Undaunted, and still determined, Brice, still known as Fanny Borach, went into burlesque, touring with The Transatlantic Burlesquers (1907–
1908) as a chorus girl. Considered a notch below vaudeville, by “respect -
able” audiences, burlesque had grown with its own circuit, featuring a bevy of chorus girls and similar, yet racier, performers to those typically found on the vaudeville stages. It was on this circuit, however, in a show called The Girls from Happyland that Brice would make the transition from “back row” chorus girl to lead performer. Relegated to only singing, and often from off-stage, Fanny, who changed her name to Brice because it was less ethnic sounding (which would prove ironic in her later comedy career) knew she had to learn to dance to get her feet firmly planted back 33
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on the main stage. With that in mind, she would take her mother’s lacy garments, go backstage at the burlesque theaters and spend some of the money she had earned to bribe the chorus line dancers to teach her the steps. Eventually, she became an understudy to one of the lead dancers.
It was fortuitous that she would get the opportunity to go on stage when the lead got ill, and Fanny made the most of that opportunity by wowing the crowd.
In years to come, she would also make the transition from singing to comedy, using a Yiddish accent to capitalize on the nation’s penchant for ethnic comedy on both circuits, burlesque and vaudeville. Because of her knack for parody and her lanky appearance, Brice was not about to compete for the same attention garnered by the chorus girls. However, she was determined. If she was not going to be the prettiest girl on the stage, she would be the funniest. It wasn’t long before she achieved that distinction, thanks to a song by a young, still relatively unknown composer named Irving Berlin. The song, “Sadie Salome, Go Home,” which Brice described as a “Jewish comedy song,” parodied the enormously popular “Dance of the Seven Veils,” which had become a hallmark of both the vaudeville and burlesque circuits. Brice had legitimate singing ability, but the combination of a Yiddish accent (although she didn’t actually speak Yiddish) and a mock “veils” dance was a tremendous crowd pleaser, winning her standing ovations night after night.
It was at this time, still at the age of just 17, that the real “Funny Girl” was born, breaking into a male-dominated field, with impeccable comedic timing and an aptitude for drawing laughter with her facial expressions as well as her material. As influential as any Jewish performer of the 20th century, Brice legitimized comedy for women, particularly Jewish women, whose insights into American and Jewish culture were the perfect cornerstone for comedic expression. She encapsulated the women with whom she had grown up on the Lower East Side, and their plight became part of her dramatization, not in mockery, but as a foundation for her routines, which epitomized strength. Brice, whose career spanned 40 years, not only played Broadway, but would have her career portrayed in a successful Broadway show Funny Girl (and later two films, Funny Girl and Funny Lady) starring Barbra Streisand.
At the same time that Brice was making her transition from burlesque to vaudeville, little Molly Picon was also emerging on the scene 34
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from the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Picon was born Margaret Pye -
koon in 1898, to Russian-immigrant parents. After her father left, Margaret and her two sisters moved with their mother to Philadelphia where she would win her first talent contest at the age of five. From that point forward, there was no turning back. Taking the stage name of Molly, she was a versatile performer, honing every skill she could, from acrobatics and gymnastics, to musical instruments to comedy. At just 4'10" the diminutive Picon won over the hearts of vaudeville audiences who, after seeing her portray many roles as a young boy, would later be wowed by her “All-American girl” image. And yet, she never let go of her culture, also performing in Yiddish theater productions and in a Yiddish repertory troupe. In fact, at 15, she did several shows, including performances of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in both Yiddish and English. Picon would go on to tour the world as a performer, still somersaulting her way across the stage well into her 50s and performing into her 80s, gracing Broadway in a variety of shows. She championed both Jewish and American causes, all after honing her skills as part of that legendary vaudeville community.
Meanwhile, another female star of the era, Lenora Goldberg, better known as Nora Bayes, was making a name for herself on the vaudeville circuit in Chicago. Just after the turn of the century, Bayes would marry and team up with Jack Norworth, her second of five husbands. Norworth had migrated to vaudeville from the minstrel circuit. Yet, it was Bayes as the main attraction, as noted from their billing: “Nora Bayes, Assisted and Admired by Jack Norworth.” Bayes, a singer and songwriter, would team with her husband to write a string of hit songs, also making some of the earliest popular recordings for Columbia Records in the late teens and early 1920s. Her penchant for comedy made her a double threat, and audiences adored her ability to milk every laugh out of a comedic song lyric. Her diverse repertoire of songs, coupled with her comedy rou tines and royalties from her recordings, soon had her bringing in upwards of $100,000 a year, astounding at the time, making her one of the highest paid performers of the era. Along the way, she would also appear on Broadway in the Lew Field’s hit, The Jolly Bachelors which ran for 165 performances in 1910 .
While Bayes’ career extended beyond vaudeville, it was on the vaude ville circuit that she rose to stardom singing everything from tearjerking ballads to ragtime ditties to her comedic melodies. However, 35
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unlike her peers, Bayes had neither an “ethnic look,” nor act. In fact, she was far less Jewish than her contemporaries. Although she had grown up in an Orthodox Jewish family, Bayes was very secretive about her upbringing, and while she did not renounce her Judaism, she did not make it a part of her stage persona.
Conversely, Eddie Cantor was very much a Jewish comic at every turn. Born Israel Iskowitz, his start in show business was much like that of Picon and Brice, beginning on the Lower East Side, where his Russian-immigrant parents settled. Orphaned at an early age, Cantor was raised by his maternal grandmother. Like Picon, he won his first talent show at the age of five and was destined to be a performer. He held down a variety of jobs including a stint as a singing waiter in Coney Island, with a young piano player named Jimmy Durante accompanying him.
Cantor would find his way onto the Broadway stage as a teenager doing routines of other Jewish comics and blackface performances while discovering his own knack for playing characters based on his own Lower East Side experiences. Known as the performer with the “banjo eyes,”
Cantor accentuated his comedy with wide eyes and plenty of energy. He brought a comic sensibility and a sensitivity to the stage as a likable
“nebbish” that contrasted with the more familiar slapstick routines found in vaudeville.
While Cantor did depict the stereotypical characters of the time, he was shrewd, and his characters, often vulnerable, were the inspiration for latter day Jewish comics from Woody Allen to Billy Crystal. Cantor would go on to become one of the era’s most successful performers.
Despite falling into debt during the stock market crash of 1929, he would rebound in film, radio and even with a very successful book entitled Caught Short! A Saga of Wailing Wall Street.
Also building an esteemed reputation in vaudeville was Al Jolson, whose routines were less “Jewish” by nature than those of Brice or Cantor.
Born in a small Jewish village in Russia sometime around 1886 (there is no documentation), Asa Yoelson would come to the United States with his parents shortly before the end of the 19th century. The son of a cantor, he and his brother Hirsh were trained to sing from a very young age, with the anticipation that they too would follow in their father’s footsteps. However, when their mother died in 1895, she left the two very young boys without their closest bond. From this painful beginning, Asa 36
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and Hirsh would grow up quickly, learning toughness and immersing themselves in American culture, especially show business.
Together, changing their names to Al and Harry and a less ethnic sur name, Jolson, they broke into the business as a team, performing comedy routines, such as a crude ethnic act called The Hebrew and the Cadet, while taking occasional solo billings when they came along. By 1901, however, Al was getting more work on his own, singing in a travel -
ing circus and making his way into both the burlesque and vaudeville circuits.
It was shortly afterwards that Al Jolson would don the blackface for which he became so famous. Despite the obvious offensive overtones seen today, blackface by the early 1900s had been a part of stage performing for nearly seven decades and was viewed, at that time, as just another form of ethnic humor. For many performers, including Jolson, it was also seen as a mask to work behind, allowing the performer to boost his or her confidence. In the case of Jolson, his confidence grew as he became a full showman, singing, dancing, doing comedic vaudeville routines and whistling while wearing white gloves and white makeup to accentuate his hands and his mouth. On stage he engaged his audiences in a full theatrical experience while growing to become one of the nation’s leading performers. Off-stage his ego grew enormously along with his fame. His constant pursuit of chorus girls would end each of his three marriages, but his devotion to the stage remained undying. In fact, he proceeded to headliner status in venues from San Francisco to Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre in New York City.
If Jolson had any impact upon the Jewish performers of his time, it was evident in the fact that he did not make an impact as a “Jewish”
performer per se. He was a non-sectarian entertainer, pulling material from a wide range of resources and performing in a manner that would win over mainstream audiences. He was a showman first and foremost.
Brice, Cantor, Bayes, Picon and Jolson each amassed a significant following through vaudeville. They were headliners and heralded as the most popular stars of their era along with Sophie Tucker, with her Red Hot Mama sensuality and the rapid-fire comedy team of Weber and Fields, who included everything from slapstick to clog dancing in their act. Another star of the era, Ed Wynn, born Isaiah Edwin Leopold, ran away from home at 15, used his middle name and proceeded into a vaude-37
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ville career that would lead him to the Ziegfeld Follies in 1914 on Broadway. As a writer, producer, director and multi-faceted performer, Wynn would move on to a career that spanned over 50 years and included radio, film and television success.
As vaudeville continued, it became the venue for every type of performance imaginable, ranging from the amazing illusions of Harry Houdini (who was born Jewish, but changed his name to the more Italian sounding Houdini, since, at the time, the Italian Catholic immigrants were more widely accepted) to unique performers of all backgrounds includ ing the Keaton family, tossing around their five-year-old son Bus -
ter, and the racy performances of Mae West. It was a form of variety enter tainment that ran the gamut from bawdy to sophisticated to simply intriguing, and everyone took part including Babe Ruth, explorer Captain Cook and Helen Keller who lectured through an interpreter. “Vaudeville audiences were not passive observers. They were vocal and sometimes physical participants in performances. Their cheers, jeers or painful silences would make or break an act,” adds John Kenrick in his “A History of The Musical. Vaudeville — Part II.”2
While vaudeville and burlesque were the “movies and cable television” of the era, New York’s Broadway theaters were drawing an increasing number of stylish, “higher-end” patrons. And while a few vaudeville performers were tapped for various Broadway shows, for many of the Jewish vaudevillians, the best was yet to come.
FLO ZIEGFELD
While Flo Ziegfeld was not Jewish, he had an integral role in boost-ing the careers of many Jewish stars of the early 20th century. Florenz Ziegfeld was born to be a promoter. From his childhood, he had a knack for drawing the attention of the public. In fact, he once got into trouble for taking money from local kids to see his invisible fish (he showed them a bowl of water). He also had a penchant for publicizing anything and everything.
During his early years as a manager and booker, Ziegfeld developed a knack for discovering and promoting new and unique talent, and it wasn’t long before he was taking his performers on extended tours on the vaudeville circuit. By the 1890s, Ziegfeld’s magic touch for finding talent 38
2. Part of the Melting Pot
took him to Broadway, where he produced musicals to showcase several talented performers at one time. However, it wasn’t until 1907 that Florenz Ziegfeld would reach the pinnacle of his esteemed career when he took the Ziegfeld Follies to Broadway for the first time.
The Shubert Brothers were already enjoying success on Broadway at the Hippodrome Theater with revues featuring popular song and dance numbers. Ziegfeld, however, had bigger plans. While Ziegfeld possessed no performing skills as a singer, dancer or performer, he had a keen eye for finding beautiful women, a talent that would later be the downfall of his several marriages.
In his quest to discover great talent and his penchant for exploring new and innovative means of promoting the “next great performer,”
Zieg feld had amassed a considerable amount of knowledge when it came to distinguishing which acts would attract and entertain the general public. Pageantry, comedy, sexuality and song and dance were all part and parcel of the public’s penchant for performances. With that in mind, he introduced elements of vaudeville and burlesque, plus a line of chorus girls, reminiscent of the Parisian Folies-Bergère, into what he would call his own follies. He then added elaborate sets, dazzling costumes, original songs by various composers, choreography by the best in the business, Julian Mitchell, and The Ziegfeld Follies of 1907 was born, using thirteen letters in the title (after his name), because he was superstitious. Coin-cidently, the show also cost $13,000.
Opulent production numbers, political and topical satire and of course the ladies, billed as “Glorifying the American Girl,” were all hallmarks of what would emerge as the longest running Broadway series of shows, with nearly two-dozen renditions until the 1930s (not to mention four additional versions after Ziegfeld’s death).
One of Ziegfeld’s star performers was his first wife, Anna Held, of Polish-Jewish descent, whom he had brought back with him from France.
In fact, Held, on whom he worked his publicity magic turning her into an immediate star, was credited in part for the idea of staging an Ameri -
can revue, featuring more than 60 Anna Held Girls, who marched around the theater beating snare drums in the original ’07 revue.
Held had made her stage debut in the Yiddish theaters of London in companies run by Goldfadn and actor-manager Jacob P. Adler. It was in Paris, however, that she had generated attention by singing in local 39
Jews on Broadway
cafés. In fact, she was so enamored by the French, that she would go to great lengths for many years to perpetuate the myth that she was French.
She even converted to Catholicism, which was also because she was fearful of being Jewish in Europe, having been among those chased from her native Poland along with her family when she was a child.
It was during one of Held’s European performances in London, in 1896, that Ziegfeld discovered her, offering her $1,500 a week to appear on Broadway. It was an exorbitant amount of money at the time, but Zieg feld was convinced she could become a star, and she did. Ziegfeld publicized that she had such clean, pure skin because she bathed in milk every day. While the story was fictitious, it landed in all of the celebrity gossip columns, started a brief fad and made Held the talk of the entertainment business. Held forever became known as the girl in the milk baths.
THE STAR-MAKING FOLLIES
It was the Ziegfeld Follies that brought Brice, Bayes and Cantor to Broadway. Bayes joined the
1907 revue and introduced the classic song
“By the Light of the Silvery Moon” in 1908. Cantor would be a comic regular on the Broadway revues, working with performers of all ethnic backgrounds, such as W.C. Fields and Will Rogers, among others. Brice, a staple of the Follies, would become a show favorite through both her comedy and song, including “Second Hand Rose,” playfully lamenting her early years in the Jewish ghetto. On one particular night, Brice added an unexpected twist to the show. After being accused by co-star Lillian Lorraine of trying to steal her boyfriend, the two performers began brawl-ing in the wings of the theater. The fight culminated with Brice knocking Lorraine to the ground and dragging her by the hair across the stage to a stunned, but amused, audience. No, not even the shocked Ziegfeld himself dared to even attempt to work the scene into the regular show.
For Cantor, Brice and Bayes, the transformation from second-generation immigrants to mainstream entertainers was complete. They never lost sight of their Jewish roots or heritage, as exemplified by Brice, who after a few years away from the Follies returned as The Yiddish Bride.
Jewish performers were now accepted into the mainstream entertainment community as part of Ziegfeld’s world, a world that turned a 40
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blind eye toward ethnic and racial discrimination. In fact, Ziegfeld refused to cave under pressure to oust Bert Williams from the Follies.
Wil liams was the first African American to co-star with white performers on the Broadway stage, and Ziegfeld held firm that whoever did not want to work with him did not have to be part of the show. Few, if any, performers left.
Sophie Tucker was also in the Follies for a short time, but left, reportedly over disputes regarding her songs and her billing. Ed Wynn was also one of the notable Jewish performers who gained attention in the Follies. Meanwhile, the music was supplied by a variety of songwriters including Irving Berlin, while a 19-year-old piano player named Gershwin accompanied rehearsals in later renditions of the ongoing show.
Jews on Broadway: An Historical Survey of Performers, Playwrights, Composers, Lyricists and Producers Page 5
