Bill LeFurgy Scandals of the Gilded Age and Roaring 20s

The Ziegfeld Follies: Revolutionizing Broadway, Hollywood, and Culture

ByBill LeFurgy

The Ziegfeld Follies changed American entertainment in a big way. When Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., introduced the Follies of 1907 at the New York Theatre on Broadway, he took spectacle to a whole new level. It started as an uncertain experiment. It blossomed into an entertainment empire that ran until 1931 (with periodic revivals after Ziegfeld’s…

Louise Brooks Arrives in New York: Awkwardness Beneath the Bold Beauty
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Louise Brooks Arrives in New York: Awkwardness Beneath the Bold Beauty

ByBill LeFurgy

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…