Ziegfeld Follies Performers and Photographs: A Searchable Database

This is a searchable database and list of Ziegfeld Follies dancers, singers, and stars, along with performers in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.’s other productions. The focus is on the women: I aim to include every female performer from the Follies of 1907 until Ziegfeld’s death in 1932.

Gladys Glad, one of the performers in this list of Ziegfeld Follies dancers, photographed by Alfred Cheney Johnston in 1926 (public domain)
Portrait of Gladys Glad by Alfred Cheney Johnston, 1926

What’s in the database?

The database lists roughly 2,000 performers, about 1,200 of whom have no photograph. Better-known performers are the best documented, and stars appear in dozens of photographs. In all there are nearly 4,400 photographs, more than a third of them taken by Alfred Cheney Johnston, the official photographer for Ziegfeld.

There are two parts to the data. The performer list gives each performer’s name, the shows in which they appeared, and, where available, birth and death dates and a Wikidata identifier. The photograph list identifies who is pictured, the photographer, and where and when the picture was published, down to the page where I could find it. It includes only identified sitters and photographs published up to 1930.

How was the list of performers compiled?

I built the list from a range of contemporary sources, including playbills, newspapers, and trade publications such as Variety and Billboard. I also used more modern compiled cast lists from sources such as IBDB and A Chronology of American Musical Theater, by Richard C. Norton. In some cases annotations on the verso of photographs identified performer names and shows.

This is the most comprehensive list of Ziegfeld performers that I know of, but it is neither complete nor guaranteed to be fully accurate. Original cast lists vary greatly in detail, availability, and accuracy, and figuring out everyone who appeared in every show is very difficult.

I have reasonable confidence for coverage of the star performers, as their names were commonly publicized for each production. Coverage should also be fairly good for the mid-level ensemble players for the same reason. Problems arise when it comes to the chorus, whose members often were not publicized. 

Performers also rotated through shows, sometimes appearing only briefly in a particular production. This could reflect cast replacements or changes to a show. Ziegfeld was known to add and cut numbers and personnel over the life of a production. 

What if there is a mistake or omission in the database?

This is very much a work in progress, and errors and omissions are possible (even likely). If you have corrections or additions, please let me know. I would especially appreciate any documented evidence regarding specific performers and specific shows. I’m not able to take on family-history research.

Where do the photographs come from?

Most come from period magazines such as Theatre Magazine, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Shadowland, and The Green Book, found through the Internet Archive and HathiTrust. Others come from auction records, museum and library collections, and my own collection. Where a record has a source link, it opens the scanned page, so you can see the photograph as it was first printed.

I have done my best to accurately identify the photographs, but errors may remain. It is not unusual for the sitter or the photographer in a source photograph to be misidentified. If you have corrections, or photos of performers to share, I would again like to hear about them.

What is not in the database?

I have focused on female performers, so almost all the men who appeared in Ziegfeld productions are excluded by design. Performers who appeared in Ziegfeld Follies productions after Ziegfeld’s death in 1932 are not included. That includes Follies productions of 1934, 1936, 1943, and 1957. Also not credited are cast members in the various Ziegfeld-related movies.

Search the list of Ziegfeld Follies dancers and performers

Use the search icon at the top right of the table, or sort and filter by any column. Click a row to open the full record.

Search the photographs

Records are numbered; the number is the one to cite. Click a thumbnail to see the image larger.

Can I use these photographs?

Most were published before 1931 and are in the public domain in the United States. Where a credit line names a museum or library, check that institution’s terms before reusing the image. See Image Rights for more. The database itself, meaning the compiled records and their descriptions, is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license: you may reuse it with credit.

How should I cite the database?

Bill LeFurgy, Ziegfeld Follies Performers Database, billlefurgy.com, record no. [number], accessed [date].

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