contest, and after the contest was over, he broughter back, because she was too young to stay in the Savoy Ballroom.

COBBS: Norma's first official job as a paid dancer comes at the tender age of 14; the man who hires her, the legendary dance producer Leonard Reed.

producer of black dance numbersc also happens to be partially white.

I was considered both black and white.

I'm an American who happens to have some black blood in me.

I've seen it from both sides.

I know what the white people think.

I know what the colored people think.

COBBS: An asset that helpseonard assemble the finest dancers in show business, because every dancer dreams of dancing for the great Leonard Reed.

REED: I had a show at the Harlem Opera House, and two of my girls were acting up, so I fired two of the girls.

NORMA: I was standing outside, and somebody must have done something to Leonard, and he got screaming mad at somebody and dashed out.

And there stood Norma with a couple of other little girls, you know.

So right away--I didn't look.

I said, "Can you dance?"

I said, "Yeah!"

He said, "Do a time step."

REED: They did a time step.

That's all I required.

If you could do a time step, I could teach you whatever else.

COBBS: Norma gets the gig dancing for the famous Leonard Reed, but there's one thing she forgot to tell him.

She's still in school.

Ha ha ha!

That's when Leonard found out I was 14 years old--on the road.

I wasn't allowed to go.

I played hooky, so the cops came and got me after I was onstage a week.

So that lasted a hot minute, but that started it.

COBBS: She had no way of knowing it at the time, but Norma would soon become a key player in the development of a dance that's as American as the aviator it's named after-- the Lindy Hop.

A dance that was not only invented in the United States, but one that would play a critical role in race relations.

NORMA: Charles Lindbergh wanted to fly from America to Paris, right?

So the "Spirit of St. Louis" took off that day, and all the papers said "Lindy's hop."

Well, from what I understand, the story came about was, somebody was asking Shorty Snowden what was the name of the dance he was doing, and he said, "Well, I call this the Lindy Hop."

COBBS: A dance that was not only invented in the United States, but one that would play a critical role in race relations.

If you really wanted to swing, then you had to come to Harlem, and the swingingest place in Harlem was the Savoy Ballroom.

The Savoy Ballroom first opens its doors on March 12, 192 From that day on, it's the swingingest place in the country.

Two bands are hired perform on separate bandstands so the music never stops.

The thick wood dance floors are replaced several times a year e to the thousands of pounding feet from uptown and downtown.

The elegance of the room, simply put, is beyond compare, but there's something much more important happening here.

NORMA: The first place in America that was integrated was the Savoy Ballroom, because it was a ballroom built in Harlem.

And it was built for black people, but the best bands went there, so white people always came to Harlem anyway, so naturally, they came to the Savoy.

MANNING: And if a white person walked into the ballroom, nobody turned around and said, "Hey, there's a white person over there," you know.

NORMA: So there you had, sitting side by side, black and white; dancing black and white; and it became an integrated place.

REED: And there was a thing called slow dancing, too.

When they started swinging, they would dance slowly, and then this is when they conversed; when they started talking.

"What's your name?

Where do you live?

Are you married?"

You know, and this is how integration really, really started.

You know, the whites were getting up in the aisle and started dancing, and the blacks were getting up in the same aisle and started dancing, you know, so they were mixing it with each other.

When the music is over, the whites went on one side and the blacks went on the other side.

REED: Martin Luther King had a lot to do with integration, but they were trying and doing it long before Martin Luther came along, you know.

COBBS: Not everyone is happy about white women dancing with black men.

Soon, trumped-up charges of prostitution among the Savoy female house dancers are used in an effort to put the club out of business-- an attempt that fails.

["Summertime" playing] It's the summer of 1935.

The tensions between whites and blacks is heating up.

Few in Harlem haveobs, and 95% of those who do are white.

Blk doctors working in a Harlem hospital are routinely fired so that white doctors can have jobs.

But when rumors begin to spread about a young Puerto Rican boy being arrested for shoplifting and possibly murdered by police, pandemonium breaks out.

To calm the tension, Fiorello La Guardia-- the mayor of New York-- decides to have a dance contest to help keep peace.

It's to be called the Harvest Moon Ball, with the best dancers from all of New York's 5 boroughs competing.

ANNOUNCER: But now a lusty, husky newcomer takes the stage, and, brother, get a snootful of this.

Get hep, hepcats.

This is jive.

Man alive.

REED: Swing dancing really got off the ground at the Harvest Moon Ball in Madison Sare Garden.

The white people then, who had never gone to Harlem, who had ver been in the Savoy, got to see on hand, for the first time, how black dancers could do.

COBBS: If the swing is about anything, it's about improvising and originality.

Once a move is made on a dance floor, it's stolen one minute later, so to win a contest, you'd better have something special.

REED: Everybody was stealing from somebody.

The greatest thing in the world for you to do if you're in show business, steal whatever you can steal from whomever you can get it, and try to do it and make it your own.

COBBS: When Frankie Manning and his dance partner Freda Washington make it to the finals of the Harvest Moon Ball, he decides it's time to blow the judges away with a brand-new move.

MANNING: Chick Webb was swinging, man.

I mean, and we were kind of tearing up the house.

We had the house rocking even before we went into the step, you know.

So I slung her and I flipped her over.

I jumped over her head, and I slung her around, and as I flipped her over, man, you know, like, the whole-- all the people in the Savoy were... "What happened?"

You know.

Ha ha!

You know?

And then they all just exploded, you know.

[Crowd cering] They said, "Man, d you see that?

He just flipped her over his head.

Wow!"

And they just went crazy, you know, and I backed off the floor.

But, actually, I didn't realize, you know, like I did something so sensational.

It was just that "OK, I got a new step now," you know?

COBBS: Frankie, with his new step, walks away with first place at the contest.

["In the Mood" playing] Now swing has become infectious, and for the first time, it takes hold of the white audience.

ANNOUNCER: Every day, into music shops from coast to ast, go more and more customers, all for the same thing: the latest in swing music.

It is indispensable at dark Harlem's hot and noisy Savoy.

COBBS: At the age of 14, Norma Miller's no longer dancing on the sidewalks outside the Savoy.

She's already won a major Lindy contest at the famed Apollo Theater, which gets the attention of Herbert White, the founder of the legendary dance team Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

Whitey--nicknamed for a two-inch-wide white streak of hair down the center of his head-- is no soft touch.

He's a bouncer at the Savoy Ballroom, and his resume includes being the founder of a tough street gang called the Jolly Fellows.

Now Whitey's interest is in developing the finest Lindy Hoppers in the world and making some dough off them at the same time.

NORMA: When we were 14 years old, you came into that ballroom, and you did your job over there, and you went home.

We couldn't do things even outside the Savoy Ballroom, because the police-- everybody knew who we were and knew Whitey.

If we did anything, we would be reported to Whitey, and the worst thing could happen to you in my day was not to be allowed to come into the Savoy Ballroom.

COBBS: Soon Norma has to choose between continuing her formal education or a career on the road as one of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

For Norma, the decision comes easy.

It's like the kid who's a boxer.

Boxing got him out of the-- like they say, boxing got him out of the ghetto.

Dancing got me out of Harlem.

COBBS: At the age of 15, Norma decides to skip school one day and jumps on an ocean liner and heads across the Atlantic with the rest of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

London, Paris, and Zurich are just a few of the cities that Norma performs in.

NORMA: And I noticed that all the black men that were over there was ways talking about the fact they didn't want to come back to America, and I used to wonder, well, why?

What was wrong with America?

And come to find out they discriminated against black men associating with white women, and that was their squawk about segregation.

I didn't know there was such a thing as segregation, because I lived in Harlem.

I never went out of Harlem.

My whole life was Harlem.

COBBS: After a successful tour of Europe, the dancers head back to the States.

Whitey's lined up another high-profile gig where they'll be touring the country as the opening act for the famous singer, actress, and star of Broadway Ethel Waters.

NORMA: She wanted the Lindy Hop in her show, because she wanted to do the Lindy Hop.

We went on a tour of all the Paramount theaters that ended up in Californi COBBS: By the time the dance troupe makes it to California, the relationship between Whitey and Ethel has gotten so bad that the entire gig is about to go bust.

Just before it does, Hollywood comes to the rescue.

I got a frown You got a frown COBBS: The movie is called "A Day at the Races," starring the Marx Brothers.

NORMA: They had completed the movie.

It was in the can.

And they saw us at the theater, and they decided to reopen the can to give it what was the newest thing in American dance-- the Lindy Hop.

COBBS: But for Norma, landing a part in the film will be no cakewalk, because being black is one thing, but Hollywood prefers a certain type of black.

REED: They wouldn't hire her because she was black.

She wouldn't mix in with the lightest-- See, the colored people were as prejudiced as the white people.

They were prejudiced against their own.

All the pictures that are done back in those days all had light-skinned girls.

COBBS: Ultimately, it's the dancers' sheer talent and Whitey's smooth talking that lands them a role in the flick.

NORMA: Oh, we were stars, baby.

We were making a movie.

Could you imagine?

The first time out.

And we were all teenagers, and we were playing the Paramount Theatre.

We were a very, very popular group, because we were the first group in Lindy Hop that ever hit the West Coast.

Every time we got finished dancing, we would run out to see if we could see movie stars.

That's all I did on the set, was try to find movie stars.

Sing, sing COBBS: Norma's victory is short-lived.

18-hour workdays are catching up with her.

In July of 1937, she checks into a New York hospital, where she'll spend the next 6 months.

She's diagnosed with exhaustion and a mysterious illness that requires 4 blood transfusions.

Some thought Norma would never make it out of the hospital.

Most thought her dancing days were over, and no one could have predicted what she's about to do next.

It's the 1939 World's Fair.

Technology is the theme, and the latest gadget on display by RCA Victor is something called television.

NORMA: They brought us over to be part of the test-- of the 1939 test for television.

That's when you had to wear all that harsh makeup, and Georgie Jessel had eye shadow on.

I said, "What's this guy doing with all this eye shadow on?"

COBBS: Norma's brief demonstration makes history, as the Lindy Hop becomes the first dance ever performed on television.

At the time, television's considered just a novelty item, and the real show-stopper at the New York World's Fair is to be found in a makeshift building where the Savoy dancers have a grueling schedule.

NORMA: We were doing 16 shows a day, from 2:00 in the afternoon to 2:00 at night.

Dancers was falling out.

You know, they couldn't make it.

COBBS: The show is shut down, but Norma and the Lindy Hoppers are only out of work for a day before Whitey lines up another gig, and once again, Hollywood comes calling.

The movie's called "Hellzapoppin'."

NORMA: That's me and Billy Ricker dancing at the moment.

This was me in my prime.

Oh, was I--look at me.

Look at the speed on me.

Ha ha ha!

Without a doubt, the best Lindy Hop sequence ever been produced on film.

This was the last and the best of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers.

COBBS: By the time the movie wraps, Norma finds that Whitey's accounting has left her with a lot less dough than she thought she had coming, but it doesn't bother her too much, because at 19 years old, she falls in love for the first time.

LOUIS ARMSTRON Give me a kiss to build a dream on And my imagination will thrive upon that kiss COBBS: His name is Roy-- Roy Glenn-- an aspiring actor whose kiss makes Norma feel as though nothing else matters.

NORMA: Well, I had one extraordinary love affair that led to--it was supposed to lead to marriage, and Whitey led me into Rio de Janeiro.

WOMAN: Good morning, heartache NORMA: I couldn't get no answers.

"Where am I going?

What are we doing?"

All our life, we was-- always did what we were told.

I always thought that Frankie and Whitey did it deliberately.

And then I was stuck down there for two years.

WOMAN: It's easy to remember NORMA: It was when I learned you can't go back.

It was my first real experience.

Nothing is like it used to be.

And it never was.

COBBS: Her charm soon helps her find a way onto yet another movie set-- this time, with one of the world's most famous directors.

NORMA: Orson Welles was down there at the same time producing a movie called "Carnaval."

I spoke English, and he used to like me to sit beside him, because I'm always talking, always asking him questions.

And we were talking about "Citizen Kane" because we had just seen the movie, so I said--I asked him, I mean, about the sled, the last frame, when he was saying "Rosebud."

I said, "What did it mean?"

He said, "Well, what did you think it meant?"

I said, "Well, I thought it mnt that you'd lost your childhood."

He said, "That was it."

COBBS: While performing in Brazil with the Lindy Hoppers on December 7, 1941... [Explosion] Norma receives word that Pearl Harbor has been bombed, and the United States has officially entered the war.

Norma's life as a dancer will never again be the same.

Getting back to the United States by ship is now impossible.

The risk of being torpedoed by enemy subs off the coast is way too high.

It takes the dancers 10 months to make enough money to fly back to Miami.

NORMA: As they came back one by one, the army took all the men.

As a matter of fact, they took all the men out of the Savoy, and our men were included.

MAN: Rootly-toot Jump in your suit Make a salute Voot DIFFERENT MAN: Forward!

Left!

Forward!

COBBS: Whitey's Lindy Hoppers aren't the only jazz performers to end up victims of the war.

On December 14, 1944, the great bandleader Glenn Miller-- now Major Glenn Miller-- is killed in a plane crash.

MAN: Troubles, troubles, troubles Troubles is all in the world I see... COBBS: With the men gone, Norma decides to stay in Miami.

She gets her first real taste of something she hasn't paid much attention to before-- something called segregation.

MAN: All in the world I see NORMA: I saw my first colored bus.

I heard a town called Colored Town.

I saw water colored and white.

And that was the biggest thing that happened to me when I had to actually face that.

Miami, Florida-- in Miami Beach, there was a sign, "No niggers, Jews, and dogs allowed.

Nigger, read and run.

If you can't read, run anyhow."

COBBS: Perhaps it has something to do with being brought up by a mother who instilled strong moral values, or maybe it has mething to do with the confidence that comes with being the best at something.

Whatever the reason, Norma Miller never backed down from speaking out about injustice.

NORMA: And I used to ask white people.

I said, "Well, what is it about black people that you're afraid of?

I mean, what is this thing called segregation?"

No one was ever giving me an answer.

They didn't--they had been doing it so long out of practice, they didn't even know why they were doing it.

And that was one of the biggest things that made me begin to fight for all kinds of equality between people, and I still-- I say that today.

COBBS: But the South is not the only place Norma experiences segregation.

NORMA: Now, our bus pulled up.

Now, we're talking about-- we're not shabby-looking people.

We've got two Lincolns-- Ethel Waters' cars, with chauffeurs.

And the bus--we pulled up into the hamburger stand, and they wouldn't serve us any hamburgers because we were black.

That incident shocked me.

COBBS: It's the music and the dance that break through the chains of segregation.

NORMA: Our music broke down all barriers.

Louis Armstrong was the ambassador of jazz.

He reached more people around the world than any other person in the world, and he did it with a trumpet.

[Playing "When You're Smiling"] Jazz is heard around the world today, and that was our influence.

Our music is all in Sweden.

You can go to Sweden and shut your eyes, and you'd swear you we listening to some black bands.

Integration in music became a very important part to extend the life of it.

Then you had big, great, white swing bands who competed and compared themselves, and they used to compete in the ballroom.

The biggest--Benny Goodman and Chick Webb-- was the biggest night in the history of the Savoy.

COBBS: The title of "King of Swing" among the bands is at stake, and the showdown is between longtime Savoy house bandleader Chick Webb and the champion of the white swing bands Benny Goodman.

NORMA: And nobody know how the word spread, because when it came, I mean, yohad as many people outside the ballroom as you had inside the ballroom.

And a battle of the bands ensued, and I mean, you talk about a great night.

COBBS: With the title of "King of Swing" on the line, the stakes are high, and the bands are smoking hot.

NORMA: I saw it.

I danced it.

It was the biggest night in the Savoy Ballroom.

Pandemonium.

Each band was better than the other.

It just--they got better and better all night, and Gene Krupa was up against the veteran Chick Webb.

[Drum solo playing] COBBS: Standing less than 4 feet tall, bandleader Chick Webb is known at the Savoy Ballroom as "The Little Giant."

Phoebe Jacobs is one of Webb's biggest fans.

WOMAN: Chick Webb was--is very underrated in the jazz world.

He was a dynamite drummer.

He would really fracture them.

COBBS: Webb's competitor, drummer Gene Krupa, was considered the premier drummer of the time.

NORMA: Everybody was saying that this kid is gonna-- the phrase in those days, "He'll run you off the bandstand."

And Chick Webb was not gonna let nobody run him off of any bandstand, so he kept picking up the tempos.

Now, John Hammond says the reason why he didn't think Chick Webb was King of Swing, because he couldn't keep the steady tempo, and you had to have a solid tempo.

I said, "Chick Webb picked that tempo up "because he wanted to make sure he can kick Benny Goodman; especially that drummer."

And that's what he did.

COBBS: It's 1943, and Norma decides to permanently sever ties with Herbert White.

She's had enough of his questionable accounting practices and is ready to go it alone.

She does so by forming the Norma Miller Dancers.

In her search for new dancers, Frankie Manning suggests someone she hadn't heard of before-- Frankie's own son Chazz.

MAN: I just fell right on in, and Norma was surprised to find out that Frankie had a son.

That was so funny to me.

COBBS: In 1952, Norma returns to Miami as a headliner for Cab Calloway's Cotton Club show.

She performs at Bill Rivers' Rockland Palace.

This time, she's accompanied by 14 of her own dancers.

The city is still segregated, and while she plays to an all-black audience, the audience includes some of the who's who of the time.

NORMA: And what was so wonderful about this, not only Joe Louis was there, Jackie Robinson was ere.

Even Thurgood Marshall.

I used to sit across the breakfast table from him, and I found that a great experience, because it was there they began to understand the breakthrough for segregation, and it began, I think, really in Miami.

Remember, this all was before Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther King was a kid to these people.

He came later.

COBBS: Soon Norma makes history again when her group is booked in Miami Beach.

It's the first all-black act to play on the beach, but racism is still everywhere.

NORMA: And the entire show had to report to the sheriff's office to get ID passes, because when you're black, you were not allowed to go to the beach without a pass, and you could not be out after 12:00 without a pass, or else you would go to jail.

COBBS: Times are changing, and so is people's taste in music.

There's a new kind of jazz sound hitting the clubs, and to Norma, it sounds like the end.

NORMA: Jazz wanted a new sound, and here was-- Charlie Parker was the one that came in with this-- changed the music completely, which was not danceable.

I knew then we were gonna be in trouble, because there wasn't gonna be no more dancing.

COBBS: Norma's birthplace of Harlem is also changing, and it's not for the better.

NORMA: When I was raised in Harlem, Harlem had a spirit, and those people that came there brought this wonderful spirit.

The next generation came, they brought anger.

And dope came to Harlem, and that destroyed i MAN: Nobody loves me but my mother And she could be jin' too COBBS: Swing is no longer in, and it becomes much tougher for Norma to book a gig.

But Norma does have friends, and one of them from the early days suggests she give comedy a try-- a friend by the name of Redd Foxx.

Somebody here got some sneakers on-- either somebody got a Limburger cheese sandwich.

COBBS: It's 1964, and Redd has just opened his new comedy club in Los Angeles.

He invites Norma to come and work at his club.

REED: She kind of fashioned herself after Redd, and Redd loved her.

Redd thought she was the best thing that-- since the round wheel.

COBBS: Norma's working as an emcee at Redd's club.

Soon she develops an act of her own and becomes one of the first black female stand-up comics in the United States.

WOMAN: Welcome her now-- the fabulous Ms. Norma Miller.

Here she is.

[Applause] NORMA: So I knocks on his door, and he open his door, and there he's standing up there big, black, and burly.

You can't believe it.

And all he had on him was a little yellow ribbon that look like it was tied around the oak tree.

I said, _ _, baby, "I don't know where you've been or what you've done, but I'm glad you got first prize."

REED: I said, "Norma, you've got to stop doing dirty material."

Norma said, "This is the thing, Leonard.

Everybody's doing dirty material."

I said, "But you don't have to do dirty material," and she said, "OK.

I'll try to clean it up."

Norma's next show was the same damn thing that I had said for her not to do, only she did it in another way.

All my life, strangely, I was taught that early to bed and early to rise would make a girl healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Well, it did nothing for me, sweetie, but made me healthy, sexless, and single.

Hey, baby, can you dig it?

Yeah!

COBBS: Redd Foxx would spend some time in front of the camera.

Norma decides she might as well develop her acting skills along with the comedy.

I did his first television show with him.

He picked me to do "Sanford and Son."

Now get ready to meet my new dove.

OK, now, close ur eyes.

And here she is.

NORMA: At the time, they didn't think that Redd would be capable of doing television because, you know, of the type of material Redd used.

But he hit a show called "Sanford and Son," and it was the biggest hit show to come to CBS at that time.

You know, if I was your woman, I wouldn't let you drink that.

We'd have a house in the country.

We'd have the kids running around, going to college.

Then we'd go to Disneyland.

What are you talking about?

Huh?

Why--why don't you talk about something you know about, huh?

Like drinking.

[Laughter] COBBS: Despite lots of auditions and her roles on Richard Pryor's TV special, Norma isn't what you'd call an overnight sensation.

PRYOR: She spend more time in here than the bartender.

COBBS: While Norma has many a memorable night working at Redd's club, there's one night in particular that tops them all.

NORMA: Louis Armstrong comes to California, and he's making the movie "Hello, Dolly!"

with Barbra Streisand.

And, you know, he sings the song "Hello, Dolly!"

in the movie.

And he used to like to come and hang out with us after his time at the studio, so he came in there one night and stopped in the doorway, and there at the doorway, he sang "Hello, Dolly!"

to me while I was onstage.

LOUIS ARMSTRONG: Hello, Dolly This is Louis, Dolly... NORMA: And I stood there transfixed, because imagine Louis Armstrong is singing "Hello, Dolly!"

to me after leaving Barbra Streisand.

I can tell, Dolly COBBS: Norma remembers how she and Pops first met more than 30 years before.

At the time, they were both working on a major stage play called "Swingin' the Dream."

NORMA: It was the biggest flop that ever happened.

And so when the show flopped, I was sitting backstage crying, and Louis Armstrong-- I heard this voice say, "Don't cry about a show closing.

There's always gonna be another one."

And that was Louis Armstrong, and that's how we became friends.

See, we were the next generation down from him-- me, Redd Foxx, Slappy White.

He liked to hang out--he liked to know what the cats was doing, so after--you know, he played all these uppity, uppity places, and he used to come around us to sort of unwind.

COBBS: It's 1972, and she's back doing stand-up in L.A. when a promoter sees her and makes her an offer she can't refuse.

NORMA: And they were asking people to come over to entertain the soldiers, and that's how I got my first booking into Vietnam.

Somebody said "Well, if you go, we can promise you you'll have $10,000 when you finish."

I was on the next plane.

MAN: Mama says, Son, how can you be happy When your brother's way over in Vietnam COBBS: The show is called "Broadway '72," an independent production comprised primarily of Filipino performers.

NORMA: And we played every base in Vietnam, from Da Nang all the way to the DMZ.

COBBS: Norma finds herself performing in the middle of hell.

We took out over 50,000 in body bags.

COBBS: Entertaining ttle-weary troops is not a job for the weakhearted, but if there's one thing Norma knows how to do, it's work a crowd.

NORMA: I did a show one time, and all the white GIs was over here, and all the black GIs was over here.

MAN: Miss Norma Miller!

Hey!

Ho!

NORMA: And in those days, the black GIs used to do a thing called dap.

Ding!

Ding!

That's where the high five and all that come from.

And they would do it, and they would be interfering with what I'm doing, and I spoke on it.

And because I'm black, and I spoke on it, you know, they got very insulted.

They stood up en masse and left the theater.

That whole side was empty, and this whole side had the white guys.

So we all did-- we all applauded this thing and got on with the show.

COBBS: So after the show, Norma gets a message that the black GIs are wanting to have a talk with soul sister Norma Miller.

NORMA: "Who do you think you are?

"You have the unmitigated gall-- "I'm here to perform for you "just like I'm here to perform for the white boys.

"Ain't no difference to me.

And you insulted me."

And that's when all the apologies started coming, and they were sorry, and they named me Soul Sister Number One in Saigon.

But entertainment always play an important part whenever the country is any kind of problem.

COBBS: Norma's kind of entertainment alys relied on a level of honesty rarely found in show business.

That honesty works well for her in Vietnam.

NORMA: And I went onstage, and I told them, I said, "Guys, Vietnam sucks."

And the whole place roared.

And I was on the tarmac the next day when I got a message from the general saying that he had saw my performance and he sort of didn't like the fact what I had said about Vietnam.

And I sent my apologies to the general, and I added, "But let me tell you, Vietnam still sucks" as I was leaving.

[Chuckles] COBBS: Soul Sister Number One leaves Saigon for good in 1973.

Running low on cash, she decides to move back to Las Vegas.

Now she's the opening act for Sammy Davis Jr., who's possibly the greatest entertainer of all time.

I love a girl NORMA: If you was a singer, he'd outsing you.

If you played drums, he'd outplay-- I don't know nothing Sammy couldn't do.

But he was an entertainer from the time he was 3 years old... I'll be standing on the corner high When they bring your body by NORMA: And he had it in his bones and his spirit, everything.

COBBS: It's Sammy who Norma credits with knocking down the walls of segretion in Vegas, but he did have some help from a guy named Ol' Blue Eyes.

NORMA: The greatest incident was-- at the time, you know, it was segregated, and they could work in the hotel, but they couldn't stay there, and they didn't want Sammy to be staying at the Sands.

So Frank Sinatra said, "Well, if Sammy don't stay, I don't stay," and that was what broke the color barrier in Las Vegas for entertainers.

And I've loved Frank Sinatra ever since because he opened the door, and when he opened the door, I went in too.

1, 2, double.

COBBS: In 1990, a copy of the 1939 classic "Hellzapoppin'" is seen for the first time in Sweden, and the Lindy Hop dance rage begins all over again.

[Swing music playing] The world rediscovers swing, and they also rediscover Norma Miller.

Once again, Hollywood comes calling, and Norma lends her choreography expertise to films like Spike Lee's "Malcolm X" and Debbie Allen's "Stompin' at the Savoy."

WOMAN: She is the spunkiest person I have ever met.

She's amazing.

She doesn't--I don't know.

She seems like my age or like a little-- She doesn't seem like she's aged for a really long time.

NORMA: I've got what they want.

They want what I know.

Like I tell all kids, "Remember, you think you know, but I know, "sI can tell you much more than you can tell me.

And if you listen to me, you might learn something."

So they want to listen, and I'll try to teach them.

And do your thing, and swing, baby, swing COBBS: Norma has a new life as a grande dame of swing as she takes to teaching swing in master classes around the world, including Stanford University.

NORMA: Coming here has just given me so much inspiration.

You just feel the dance world around you.

I like the diversity.

I like the fact that here-- you can come here, and you can see so many varieties of dance.

COBBS: Richard Powers teaches American social dance forms at Stanford University.

MAN: Norma Miller is a master.

She was there, she did the dances, and she has been choreographing for film andelevision and stage ever since then, so she haseen what works.

She's seen how to shape a dance, so that's why we hired Norma, and it really worked.

NORM So this is what's so important today.

You're showing swinging at Stanford.

Show them that you're swinging at Stanford, and just when you hear that music, let it go.

I mean, just go.

I mean, don't even worry about-- The camera will catch you.

Don't even worry about the camera.

But just get out there and swing it.

Then you'll capture the whole idea of what a great ensemble number looks like.

[Swing music playing] So swing, baby, swing Swing!

COBBS: In the new millennium, Norma's birthplace of Harlem Today, a more diversified Harlem is coming together to celebrate at the African American Day Parade.

[Drums playing] [Whistles blow] Norma senses that a mini-Renaissance is occurring in Harlem, but she sees something much bigger is happening.

[Playing "The Star-Spangled Banner"] NORMA: After 9/11, I saw a coming together of America that I had never witnessed before.

It was the most wonderful thing I've ever seen.

To see New Yorkers do that-- that was a mindblower.

I mean, they were helping and helping each other.

And New Yorkers are never known to doing things like that, and I found that to be the most amazing-- That's when I knew we had a great country.

Because, you know, this is where I was raised.

This used to be the mama and papa stores where you used to get the fruit and all that kind of stuff right there.

Oh, there's so much memories here.

COBBS: Norma gives a tour of the old neighborhood to Jerry Dolan Jr., the son of her longtime musical composer.

This--all this whole, uh, complex took up the Savoy up to 141st Street.

This was all Savoy.

[Music playing] COBBS: The famed Savoy Ballroom, nicknamed "The Home of Happy Feet," where Norma's life as a dancer got its start.

In 1958, the legendary ballroom was torn down and replaced with a housing complex.

For future generations, its memory would disappear altogether, but today the Savoy is given new life with a permanent marker dedicated, fittingly, by the King and Queen of Swing-- Frankie Manning and Norma Miller.

NORMA: And it was there on 142nd Street that I learned to do the shim sham watching them through that window, so you see a lot of my life has been lived right here in Harlem.

I was born here, I'm a product of here, and I'm proud to be a Harlemite right now, though I live in Las Vegas.

[Laughter and applause] [Swing music playing] COBBS: For the first time in 45 years, people are again swinging in the streets out in front of what once was the famed Savoy Ballroom.

REED: To say what Norma meant to the Savoy, no matter what you had at home, how bad you were doing, a fight with your wife or a fight with your friend, or your death-- I don't care if you had death.

When you went to the Savoy, and you walked in there and you met Norma, all of that was gone.

NORMA: The dancing is a joy.

Because I always say, "Listen, you give me a bucket of chicken "and a Count Basie record, and I can settle the Palestinian problem," because the music is so good.

The music is what-- I want to put swing in the United Nations, because when people swing dance, they're not unhappy.

You never saw a dancer leave the floor that's not smiling.

COBBS: Yeah, and you rarely meet a person who meets Norma who isn't smiling either.

WOMAN: Hey, how about that concert last night?

Was that great?

It was a gasser.

As Louis would say, it was a gasser.

COBBS: Before leaving New York, Norma and her friend Phoebe Jacobs drive by anotherold friend'- Louis Armstrong.

JACOBS: What an asset he was to New Orleans, because he brought the image of New Orleans to the world.

NORMA: Yes, he did.

COBBS: He was born on the fourth of July at the start of a new century.

71 years later, the ambassador of jazz was finally laid to rest-- not in his native New Orleans, but here in Queens, New York.

NORMA: You know, you've got the most tremendous spirit.

It has lived on and on and on, and we're gonna carry that on forever with you.

Believe me when I say you caput that in your pipe and smoke it.

[Jazz playing] MAN: Backbeat!

COBBS: The sound of jazz inspired by Louis Armstrong still fills the air of New Orleans.

Norma and Phoebe join jazz trumpeter Clark Terry on a visit to the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp.

[Man singing rhythmic pattern] So you want to get some of that -ism.

That's the -ism!

That's the profound colloquialism.

COBBS: They're here to share the legacy of jazz music and their love of it with the next generation.

[Singing scat] The mission of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp is to continue to develop the art form by educating the next generation of jazz artists.

In her 80s, Norma reinvents herself once again-- this time appearing along with myself in the movie "Captiva Island."

Well, when Sam's parents died, they were on George's salvage ship.

George was supposed to be there.

Sam's mother and father never did know what happened to him.

COBBS: It's her first appearance in a movie without a dance sequence.

Now Norma is simply a movie star.

RMA: These were the days I was in Las Vegas.

I was living there, and we'd go to Debbie Reynolds' place and do our act-- free, of course-- and I guess that's what John Biffar saw when he met me.

COBBS: The film's director John Biffar.

She was going off onstage, and I heard this loud voice out of nowhere, and there was Norma up on stage, and it was like, "Who is this woman?"

He said, "Listen, I want you in my movie.

I'm gonna make you a movie star."

And I looked at this tall, lanky white dude, and I said, "This sucker is crazy."

BIFFAR: There wasn't even a role for her, and we made one because we wanted Norma in the film.

NORMA: But in a month, there I was in Fort Myers, and we were shooting a movie called "Captiva."

I told you I would beat you suckers!

Whoa!

MAN: How do you like working in Florida?

Florida's beautiful.

I wouldn't want to live here permanently.

Have you heard Did you get the word Got to get myself a-goin' Got to get my seeds a-sowin' Got to do my thing Swing, baby, swing COBBS: Now Norma lives in Florida.

It's been over 80 years in the making, but Norma's life story is finally in print.

Her book "Swingin' at the Savoy" relives her fascinating life story, and now a children's book has also been published.

JACOBS: Norma is a very vital part of our American history, and I'd like to see her recognized and remembered as somebody who dedicated herself to entertaining people, bringing them some happiness and joy, and getting them involved in dance.

And I think Norma is responsible for being an inspiration.

How many women do you know that can look like Norma and move like Norma and make people feel the joy that she can feel when you're in her presence and you're exposed to her?

[Drums playing] See, everything in life's got a beat.

When you walk down the street, your feet tap... MANNING: Norma--she's always got something to look forward to.

"You know what?

I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna have-- "Oh, I'm gonna have--wow.

"I'm gonna have Basie and Joe Williams and Duke Ellington..." She was gonna have the whole entertainment field, you know.

But that's my girl, though.

That's my girl.

Ha ha ha!

Blue skies smiling at me [Man speaking French] ANNOUNCER: Charles A. Lindbergh, Lucky Lindy, as they call him-- landed at Le Bourget airport, Paris, at 5:24 this afternoon, thus becoming the first person... COBBS: It was May 21, 1927, that Charles Lindbergh made the historic hop across the Atlantic that would change the world forever.

75 yea later, Norma Miller comes to Washington, DC to celebrate that hop and the dance named after it with the aviator's daughter Reeve Lindbergh.

Today is 75 years later.

What did you-- how do you feel about that?

I am amazed and delighted at all it led to, and I'm especially delighted that it led to your dancing and the swing and the Lindy Hop...

Right.

which was like the Lindy Hop over the ocean.

That was our contribution.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

That was Wonderful.

Yeah.. My father was joining nations with the airplane... And we were joining dancers.

And you were joining dancers, and you were joining people together.

You were putting people together just the way he wanted.

Isn't that wonderful?

It's wonderful.

But you know what?

What's that?

God is good.

God is very good.

We are in good hands.

[Crowd cheering] [Fanfare playing] COBBS: The next time Norma came to Washington, it was to celebrate the inauguration of America's first black president.

Obama!

Obama!

Obama!

MAN: Obama!

COBBS: President Barack Obama.

So help me God.

Congratulations, Mr. President, sir.

[Crowd cheering] You feel the excitement of what's happening here.

COBBS: She walks through this massive sea of people, and she sees everything that has brought her to this moment.

My name is Norma Miller.

I just see how people are smiling everywhere, You know, you don't get this.

This is--this is extraordinary, but this is what America is.

WOMAN: Yes.

Look at the mixture.

Look around.

See?

Every race, color, creed go into that melting pot.

COBBS: Norma doesn't see things in black and white.

I'm glad that he's black, but he's also-- you could say he's a white president also, can't you?

We're gonna be on NBC tomorrow.

Yeah, at 8:30 in the morning.

One show 89-year-old Norma Miller was not going to miss was the inauguration of the country's 44th president.

NORMA: Thank you.

Ha ha ha!

Thank you, darling.

Thank you.

Ha ha!

Thank you.

[Playing "When the Saints Go Marching In"] COBBS: In the year 2012, Norma's lifelong friend and jazz enthusiast Phoebe Jacobs dies at the age of 93.

Fittingly, Norma and 300 or 400 of h closest friends, including jazz great Wynton Marsalis, show up at Lincoln Center to pay Miss Phoebe their proper respect.

NORMA: We had a car like this in, uh... it's like the Plymouth.

MAN: Yeah.

Just like the Plymouth.

COBBS: At the age of 95, Norma is booked more now than ever before.

NORMA: We're going to a press conference.

That's all I know.

We sent jazz around the world.

COBBS: Today she's answering questions from an adoring press in Pescara, Italy.

So all my life, I danced Lindy Hop.

[Speaking Italian] Today you call that dance "swing."

[Speaking Italian] [Music playing] It don't mean a thing If it ain't got that swing Boy, ho!

COBBS: Today is a big day for Norma.

Later this evening, she'll be performing at the famed ollo Theater where, 80 years before, it all started.

[Jazz playing] Do you remember how this all started?

I remember you being on a stage in Las Vegas and killing it, and I came to you, and I said... You want me to be in your movie.

Then what?

And you're gonna make me a movie star.

And what did you tell me?

Bull[bleep].

That's how it all started.

COBBS: A love of life, a love of music, and a love of people, all people... Aren't people nice?

Have you ever seen anything like this before in your life?

COBBS: That's why Norma Miller is true American royalty-- the one and the only Queen of Swing.

[Louis Armstrong performing "What a Wonderful World] I see trees of green Red roses too I see them bloom For me and you And I think to myself What a wonderful world And I think to myself What a wonderful world Oh, yeah ANNOUNCER: This program was made possible in part by Jensen's Twin Palms Resort and Marina, located on Florida's Captiva Island.