Anna Held And The Birth Of Ziegfelds Broadway

Author : Eve Golden
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813180767
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld's Broadway written by Eve Golden and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anna Held was America's most popular musical comedy star during the two decades preceding World War I. In the colorful world of New York theater during La Belle Époque, she epitomized everything that was glamorous and provocative about turn-of-the-century Broadway. Overcoming an impoverished life as an orphan to become a music hall star in Paris, Held rocketed to fame in America. From 1896 to 1910, she starred in hit after hit and quickly replaced Lillian Russell as the darling of the theatrical world. The first wife of legendary producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Held was the brains and inspiration behind his Follies. Together, they brought the Paris scene to New York, complete with lavish costumes and sets and a chorus of stunningly beautiful women, dubbed "The Anna Held Girls." While Held was known for a champagne giggle as well as for her million-dollar bank account, there was a darker side to her life. She concealed her Jewish background and her daughter from a previous marriage. She suffered through her two husbands' gambling problems and Ziegfeld's conspicuous affairs with showgirls. With the outbreak of fighting in Europe, Held returned to France to support the war effort. She entertained troops and delivered medical supplies, and was once briefly captured by the German army. Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld's Broadway reveals one of the most remarkable women in the history of theater. With access to previously unseen family records and photographs, Eve Golden has uncovered the details of an extraordinary woman's life in 1900s New York.

Author : Eve Golden
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 9780813128733
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld's Broadway written by Eve Golden and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " Anna Held (1870?-1918), a petite woman with an hourglass figure, was America's most popular musical comedy star during the two decades preceding World War I. In the colorful world of New York theater during La Belle Époque, she epitomized everything that was glamorous, sophisticated, and suggestive about turn-of-the-century Broadway. Overcoming an impoverished life as an orphan to become a music-hall star in Paris, Held rocketed to fame in America. From 1896 to 1910, she starred in hit after hit and quickly replaced Lillian Russell as the darling of the theatrical world. The first wife of legendary producer Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Held was the brains and inspiration behind his Follies and shared his knack for publicity. Together, they brought the Paris scene to New York, complete with lavish costumes and sets and a chorus of stunningly beautiful women, dubbed ""The Anna Held Girls."" While Held was known for a champagne giggle as well as for her million-dollar bank account, there was a darker side to her life. She concealed her Jewish background and her daughter from a previous marriage. She suffered through her two husbands' gambling problems and Ziegfeld's blatant affairs with showgirls. With the outbreak of fighting in Europe, Held returned to France to support the war effort. She entertained troops and delivered medical supplies, and she was once briefly captured by the German army. Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld's Broadway reveals one of the most remarkable women in the history of theatrical entertainment. With access to previously unseen family records and photographs, Eve Golden has uncovered the details of an extraordinary woman in the vibrant world of 1900s New York.

Author : Cynthia Brideson
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813160901
Total Pages : 577 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ziegfeld and His Follies written by Cynthia Brideson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this definitive biography, Cynthia Brideson and Sara Brideson offer a comprehensive look at both the life and legacy of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Drawing on a wide range of sources, they provide a lively and well-rounded account of Ziegfeld as a father, a husband, a son, a friend, a lover, and an alternately ruthless and benevolent employer. Lavishly illustrated, this is an intimate and in-depth portrait of a figure who profoundly changed American entertainment.

Author : Linda Mizejewski
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780822323235
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ziegfeld Girl written by Linda Mizejewski and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the iconographic significance of the Ziegfeld girl in twentieth-century American conceptions of sexuality, race, class, and consumerism.

Author : Ethan Mordden
Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 1429951524
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ziegfeld written by Ethan Mordden and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-11-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Any girl who twists her hat will be fired! – Florenz Ziegfeld And no Ziegfeld girl ever did as she made her way down the gala stairways of the Ziegfeld Follies in some of the most astonishing spectacles the American theatergoing public ever witnessed. When Florenz Ziegfeld started in theater, it was flea circus, operetta and sideshow all rolled into one. When he left it, the glamorous world of "show-biz" had been created. Though many know him as the man who "glorified the American girl," his first real star attraction was the bodybuilder Eugen Sandow, who flexed his muscles and thrilled the society matrons who came backstage to squeeze his biceps. His lesson learned with Sandow, Ziegfeld went on to present Anna Held, the naughty French sensation, who became the first Mrs. Ziegfeld. He was one of the first impresarios to mix headliners of different ethnic backgrounds, and literally the earliest proponent of mixed-race casting. The stars he showcased and, in some cases, created have become legends: Billie Burke (who also became his wife), elfin Marilyn Miller, cowboy Will Rogers, Bert Williams, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor and, last but not least, neighborhood diva Fanny Brice. A man of voracious sexual appetites when it came to beautiful women, Ziegfeld knew what he wanted and what others would want as well. From that passion, the Ziegfeld Girl was born. Elaborately bejeweled, they wore little more than a smile as they glided through eye-popping tableaux that were the highlight of the Follies, presented almost every year from 1907 to 1931. Ziegfeld's reputation and power, however, went beyond the stage of the Follies as he produced a number of other musicals, among them the ground-breaking Show Boat. In Ziegfeld: The Man Who Created Show Business, Ethan Mordden recreates the lost world of the Follies, a place of long-vanished beauty masterminded by one of the most inventive, ruthless, street-smart and exacting men ever to fill a theatre on the Great White Way : Florenz Ziegfeld.

Author : Tom Tierney
Publisher : Courier Corporation
ISBN 13 : 9780486436791
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ziegfeld Girls Paper Dolls written by Tom Tierney and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2004-09-01 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 11 dolls model 30 costumes worn in lavish musical extravaganzas. Figures of Anna Held, Helen Morgan, Billie Burke, Marilyn Miller, and other stars.

Author : Calhoun Winton
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813159369
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book John Gay and the London Theatre written by Calhoun Winton and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Beggar's Opera, often referred to today as the first musical comedy, was the most popular dramatic piece of the eighteenth century -- and is the work that John Gay (1685-1732) is best remembered for having written. That association of popular music and satiric lyrics has proved to be continuingly attractive, and variations on the Opera have flourished in this century: by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, by Duke Ellington, and most recently by Vaclav Havel. The original opera itself is played all over the world in amateur and professional productions. But John Gay's place in all this has not been well defined. His Opera is often regarded as some sort of chance event. In John Gay and the London Theatre, the first book-length study of John Gay as dramatic author, Calhoun Winton recognized the Opera as part of an entirely self-conscious career in the theatre, a career that Gay pursued from his earliest days as a writer in London and continued to follow to his death. Winton emphasizes Gay's knowledge of and affection for music, acquired, he argues, by way of his association with Handel. Although concentrating on Gay and his theatrical career, Winton also limns a vivid portrait of London itself and of the London stage of Gay's time, a period of considerable turbulence both within and outside the theatre. Gay's plays reflect in varying ways and degrees that social, political, and cultural turmoil. Winton's study sheds new light not only on Gay and the theatre, but also on the politics and culture of his era.

Author : Eve Golden
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813141648
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book John Gilbert written by Eve Golden and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charming and classically handsome, John Gilbert (1897--1936) was among the world's most recognizable actors during the silent era. He was a wild, swashbuckling figure on screen and off, and accounts of his life have focused on his high-profile romances with Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, his legendary conflicts with Louis B. Mayer, his four tumultuous marriages, and his swift decline after the introduction of talkies. A dramatic and interesting personality, Gilbert served as one of the primary inspirations for the character of George Valentin in the Academy Award--winning movie The Artist (2011). Many myths have developed around the larger-than-life star in the eighty years since his untimely death, but this definitive biography sets the record straight. Eve Golden separates fact from fiction in John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars, tracing the actor's life from his youth spent traveling with his mother in acting troupes to the peak of fame at MGM, where he starred opposite Mae Murray, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, and other actresses in popular films such as The Merry Widow (1925), The Big Parade (1925), Flesh and the Devil (1926), and Love (1927). Golden debunks some of the most pernicious rumors about the actor, including the oft-repeated myth that he had a high-pitched, squeaky voice that ruined his career. Meticulous, comprehensive, and generously illustrated, this book provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of the silent era's greatest stars and the glamorous yet brutal world in which he lived.

Author : Eve Golden
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813180740
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Brief, Madcap Life of Kay Kendall written by Eve Golden and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comedic film actress Kay Kendall, born to a theatrical family in Northern England, came of age in London during the Blitz. After starring in Britain's biggest cinematic disaster, she found stardom in 1953 with her brilliant performance in the film Genevieve. She scored success after success with her light comic style in movies such as Doctor in the House, The Reluctant Debutante, and the Gene Kelly musical Les Girls. Kendall's private life was even more colorful than the plots of her films as she embarked on a series of affairs with costars, directors, producers, and married men. In 1954 she fell in love with her married Constant Husband costar Rex Harrison and accompanied him to New York, where he was starring on Broadway in My Fair Lady. It was there that Kendall was diagnosed with myelocytic leukemia. Her life took a romantic and tragic turn as Harrison divorced his wife and married Kendall. He agreed with their doctor that she was never to know of her diagnosis, and for the next two years the couple lived a hectic, glamorous life together as Kendall's health failed. She died in London at the age of 32 with her husband by her side shortly after completing the filming of Once More with Feeling!. This book was written with the cooperation of Kendall's sister Kim and includes interviews with many of her costars, relatives, and friends. A complete filmography and rare photographs complete this first-ever biography of Britain's most glamorous comic star.

Author : Diane Elizabeth Dreher
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813159172
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Domination And Defiance written by Diane Elizabeth Dreher and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare was clearly fascinated by the relationship between fathers and daughters, for this primal bond of domination and defiance structures twenty-one of his comedies, tragedies, and romances. In a conflict that is at once social and interpersonal, Shakespeare's fathers demand hierarchical obedience while their daughters affirm the new, more personal values upheld by Renaissance humanists and Puritans. In her penetrating analysis of this compelling relationship, Diane Dreher examines the underlying psychological tensions as well as the changing concepts of marriage and the family during Shakespeare's time. She points to the pain and conflict caused by sex role polarization. Shakespeare's possessive fathers tyrannize over their daughters, unwilling to relinquish their "masculine" power and control and leaving these young women with only two alternatives: paternal domination or defiance and loss of love. The logic of Shakespeare's plays repudiates traditional stereotypes, showing how women like Ophelia and Desdemona are destroyed by conforming to the passive Renaissance ideal. The book concludes with a consideration of Shakespeare's androgynous characters -- dynamic women in doublet and hose, and fathers who become sensitive, caring, and empathetic. Shakespeare's balanced characters thus reconcile the polarities within themselves and bring greater harmony to their world. Domination and Defiance is the first book on this most provocative relationship in Shakespeare. Shedding new light on the complex father-daughter bond, character, and motivation, it makes a major contribution to literary studies.