57 Nightclub performers

A nightclub act is a production, usually of nightclub music or comedy, designed for performance at a nightclub, a type of drinking establishment, by a nightclub performer such as a nightclub singer or nightclub dancer, whose performance may also be referred to as a nightclub act. A scheduled performance, such as a wedding gig, is a club date.

Karen Akers is an American actress and singer, who has appeared on Broadway, and in cabaret and film.

Liane Augustin was a German Austrian singer and actress.

Alejandra Ávalos is a Mexican recording artist, singer-songwriter, actress, model, dancer, philanthropist, television/radio host, entrepreneur and record producer. Ávalos began her career in 1980, when she took part in the musical contest La Voz del Heraldo; after receiving a scholarship to study in a two-year training program, she began working as a model; afterwards, she began appearing on television as a supporting actress in 1983; by that time she also provided backing vocals for some recording artists. Since 1984, Ávalos obtained a number of leading roles on stage, including the theatrical productions The Rocky Horror Show and Jesus Christ Superstar. At the time, she began working as a TV host on Televisa. Avalos's breakthrough came in 1986 with her first leading role on television in the successful series El padre Gallo, media referred to Ávalos as "The New Young Super-Star".

Jane Badler is an American actress and singer. She is known for her role as Diana, the main antagonist in NBC's science fiction series V between 1983 and 1985. Badler also appeared in ABC's version of V in 2011, again playing an alien named Diana, who this time is the mother of the series' chief antagonist, Anna. Badler has also become an established nightclub singer in Australia, where she lives, and has released three albums. In 2020, she starred as Lauren Balmer in paranormal horror Surrogate.

Polly Bergen was an American actress, singer, television host, writer and entrepreneur.

Mary Louise Brooks was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She is regarded today as a Jazz Age icon and as a flapper sex symbol due to her bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career.

Georgia Brown was an English singer and actress.

Michael Steven Bublé is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and record producer. His first album reached the top ten in Canada and the United Kingdom. He found a worldwide audience with his 2005 album It's Time as well as his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible – which reached number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, the UK Albums Chart, the US Billboard 200, the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and several European charts. Bublé's 2009 album Crazy Love debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 after three days of sales, and remained there for two weeks. It was also his fourth number one album on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart. His 2011 holiday album, Christmas, was in first place on the Billboard 200 for the final four weeks of 2011 and the first week of 2012, totalling five weeks atop the chart, it also made the top 5 in the United Kingdom. With this, Christmas became his third-consecutive number-one album on the chart. To Be Loved was released in April 2013. Bublé has sold over 75 million records worldwide, and won numerous awards, including four Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. Bublé is a dual citizen of Canada and Italy.

Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer, dancer, bandleader and actor. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years.

Chen Jin Lang was a Singapore 'getai' songwriter legend and King of Hokkien pop.

Görel Elisabeth Crona is a Swedish film director, actress and singer/songwriter. She had her first role in the Sveriges Television series Varuhuset.

Dorothy Jean Dandridge was an American actress, singer, and dancer. She is the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in Carmen Jones (1954). Dandridge performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles.

Sylvia Ann Ibbetson, known professionally as Elizabeth Dawn or Liz Dawn, was an English actress, best known for her role as Vera Duckworth in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street. First starting on the serial in 1974, she had a recurring role as a factory worker until her husband, Jack, first appeared in 1979. She played the character of Vera for 34 years. For her role in the soap, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2008 British Soap Awards. She was appointed an MBE in the 2000 Queens Birthday Honours.

Vivian Della Chiesa was an American lyric soprano who achieved a high level of popularity in the United States singing on the radio during the 1940s and the early 1950s. She performed a wide variety of classical and popular works from opera to musical theatre, jazz, and popular songs. She sang on a number of radio programs during her career, including The American Album of Familiar Music, The American Melody Hour, and The Standard Hour among others. A particularly important triumph for her radio career was a 1943 radio concert of Brahms’s Deutsches Requiem with conductor Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In addition to her radio career, Della Chiesa performed actively on the opera stage, mostly at the Chicago City Opera Company and the Chicago Opera Company, during the 1930s and 1940s. In the 1950s, she became a successful nightclub singer, headlining at major clubs in Las Vegas, Reno, and in major venues in other cities throughout the United States. After her singing career ended she worked as a voice teacher and a fundraiser for charity.

Norma C. Donaldson was an American actress and singer. Perhaps she is best known for her roles, as Miss Adelaide in the 1976 revival of Guys and Dolls; Lillie Belle Barber on the CBS television soap opera The Young and the Restless, in which she played from 1990 until her death in 1994.

Colleen Leigh Violet Farrington was an American model, Playboy Playmate, and nightclub singer. She was the mother of actress Diane Lane.

Wayland Parrott Flowers Jr. was an American actor, comedian and puppeteer. Flowers was best known for the comedy act he created with his puppet Madame. His performances as "Wayland Flowers and Madame" were a major national success on stage and on screen in the 1970s and 1980s.

John Elroy Sanford, better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American stand-up comedian and actor. Foxx gained success with his raunchy nightclub acts during the civil rights movement. Known as the "King of the Party Records", he performed on more than 50 records in his lifetime. He portrayed Fred G. Sanford on the television show Sanford and Son and starred in The Redd Foxx Show and The Royal Family. His film projects included All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Norman... Is That You? (1976) and Harlem Nights (1989).

Georgia Frontiere was an American businesswoman and entertainer. She was the majority owner and chairperson of the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams NFL team and the most prominent female owner in a league historically dominated by males.

Gladys Gale was an American nightclub singer and vaudeville performer, before becoming a character actress in films during the 1930s and 1940s. The wife of a millionaire, she led a checkered life before dying under mysterious circumstances in a Los Angeles hotel room under an assumed name.

Armando Joseph "Buddy" Greco was an American jazz and pop singer and pianist who had a long career in the US and UK. His recordings have sold millions, including "Oh Look A-There Ain't She Pretty", "Up, Up and Away", and "Around the World". His most successful single was "The Lady Is a Tramp", which sold over one million copies. During his career, he recorded over sixty albums. He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, performed for Queen Elizabeth II and with the Beatles.

Ellen Greene is an American actress and singer. She has had a long and varied career as a singer, particularly in cabaret, as an actress and singer in numerous stage productions, particularly musical theatre, as well as having performed in many films and television series. Her best-known screen roles are as Audrey in the movie adaption of Little Shop of Horrors, and as Vivian Charles in the ABC series Pushing Daisies.

Lee Kyung-eun, better known by her stage name Harisu, is a Korean pop singer, model, and actress. Assigned male at birth, Harisu identified as female from early childhood, and underwent sex reassignment surgery in the 1990s. She is the Republic of Korea's first transgender entertainer, and in 2002 became the second person in Korea to legally change their gender. Her stage name is an adaptation of the English phrase "hot issue".

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American dancer, actress, Grammy-winning singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned over 70 years, appearing in film, television, and theater. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of 16 and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood.

Johnny Johnston was an American actor and singer who was popular in the 1940s.

Salena Jones (born Joan Elizabeth Shaw, January 29, 1938, is an American jazz and cabaret singer. After performing and recording in the US as Joan Shaw from the late 1940s until the early 1960s, in various styles including jazz and R&B, she moved to England and from then on performed as Salena Jones. She has toured internationally and recorded over forty albums.

Mabel Elizabeth King was an American film, stage, and television actress, and singer. She is best known for her role as Mabel "Mama" Thomas on the ABC sitcom What's Happening!! from its premiere in 1976 until the end of its second season in 1978. King's next most remembered role is that of Evillene the Witch, a role she originated in the stage musical The Wiz and reprised in Sidney Lumet's 1978 film adaptation. She recorded on the Rama Records and Amy Records labels.

The Kings of Rhythm are an American rhythm and blues and soul group formed in the late 1940s in Clarksdale, Mississippi and led by Ike Turner through to his death in 2007. Turner would retain the name of the band throughout his career, although the group has undergone considerable line-up changes over time.

Abbe Lane is an American singer and actress. Lane was known in the 1950s and 1960s for her revealing outfits and sultry style of performing. She was the fourth wife of Latin bandleader and musician Xavier Cugat.

Julia Frances Langford was an American singer and actress who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and made film appearances for over two decades. She was known as the "GI Nightingale," a forces sweetheart, who entertained troops touring often with Bob Hope.

Joi Lansing was an American model, film and television actress, and nightclub singer. She was noted for her pin-up photos and roles in B-movies, as well as a prominent role in the famous opening "tracking shot" in Orson Welles' 1958 crime drama Touch of Evil.

Gary Lawyer is an Indian singer-songwriter known for his works predominantly in Western Music & Bollywood. He started his career as a nightclub singer in New York City. Also known as " The man with a golden voice".

Ada Leonard was an American bandleader.

Jerry Lewis was an American comedian, filmmaker, actor, humanitarian and singer. Nicknamed "The King of Comedy", he is regarded as one of the most significant American cultural figures of the 20th century and was widely known for his "kid" and "idiot" persona.

Maxine Therese Linehan is an Irish American singer-songwriter and stage actress. Born in Newry, Northern Ireland, she performed as Nancy in Oliver! in the UK, touring it in Ireland and England with the Irish Operatic Repertory Company. Her job as a barrister in London took her to New York City in 2001, and six years later, she created an autobiographical show, So Far... which garnered her her first MAC Award nomination. In 2008, she co-founded the Alloy Theater Company with Michelle Pruett and starred in its production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's song cycle Tell Me on a Sunday, Jacqueline McCarrick's The Mushroom Pickers, and the company' first off-Broadway production, William Luce's Brontë: A Portrait of Charlotte.

Lorna Luft is an American television, stage, and film actress, singer, and author. She is the daughter of Judy Garland and Sidney Luft.

Martin and Lewis were an American comedy duo, comprising singer Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis. They met in 1945 and debuted at Atlantic City's 500 Club on July 25, 1946; the team lasted ten years to the day. Before they teamed up, Martin was a nightclub singer, while Lewis performed a comedy act lip-synching to records.

Dean Martin was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed "The King of Cool." Martin gained his career breakthrough together with comedian Jerry Lewis, billed as Martin & Lewis, in 1946. They performed in nightclubs and later had numerous appearances on radio, television and in films.

Liza May Minnelli is an American actress, singer, dancer and choreographer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli is among a rare group of performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT). Minnelli is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.

Helen Morgan was an American singer and actress who worked in films and on the stage. A quintessential torch singer, she made a big splash in the Chicago club scene in the 1920s. She starred as Julie LaVerne in the original Broadway production of Hammerstein and Kern's musical Show Boat in 1927, as well as in the 1932 Broadway revival of the musical, and appeared in two film adaptations, a part-talkie made in 1929 and a full-sound version made in 1936, becoming firmly associated with the role. She suffered from bouts of alcoholism, and despite her notable success in the title role of another Hammerstein and Kern's Broadway musical, Sweet Adeline (1929), her stage career was relatively short. Helen Morgan died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41. She was portrayed by Polly Bergen in the Playhouse 90 drama The Helen Morgan Story and by Ann Blyth in the 1957 biopic based on the television drama.

Marg Osburne was a Canadian country, folk and gospel singer. She was a recipient (posthumously) of the ECMA Stompin' Tom Connors award.

Alice Ernestine Prin, nicknamed the Queen of Montparnasse, and often known as Kiki de Montparnasse, was a French artist's model, literary muse, nightclub singer, actress, memoirist and painter. She flourished in, and helped define, the liberated culture of Paris in the 1920s.

Jean Iris Ross Cockburn was a British writer, political activist, and film critic. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) she was a war correspondent for the Daily Express, and is alleged to have been a press agent for the Comintern. A skilled writer, Ross was also a film critic for the Daily Worker, and her criticisms of early Soviet cinema were later described as ingenious works of "dialectical sophistry". Throughout her life she wrote political criticism and anti-fascist polemics, as well as manifestos for a number of disparate organisations such as the British Workers' Film and Photo League. She was a lifelong member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Roberta Sherwood was an American singer, notable in part for her sudden rise to fame at the age of 43.

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

Penny Singleton was an American actress and labor leader. During her 60-year career, Singleton appeared as the comic-strip heroine Blondie Bumstead in a series of 28 motion pictures from 1938 until 1950 and the popular Blondie radio program from 1939 until 1950. Singleton also provided the voice of Jane Jetson in the animated series The Jetsons from 1962 to 1963.

Richard Palmer Kaleioku Smart (1913–1992) was a musical theatre actor and singer who became owner of the largest private ranch in Hawaii.

Dorothy Jacqueline Keely, better known as Keely Smith, was an American jazz and popular music singer, who performed and recorded extensively in the 1950s with then-husband Louis Prima, and throughout the 1960s as a solo artist.

Bill Tarmey was an English actor and singer, best known for playing Jack Duckworth in the soap opera Coronation Street. First appearing in the role in November 1979, he played it continually from 1981 to 2010.

Danny Thomas was an American philanthropist, producer, nightclub comedian, singer, and actor whose career spanned five decades. He created and starred in one of the most successful and long-running situation comedies in the history of American network television, the eponymous Danny Thomas Show. In addition to guest roles on many of the comedy, talk, and musical variety programs of his time, his legacy includes a lifelong dedication to fundraising for charity. Most notably, he was the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, a leading center in pediatric medicine with a focus on pediatric cancer. St. Jude's now has affiliate hospitals in eight other American cities as of early 2020.

Elvis Tsui Kam-kong is a Hong Kong actor.

Ike & Tina Turner were an American musical duo consisting of husband and wife Ike Turner and Tina Turner. From 1960 to 1976, they performed live as the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, supported by Ike Turner's band the Kings of Rhythm and backing vocalists called the Ikettes. The Ike & Tina Turner Revue was regarded as "one of the most potent live acts on the R&B circuit".

Valerie Turner is an American blues guitarist, vocalist, educator, and author. She plays in the Piedmont style of fingerpicking guitar, continuing in the traditions of Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, Memphis Minnie, and Etta Baker. She performs blues, ballads, country, popular songs, ragtime, and gospels. She is a native New Yorker with southern roots in Virginia and Georgia. She started learning and studying traditional country blues guitar in 1978. Valerie and her spouse, Benedict Turner, are an acoustic blues duo called Piedmont Blūz. They specialize in Piedmont blues music, but also perform music from the Delta blues tradition. Benedict and Valerie are ambassadors of historic blues music, and educate their audiences about this early tradition and its artists.

Miyoshi Umeki was a Japanese-American singer and actress. Umeki was a Tony Award- and Golden Globe-nominated actress and the first East Asian-American woman to win an Academy Award for acting.

Rusty Warren was an American comedian and singer, specializing in sex-related themes and such songs as "Bounce Your Boobies" and "Knockers Up!".

Mary Esther Wells was an American singer, who helped to define the emerging sound of Motown in the early 1960s.