I recently watched a BW film, Good Time Girl, featuring a familiar looking black actor.
Googling around he turned out to be Orlando Martins. A prolific actor, actually, amongst Britain's top 15 favourite actors of 1947.
Googling him I was surpised to see he was chiefly an actor who worked, seemingly only on the side, as wrestler Black Butcher Johnson.
Since history has it that Black Butcher was the brother of Johnny Kwango, it's fair to assume they shared parents.
Orlando Martins' father was Brazilian.
Which makes Johnny Kwango Brazilian.
Not sure if my trail is 100% watertight but it really does surprise me.
did the wild man of borneo ever have a Brazilian, I am asking for a friend
Ron your research is exemplary yet again, all very interesting stuff you've uncovered.
We give wrestlers no leniency on telling tall tales yet this actor goes off scot-free. What's to say he just told a fib and it made print? Who was going to verify it?
Gent's, just to be clear, I am just researching for this stuff, I don't know any of this for a fact. It's an interesting story though. We must have all seen Orlando in many films without knowing his name, me anyway.
"So he was doing his wrestling previously and in the twenties. I can't see any reason to disbelieve that Orlando wrestled as Black Butcher Johnson. In which case he was the first to wrestle with that name."
I don't think anyone has disagreed with this.
Saxonwolf has told us Orlando didn't wrestle when he was an actor: "....he built his reputation as that of Nigeria's greatest living actor, he would not have wanted to tarnish that image, by wrestling for a few quid here and there"
So he was doing his wrestling previously and in the twenties. I can't see any reason to disbelieve that Orlando wrestled as Black Butcher Johnson. In which case he was the first to wrestle with that name.
In fact, maybe Orlando had made such a good go of it and was doing so well, that, when he abandoned wrestling for acting, Arthur jumped on the already established reputation.
I wonder where their contemporary Norman the Butcher fits in in terms of creating his name?
No, Anglo. What I'm saying is that chances are Orlando used the name in the circus in the 1920s. If he did continue to do jobs in the 1930s to supplement his acting career then it is then that a few unscrupulous promoters might have billed him as such to cash in on the growing popularity that Arthur Howe had been building up since 1932.
What I don't understand in your logic, Hack is why a promoter would have been unscrupulous to use the name Black Butcher Johnson in the twenties if this was years before Arthur ever wrestled?
A thorough commentary on Orlando, but no mention of wrestling
do me a favour the photo in the book looks nothing like Johnny or Cyril.
Here is reference to Orlando as a wrestler in the 1920s, maybe this is what SaxonWolf found
Ron odd request but was Johnny middle name Albert it's bugged for me for years yet another thing I didntbquerybat the time.
The "Brazilian" part of all this, I am still looking in to.
"...Martins was born in 1899 in Lagos to Emmanuel Akinola Martins and Paula Idowu Soares. His paternal grandfather was a liberated Portuguese slave..."
Portugal and Brazil share a common language, but does this mean that Martins grandfather was Portuguese and also a slave, or does it mean he was a slave in Brazil?
Anglo, I think you do have to change the title of the thread, because Johnny Kwango was not Brazilian.
Read what I said Anglo and you'll see I didn't rule out the possibility of Orlando using the name BBJ. On the contrary I said he may have used it before Arthur Howe or even "occasional substitution or use by an unscrupulous promoter cannot be ruled out." But the idea that Orlando had any sustained run as BBJ seems as authentic as a Jackie Pallo walkout.
A snapshot of the brothers
Thanks Ron, you have resolved the genetics. And the original title of the thread, which now seems in need of an edit.
Hack's defence of everything he has always held true has provoked his comments: "the continuous run of the BBJ name from 1932 onwards suggest he [Orlando] was not Black Butcher Johnson in the pro ring."
But the other research shows Orlando wrestling as BBJ in the twenties. The name was his. Copied by others.
To cast aspersions about the validity of the biography - "this piece of information which may be partially or totally inaccurate" - just to force it churlishly into conforming with perceived wrestling history is as unscrupulous as any Jackie Pallo walk-out.
Open up.
No, I won't rename the thread after all because "Black Butcher Johnson's father was indeed Brazilian." In the same way yesterday I chose not churlishly to correct Graham for stating that Dave Barrie was Les Kellett's blood son.
We are in the world of wrestling where even empirical genetics are flexible.
As you say Ron, Orlando Martins and Johnny Kwango are not brothers, maybe they could have been cousins or related in some way?, it doesn't really matter, what is interesting is, could Orlando Martins have been the first person to use the name Black Butcher Johnson, and then someone (Arthur Howe) had to take over "the role" at short notice, because Orlando Martins film career took off?
Well here we go Anglo.
Kwango's mother Irene Bess became a Howe to yield Arthur Howe (BBJ)
She married again to Lagey to Yield Johnny Kwango.
She then married again in 1928 to Arthur Jerome.
That enabled me to trace her death to 1975 in Hampstead.
Now here is the important bit , she was born in 1887 making her too young really to be the mother of Orlando Martin.(Born 1899)
Orlando Martins seems to have had a solid film career, appearing in at least one movie a year, for an almost unbroken run of years, up to the 1960's. He was also a theatre actor. I don't see him being Black Butcher Johnson in those years, I think that for one, he would not be able to commit to dates, and two, as he built his reputation as that of Nigeria's greatest living actor, he would not have wanted to tarnish that image, by wrestling for a few quid here and there (even though we could consider wrestling and acting, almost the same thing).
If he was interviewed by the author, for his biography, he would have been around 83 years old at the time. We don't know if he said something about Black Butcher Johnson and the author thought he meant that he was Black Butcher Johnson, or maybe he said he wrestled as "Johnson" (Jack Knife Johnson?), and the author could only find the name "Black Butcher Johnson" pertaining to wrestling in the UK?
I am going to try and find more information, because it is an interesting subject.
The names Arthur Howe and Black Butcher Johnson were linked by May, 1937. Howe was one of three wrestlers accused of assaulting a member of the public who had entered the dressing room.
A Google brings up lots of references to the Nigerian film star Orlando Martins but follow any of them and they all lead back to the book referenced by SaxonWolf. So there seems only one source for this piece of information which may be partially or totally inaccurate.
Martins was a friend of Robert Adams, another actor and part time wrestler.
So, the background of circus, entertainment, wrestling fits in with the background of Howe and his family. It could well be that Martins wrestled as part of his circus routine in the 1920s, maybe he did use the name Black Butcher Johnson,(though that too could be an error in this one source) but his age, his acting commitments and the continuous run of the BBJ name from 1932 onwards suggest he was not Black Butcher Johnson in the pro ring. Certainly not in any serious sense, he occasional substitution or use by an unscrupulous promoter cannot be ruled out.
The original topic posed the question of where the BBJ name came from. Maybe we now know,