Louise 'Jota' Jenkins-Cook

Louise "Jota" Cook backstage in musical revue Connie’s Hot Chocolates, at the Hudson Theatre in 1929.

Louise Cook, nicknamed "Jota" or "Snake Hips," was an exotic dancer in Harlem, who appeared in Oscar Micheaux's breakthrough 1931 film "The Exile."

Louis Armstrong wrote of her, circa 1929, "we had a job down in 'Connie's Inn' in Harlem, at 131st and 7th Avenue. That club and the Cotton Club were the Hottest Clubs in Harlem at that time. I started doubling in "Connie's Hot Chocolate" show, down town ... 'Ol Louise Cook, I shall never forget her, and her dance. She was so wonderful in her 'Shake dance she would take five and six encores."

She was rumored to have been in a relationship at one point with famous white comedian, Milton Berle. In his 1974 autobiography, Berle says of Cook, "She was known as one of the greatest belly dancers in the world, and her act was sensational, with everything going like a flag in a hurricane. She was one of those rare women that men had only to look at to want. And that was even standing still. She was slender, and light-skinned like the color of coffee with too much cream in it, and she had her hair in an afro, which wasn't standard gear then. When she worked, she covered her body with oil that made it shiny and sexy looking."

Milton and Louise had encounters in Beryl's car, parked near Connie's Inn. He wrote: "One night, we were parked in my car up along the Hudson, and she took out a little brown cigarette and lit it. It smelled funny. I asked what it was, and Louise smiled and said, 'Take a puff." I did and it made me cough so hard I nearly vomited. That was the first and last time I ever tried marijuana!"

In 1931 she appeared in Oscar Micheaux's film "The Exile," the first sound feature-length film by an African American director.

Reported in the Afro American (Dec. 24, 1932) edition, J. Hartwell Cook (nephew of famous composer, Will Marion Cook), described as a Washington dancer and composer, obtained an absolute divorce from his wife, Louise (Jota) Cook, star of "Hot Chocolates."

She married singer, Herbert Mills of the famous Mills Brothers sometime in 1936, they would also later divorce.

Milton Beryl wrote that their six month friendship ended when New York Mirror columnist Lee Mortimer threatened to expose the scandal of their interracial romance. Later he wrote that Cook "went the Billie Holiday route with booze and God knows what else." He got word in the mid-1950s that she was in jail and ill in Chicago, and bailed her out "and about three months later I saw to it that poor Louise Cook had a decent funeral."

Her dance number from the 1931 film Exile she comes in at the 1 minute mark: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rctc50FwP0

Sources: vip.com; White Studio (NY, NY)