The Ziegfeld Follies: A History in Song

278 Pages·2009·146.997 MB·English

by  Ann Ommen van der Merwe

The Ziegfeld Follies
A History in Song
Ann Ommen van der Merwe
.
THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Lanham, Maryland Toronto Plymouth, UK
2009
SCARECROW PRESS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Scarecrow Press, Inc.
A wholly owned subsidiary of
The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.scarecrowpress.com
Estover Road
Plymouth PL6 7PY
United Kingdom
Copyright 0 2009 by Ann Ommen van der Merwe
All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Van der Merwe, Ann Ommen, 1978-
The Ziegfeld Follies : a history in song / Ann Ommen van der Mer~ve.
p. cm.
Includes bibli~~raphicraelf erences, discography, song list, and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6716-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Revues-New York (State)-New York-History and criticism.
2. Revues-New York (State)-New York-Bibliography. 3. Ziegfeld, Flo, 1869-1932.
I. Title. ML2054.V36 2009
792,609747'1--dc22 2008044910
@
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO 239.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
All photographs courtesy of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University
of Texas at Austin.
Contents
Abbreviations v
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Chapter 1 The First Follies: 1907 to 1909 1
Chapter 2 Constructing the Ziegfeld Brand: 1910 to 1914 39
Chapter 3 Spectacular Successes: 1915 to 1918 89
Chapter 4 The Glory Days: 1919 to 1921 125
Chapter 5 Changing Times: 1922 to 1925 159
Chapter 6 The Final Follies: 1927 and 1931 193
Epilogue: The Ziegfeld Legacy 209
Appendix: Songs Performed in the Ziegfeld Follies 21 1
Select Discography 23 1
Select Bibliography 23 7
Song Index 243
Subject Index 25 1
About the Author 255

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Abbreviations
AS Alvah Sulloway Collection, University of New Hampshire
AZ Arizona State University
BD Bodleian Library, Oxford University, United Kingdom
CLP Cleveland Public Library
CPM Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University
CU Joseph Urban Collection, Columbia University
DART Dartmouth College
DPL E. Azalia Hackley Collection, Detroit Public Library
DU Historic American Sheet Music, Duke University (Online)
FW Fred Waring Collection, Pennsylvania State University
HRC Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas
at Austin
IND Indiana Historical Society (Online)
IU Indiana University Sheet Music Collections (Online)
KENT Special Collections, Kent State University
LOC Library of Congress (Online)
LSL Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection (Online)
MAR Marshall University Libraries
MCNY Museum of the City of New York
MIT Inventions of Note Sheet Music Collection, Massachusetts Insti-
tute of Technology (Online)
Morrison-Reeves Library, Richmond, Indiana
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vi Abbreviations
MSU Charles H. Templeton Sr. Sheet Music Collection, Mississippi
State University
NYPL New York Public Library, Performing Arts in America (Online)
NY PLD New York Public Library, Digital Gallery (Online)
PENN Paterno Library, Pennsylvania State University
PQ ProQuest Historical Newspapers, New York Times (1851-2005)
(Online)
SDC Sam de Vincent Collection of Illustrated American Sheet Music,
Smithsonian Institution
UA University of Alabama
UCB University of Colorado at Boulder
UCLA University of California at Los Angeles Digital Archive, Popular
American Sheet Music (Online)
UM University of Miami
VHS Virginia Historical Society
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Acknowledgments
I would like to express my deepest appreciation for all who have offered their
support and assistance as I have endeavored to complete this project. Many
individuals have contributed in countless ways, both big and small. To the
librarians and archivists who have helped me retrieve and view source mate-
rials, I owe a great debt of gratitude. My special thanks goes to Rick Watson
and Helen Adair and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center in
Austin, Texas; to Marty Jacobs at the Museum of the City of New York;
to Nancy Zavac and Heide Radtke at the University of Miami; to Lucinda
Cockrell at the Center for Popular Music in Mutireesboro, Tennessee; to
Roland Goodbody at the University of New Hampshire; to Miles Kreuger at
the Institute of the American Musical; and to various staff members at the
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institute,
the University of Colorado at Boulder, the Paterno Library at Pennsylvania
State University, and the Virginia Historical Society. I would also like to
thank Kara Darling at Williamson Music for assisting me in the permissions
process.
I am tremendously grateful to my colleagues Dominic Symonds and
George Ferencz for their willingness to offer editorial comments on my man-
uscript. Also, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to Graeme Boone,
Danielle Fosler-Lussier, and Thomas Postlewait, who provided feedback
during the early stages of my research on the Ziegfeld Follies and have con-
tinued to demonstrate their support for my professional development. I am
deeply appreciative of the funding I received from the Department of Music
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viii Acknowledgments
at Miami University to use toward the publication of this book, and I owe a
special note of thanks to Richard Green for securing that for me. Lastly, I am
grateful to my editor RenCe Camus for providing me with the opportunity to
share this research.
To my parents, who have always shown tremendous support for my per-
sonal and professional endeavors, I am eternally indebted. To my husband
Geo, who has supported me in every way possible during the completion of
this project, I am thankful beyond measure. Most importantly, I am grate-
ful to God for bestowing on me the gifts that have enabled me to write this
book. I am truly blessed, and truly grateful.
Introduction
At the dawn of a new century, the Ziegfeld Follies offered audiences a com-
pelling combination of familiarity and modernity. Much of their content
can be traced to American entertainments such as vaudeville, burlesque,
and minstrelsy. Indeed, they exhibit both the best and the most problem-
atic attributes of these genres. They were nevertheless uniquely indebted
to the French revue, a relatively recent introduction in the United States.
To be sure, the Follies were not the first American productions to dem-
onstrate the basic structure of the revue, namely a series of loosely related
scenes, songs, dances, skits, and visual tableaux performed by a single
cast. The term revue, however, was not introduced into the American
theatrical vernacular with any regularity until the early productions of the
Ziegfeld Follies, probably because they reflected the cultural heritage and
style of the French genre more strongly than any other American stage
production before them. When a critic for the New York Times described
the second Follies production in 1908 as "a revue in the French sense,"' he
alluded to the show's similarities to nineteenth-century Parisian revues,
including its "review" of current events through topical songs and dances;
its setting in a rooftop theatre specially christened the Jardin de Paris; and
its use of a commere and compere, a master and mistress of ceremonies.
Impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. undoubtedly modeled his productions on
the Parisian revue because he understood the American fascination with
all things French. For several years, he had been successfully producing
Broadway shows for Anna Held, the foreign-born songstress who rose to