William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf Smith (November 23, 1893 – April 18, 1973), nicknamed "The Lion", was an American jazz and stride pianist. Early life William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf, known as Willie, was born in 1893 in Goshen, New York. His mother and grandmother chose his names to reflect different parts of his heritage: Joseph after Saint Joseph (Bible), Bonaparte (French), and Bertholf (biological father's last name). William and Henry which were added for "spiritual balance". When he was three, his mother married John Smith, and Smith was added as the boy's surname, after his stepfather. In his memoir Smith reports that his father, Frank Bertholf (incorrectly spelled Bertholoff in many sources), was Jewish. Smith's New York birth record shows him as William H. Bertholf, with father, Frank Bertholf, a white electrician from nearby Monroe, New York. Smith became at least somewhat conversant in Yiddish and studied Hebrew with children of a Jewish family who were clients of his mother's. He made his bar mitzvah at age thirteen in Newark. His mother, Ida Oliver, had "Spanish, Negro, and Mohawk Indian blood". Her mother, Ann Oliver, was a banjo player and had been in Primrose and West minstrel shows (Smith also had two cousins who were dancers in the shows, Etta and John Bloom). According to Ida, "Frank Bertholoff [sic] was a light-skinned playboy who loved his liquor, girls, and gambling." She threw Frank out of the house when their son Willie was two years old. After Frank Bertholf died in 1901, his mother married John Smith, a master mechanic from Paterson, New Jersey. When Willie was three, his mother and stepfather added the surname Smith to his legal name. He grew up in a large family with his mother and stepfather in Newark, New Jersey at 76 Academy Street. John Smith worked for C.M. Bailey, Pork Packers, and he would leave the house around midnight to pick up freshly killed pigs and take them to the packing house. He was supposed to be home by 4 am, but would usually go to bars after work. Eventually, Ida tasked the boy Willie with accompanying his stepfather to work in order to encourage him to come straight home and not go drinking. Willie said he enjoyed this task, but most of the time he had to drive the horses home. He only worked on Fridays and Saturdays, as his mother did