Explore the glamour, performers, and legacy of the Ziegfeld Follies—America’s iconic theatrical revue that shaped Broadway and pop culture from 1907–1931.
Alfred Cheney Johnston is best known for his glamorous portraits of Ziegfeld Girls. He also made many nude and nearly nude photographs, although these were rarely published during his lifetime. Why did he make the nude photographs? They are quite different from his ordinary publicity photographs of clothed women. Alfred Cheney Johnston Nude Photographs: Why…
Edythe Baker (1899–1971) was an American pianist and recording artist who rose from a Kansas City music-store counter to London stardom. She was also linked to romance in high places: King Edward VIII, along with his playboy brother the Duke of Kent. And, of all people, Winston Churchill. At 19 the trade press hailed her…
A century ago, a line of women glided languidly into the glow of the footlights on a Broadway stage. Some nearly nude, they shimmered with feathers, jewels, satin, and sequins. The audience watched in a spellbound mix of desire, envy, and awe. Here, presented to the world as icons of feminine beauty, were the Ziegfeld…
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…