Savannah Valentine Churchill, an actress, model, singer, and songwriter, surged to national prominence in 1945 with her hit song “Daddy, Daddy.” Three years earlier, in 1942, her first recording was the risqué “Fat Meat Is Good Meat” for Beacon Records. She also appeared as a model for several national advertising companies, including Royal Crown’s Coca-Cola and Snow-White Hair Beautifier products.
Born as Savannah Valentine Roberts in Colfax, Louisiana, on August 21, 1921, she was the daughter of Emmett Roberts and Hazel Hickman, Creoles of mixed Black and European descent. Roberts attended St. Peter Claver Catholic Elementary School and Girls High School, the first public high school in Brooklyn, NY. In 1940, she married her high school sweetheart, David Churchill, and they had two sons, Gregory and Michael Churchill. Sadly, her husband was killed in a car accident in 1941, prompting her to pursue a singing career after a brief stint at New York University.
Near the end of 1946, Churchill, described as the Creole Queen of R&B, scored another national musical hit with one of her most famous works, “I Want to Be Loved (But Only by You),” a song which stayed on the R & B Billboard charts for eight weeks. In 1947, Churchill’s talent was recognized with the Cash Box Magazine Award, which named her the best singer in the nation after a national poll, with her song ‘I Want to Be Loved’ earning the title of Record of the Year. The same year, she debuted on Broadway in Lula Belle. She appeared in a music video for ‘Miracle in Harlem,’ the first Black independently produced film by Herald Pictures, Inc. and distributed by Screen Guild Productions, Inc. In 1949, she displayed her acting and singing skills in the movie Souls of Sin, where she performed the lead song ‘The Things You Do to Me.’
By 1952, Churchill and Jesse Johnson, an insurance executive, married in Columbus, Ohio. From 1952 to 1954, Churchill collaborated with several musical groups, including the Striders, the Nat King Cole Trio, the Lynn Proctor Trio, and the Benny Carter Orchestra. She traveled widely, from the Apollo Theater in Harlem to the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C., and the Palladium in London, England.
By 1956, Churchill was performing at the Milwood Club in Brooklyn, New York, when an intoxicated customer fell over the balcony and landed on top of her, breaking her pelvis and leaving her out of the music scene for nearly five years. Over her twenty-three-year career Churchill sold over four million records and recorded 30 to 40 singles, including six that charted. Some of the charted hits were semi-spiritual gospel records.
Savannah Valentine Roberts Churchill died of pneumonia on April 20, 1974, at the age of 53 in Brooklyn, New York. Her husband, Jesse Johnson, her mother, Hazel Roberts, and her two sons, Gregory and Michael Churchill, survived her. She is buried in Brooklyn, New York.
