Eugene Bullard is the subject of imitating the dog’s new production, All Blood Runs Red, which is in our Courtyard theatre from 14-15 February. But who was this incredible man?

• Eugene Jacques Bullard, born Eugene James Bullard, arrived in the world – the seventh of ten children – on 9 October, 1895, in Columbus, Georgia, and died on 12 October, 1961, in New York City.
• He was a jockey, boxer, WW1 fighter pilot, jazz drummer, nightclub owner, gym owner and trainer, WW2 spy, civil rights activist and, at the end of his life, a lift operator at the Rockefeller Center.
• He was one of the first African American military pilots during WW1, during which he flew for the French Air Service, with the words ‘All Blood Runs Red’ painted on the side of his plane. As a machine gunner, he saw combat on the Somme front, fought in the Second Battle of Champagne, and was severely wounded in the Battle of Verdun in 1916. During his convalescence, Eugene was cited for acts of valour and awarded the croix de guerre, one of 14 honours he received.
• After the war he bought Le Grand Duc nightclub in Paris, where he hired poet Langston Hughes and gave singer Ada ‘Bricktop’ Smith her big break, as well as befriending French dancer Josephine Baker, Hollywood icon Gloria Swanson, Cole Porter, Pablo Picasso, Fred Astaire and F Scott Fitzgerald.
• In 1949, Eugene attended a concert by entertainer and activist Paul Robeson in Peekskill, New York to benefit the Civil Rights Congress. Concertgoers were beaten by a mob that included state and local law enforcement after the event. Footage of Eugene being attacked can be seen in the 1970s documentary The Tallest Tree in Our Forest and Paul Robeson: Tribute to an Artist, narrated by Sidney Poitier.
• Eugene was hired by his good friend Louis Armstrong in 1950 to book his European tour and travel, translate and help out as a studio musician when the regular drummer was not available. You can hear him drumming on the track Baby Don’t Baby Me.
• In 2019, the Museum of Aviation in Georgia erected a statue in Eugene’s honour. Three years later, he was inducted into The National Aviation Hall of Fame in Ohio.

(Main image: All Blood Runs Red co-creator and performer Morgan Bailey. Credit Ed Waring)