Peters Sisters

The Peters Sisters were a well-built African-American singing trio from Santa Monica, California, where they first sang together in churches, local amateur shows and social functions. Then in 1937, while making a hopeful, though unpaid, appearance at a Hollywood night club, they were spotted by comedian Eddie Cantor who immediately signed them up to appear in the film Ali Baba Goes to Town (1937). These were the legendary years of New York's Cotton Club, and the Peters Sisters found their way there to sing with Duke Ellington and his Famous Orchestra. The girls first came to England in 1938 and toured for a year with a show called "Hawaiian Paradise". Also on the bill were Max Wall and Ted Ray. Then came the war years and it was not until 1950 that the Peters Sisters fulfilled a long-standing engagement to appear at the Folies Bergère in Paris. Tours of North and South America followed. In 1959 they appeared at the London Palladium with Max Bygraves and were seen by millions of BBC-TV viewers in the Billy Cotton Band Show (1956). In later years they settled in Europe.