Fats Waller #6 - Another photo on the Ile de France

Further to my last post, here's another photo of Fats Waller and Anita leaving England on 14 June 1939 onboard the Ile de France ocean liner, which arrived back in New York on 20 June 1939. Although Anita was commonly referred to as his wife, there is no evidence that he divorced his first wife Edith Hatchett who he married sometime after May 1921 when he was 17 years old. Edith did not approve of her musician husband's lifestyle, but of course as his friend and mentor James P. Johnson said later "Fats was all music, and you know how big he was." In his Will, Fats specified that two-thirds of the estate should be invested and the income paid to Miss Anita Rutherford.

[Photo courtesy of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University, and published with permission in my book "Fats Waller on the Air: The Radio Broadcasts and Discography."]