Explore the glamour, performers, and legacy of the Ziegfeld Follies—America’s iconic theatrical revue that shaped Broadway and pop culture from 1907–1931.
Edythe Baker (1899-1971) was an American pianist, recording artist, singer and dancer who rose from a Kansas City music-store counter to international fame. At 19 the trade press hailed her as “the foremost ragtime pianiste of vaudeville.” Within a year she had national following through player-piano roll recordings. In 1920 Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. placed her…
A century ago, a line of women glide languidly into the glow of the footlights on a Broadway stage. Nearly nude, they shimmer with feathers, jewels, satin, and sequins. The audience watches in a spellbound mix of desire, envy, and awe. Here, presented to the world as icons of feminine beauty, are the Ziegfeld Girls….
Rereading Louise Brooks’s writing of her early years in New York City, published as Chapter One in Lulu in Hollywood, I’m struck by the unique blend of detail, candor, and lack of pretension or sentiment. She credits her success in the city to a soda jerk who tamed her accent, a waiter who refined her…