John William Sublett (February 19, 1902 in Louisville, Kentucky – May 18, 1986 in New York City), known by his stage name John W. Bubbles, was an American vaudeville performer, dancer, singer and entertainer.
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Though unable to read music, Bubbles was chosen by George Gershwin to create the role of Sportin' Life in his opera Porgy and Bess in 1935. Sublett performed the role occasionally for the next two decades. In 1963, in a studio recording of Porgy and Bess featuring Leontyne Price and William Warfield, he performed Sportin' Life's two main arias from the opera, It Ain't Necessarily So and There's A Boat Dat's Leavin' Soon For New York. (Ironically, he did not perform these songs on the so-called "original cast" album, recorded in 1940.)
In 1920 he gave lessons in tap dancing to Fred Astaire,
who considered Sublett the finest tap dancer of his generation. In the number "Bojangles of Harlem" from Swing Time (1936) Astaire dresses in blackface as the Sportin' Life character and dances in the style of Sublett while ostensibly paying tribute to Bill Robinson
I could have sworn that I saw hbg in our studio, edgar.
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