“There is
no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
Maya Angelou
(1928 - 2014)
(1928 - 2014)
Curious facts
about:
In 1941 Maya Angelou won a scholarship to study dance
and drama at San Francisco’s Labor School, but she dropped out of the high
school to become San Francisco’s first African-American female cable car
conductor.
She Was a Calypso Singer and Dancer. In 1957, Angelou recorded a calypso album, “Miss
Calypso.” Two years later, she performed
in an off-Broadway review that inspired the 1957 film “Calypso Heat Wave,” where
she sang her own compositions. During that time, while performing in San
Francisco nightclubs as a calypso singer and dancer, she met and teamed up with
dance legend Alvin Ailey to form the modern dance performing duo “Al and
Rita.”The pair never hit it big, so they eventually decided to go their
separate ways.
She penned Hallmark
Greeting Cards and Cookbooks In 2000, Angelou created a successful
collection of products for Hallmark, including greeting cards and decorative
household items. Her Random House editor disapproved of her decision to lend
her words to a line of cards, bookends, and pillows, arguing the venture was
too commercial. But as Angelou told USA Today, “If I’m America’s poet, or one
of them, then I want to be in people’s hands … people who would never buy a
book.” She also wrote cookbooks, such as “Great Food, All Day Long: Cook
Splendidly, Eat Smart ” and “Hallelujah! The Welcome Table.”