| Summary: | Entertainer Albert Stiles was born on August 13, 1922, and raised in Tampa, Florida. He began performing at an early age with a five-member jug band. At age eleven, he and a pal took a bus to New York City without their parents' knowledge to audition and play on CBS Radio's Major Bowes Amateur Hour. They won the show's contest and Stiles became a professional entertainer. He performed with a vaudeville novelty and comedy act before touring with a song and dance team. He also performed with such stars as Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sammy Davis, Jr. He moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in 1971 opened Al Stiles World's Best Shoe Shine. In the 1980s, he started a program called the Talent Factory, teaching theater arts to inner-city youth. Stiles passed away in 2014 at the age of 91.
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