When Norma Miller goes onstage at Miami Beach Cinematheque on Saturday night, it will be the first time the famous Queen of Swing has performed there since the late 1950s. In those days, though, she had to get a permit from the sheriff and stay overnight at a blacks-only hotel.

It’s going to be quite different this time. At the age of 87, Miller will be appearing for the Miami premiere of Queen of Swing, a documentary about her life, along with her close friend John Biffar, the film’s director and a part-time South Beach resident.

“I decided I wanted to put her in the movie,” said Biffar, who first met Miller in the early 1990s while she was performing in Las Vegas and he was casting his feature movie, Captiva. “But then I discovered that she had a career as a dancer and a comedienne. She’s performed with everyone, including Redd Foxx and Bill Cosby.”

After learning her story, he set about making the documentary. “She thought I was making a movie about dancing, but I wasn’t. I was doing a movie about the role that music and dancing played in integration,” he said.

He could not have had a more perfect candidate. As he notes, Miller was center stage during the years of the Civil Rights struggle. “She danced her way out of the ghetto and right into the hearts and minds of a worldwide audience.”

Discovered at the age of 12, Miller began dancing at the legendary Savoy Ballroom, which was right across the street from where she lived. Her biography, Swingin' at the Savoy: A Memoir of a Jazz Dancer, recollects encounters with such jazz legends as Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Ethel Waters.

She was featured in a string of movies, including the Marx brothers’ A Day at the Races, Hellzapoppin', Spike Lee's Malcolm X, Stompin' at the Savoy and such documentaries as National Geographic's Jitterbug and the PBS series Jazz. The National Endowment of the Arts also honored her with a 2003 National Heritage Foundation Fellowship for her role in helping to create the Lindy Hop.

Now, Miller and Biffar are traveling to film premieres throughout the world, though Miami holds a special place in Miller’s heart because this city “is where it all happened,” she said in a telephone interview.

Miller first came to Miami in the late 1950s, sharing the bill with legendary black performers who previously had not been allowed onstage in the city.

“The old Beachcomber was the place,” she said. “It was the big nightclub in Miami, and all of the big stars played there: Sophie Tucker, Harry Richman, Louie Armstrong, everybody. We were the first black show to come to Miami. We came with Cab Calloway and we had to go to the sheriff’s department to get a permit, because we weren’t allowed to be on the beach after midnight. We had to stay in the Mary Elizabeth Hotel on Second Avenue, because that was one of the only three black hotels in Miami.”

Miller, though, felt no bitterness. “We knew things had to change,” she said. Indeed, less than a decade later, “those young people went to Woolworth’s and were beaten up,” ushering in the Civil Rights era.

Indeed, it was Miller’s perspective that enchanted Biffar. “She overcomes all great odds with love,” he said. “It’s how she fought hatred and segregation. She’s an American hero that people don’t know about, and hopefully now they will.”

As for Miller, she just keeps dancing because it’s how she made her living. “I couldn’t afford to stop,” she said, laughing. “Just call me the jazz baby.”

The message of the film, according to Miller: “The message is to keep on swinging. We want the world to keep on doing it.”

The Queen of Swing premieres at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at Miami Beach Cinematheque,

512 Española Way, Miami Beach. Members and students, $6; all others, $10. For more information, call 305-673-4567 or visit www.mbcinema.com.