(Or From Paris To Broadway: It’s The Ziegfeld Follies Chapter)
Florenz and his
girlfriend/”common-law wife” – the spectacularly dimensioned Anna Held – had
already been taking New York by storm for close to a decade, but 1907 was the
year they took their fame and the entire concept of Ziegfeld-ism to a whole new
level, with a production inspired – practically plagiarized really – by the
far, far more risqué theatrical productions of Paris, from where Anna liked to
pretend she came.
Paris - and to a lesser extent
London - continued to flourish as their own centres of popular culture. London
was the home of an aggressively naff music hall scene, of which we shall deal
with in a couple of chapters’ time. Paris was the home of impressionism,
bohemianism, the bourgeoisie, a certain joie de virve, haute couture,
and the era of the Belle Epoque. Clearly Paris had the edge here; so
much so that even the King Of England himself - King Edward VII – spent far
more time in Paris than was decent, engaging himself in utterly indecent
activities, requiring a special “sex chair” to be designed for him, so that he
could partake in two prostitutes at once. Some people called Edward the “Uncle
Of Europe” – because he was related to all the royal families of Europe – but
he was probably the father of a large quantity of less-royal Europeans as well.
France had also been the
birthplace of vaudeville, several decades earlier, which is why the word sounds
so much more pretentious than what it would end up representing.
Now America obviously had
vaudeville, but their version was a brash and brazen thing, the pop-culture of
the riff raff. The vaudeville in Paris though was something very different. It
was produced by bohemians to titillate the bourgeoise and bored ex-aristocrats
yearning for a distraction whilst the world burned.
For Paris was a magical city,
where clever people did incomprehensible things that everyone pretended to
understand and appreciate because they’d look stupid if they pretended they
didn’t. They painted pictures that didn’t look like what they were supposed to
look like. Or where everyone was constantly on a picnic and women went to those
picnics naked.
And that was just the French. But Paris was
more than just the French. Dreamers and artists and anyone who could afford it,
were drawn to Paris from all over Europe. And increasingly, from all over
America. Paris was the destination for any performer or artiste who felt
alienated and misunderstood, convinced that if they stayed in America, they
would never be appreciated for the geniuses they were.
Whereas New York had Broadway,
Paris had Montmartre. In some ways the two neighbourhoods were similar. In
others they were very, very different. In both neighbourhoods, the beautiful
people gathered, in top hats and carriages, to see and be seen. The beautiful
people gathered in both, because that’s where the creative people lived. Where,
behind the glitz and glamour, there was a world of sin and debauchery after the
curtain came down. The main difference between Broadway and Montmartre was that
in Paris, a lot of that sin and debauchery made it onto the stage as well.
Montmartre was a world of outcasts and freaks. The world was intrigued.
France was where the higher class
of prostitutes – more politely referred to as courtesans - were amongst its
biggest celebrities. Where artists had finally decided that it wasn’t their job
to uplift and inspire the masses, or to give them moral lessons, but to show
the world as it was, warts and all. Or more frequently, whores and all.
The spiritual home of the French
version of vaudeville was the Moulin Rouge, a theatre with a windmill perched
on top, a design feature which makes perfect sense if you know your French. Moulin
Rouge translates into Red Mill, and Montmartre, back when it had just been a
little country village on the outskirts of Paris, had once been peppered with
windmills.
The Moulin Rouge also had giant
stucco elephant looking mournfully over the beer – or should that be absinthe?
– garden out back. They had bought the elephant at the Paris Universal
Exhibition, turning it into an opium den complete with belly-dancers. This was
apt, since the elephant was inspired by the Elephant Hotel at Coney Island,
which had itself been turned into a brothel. There was a network of mutual
inspiration flowing back and forth across the Atlantic, from New York to Paris
and back again. France gave New York the Statue of Liberty. New York gave Paris
the idea of elephant shaped brothels cum opium dens.
If the windmill on top of the
Moulin Rogue was eye-catching, then the ladies inside were even more so.
Zidler, the manager of this fine establishment, described it as a Palace Of
Women. A less invested assessment was that it was a club where rich men could
ogle and sleep with less economically- but more physically-blessed young mademoiselles.
You may be forming the impression
that the French version of vaudeville, despite having access to all the
sophistication of European civilisation, wasn’t necessarily any more highbrow
than its American copy. And indeed, amongst the dancers of the Moulin Rouge,
and an arguably bigger attraction than any of them, was a man by the name of Le
Petomane, whose main claim to fame was that he could fart songs! Other claims
to fame included the ability to fart farm animal noises!! And the ability to
blow out candles, yards away, with his farts!!!
But they were French-farts and
that made all the difference. Le Petomane wasn’t a farter, he was a flatulist.
Some called him a fartiste. Princes and Kings would come and see and hear him
fart. He, along with La Goulue, who invented can-can dancing and was one of
King Edward VII sex-chair consorts, were Montmartre royalty.
Whilst La Goulue wore very little
clothes, Loie Fuller wore a greater quantity of fabric than possibly any other
entertainer; waves upon waves of sleeves that created mesmerizing patterns
whenever she waved her arms. She was one of those refugees from America where
no-one understood her and her “art.” In Paris they understood, or at the very
least they found it a distraction from the tedium of life. She played Folies
Bergère, the Moulin Rouge’s closest competition. What the Bergère lacked for in
windmills - and Toulous-Lautrec posters - it more than made up for with its
giant crystal chandeliers, trapeze artists and chic disinterested barmaids.
Mistinguett, possessor of a pair
of the longest legs the world had ever seen, started showing those legs at the
Moulin Rogue in 1907. No doubt the world did contain longer legs than
Mistinguett, but they were usually covered up, and thus, the world never saw
them. Mistinguett’s legs were not covered up. They were seen. They were talked
about all over Paris.
If Paris wasn’t talking about Mistinguett’s
legs, then it was talking about her costumes, which she designed and made
herself. Like her legs, there was a lot to talk about, particularly when it
came to her hats. A practitioner of the philosophy that if something is worth
doing it’s worth overdoing, Mistinguett once caught two birds, stuffed them
herself, and then plonked them amongst all the feathers and ferns and whatnot
that was perched on top of her head. After putting so much effort into
constructing such a creation she certainly wasn’t going to let it rot on a
hatstand. Instead, she let it rot on her head, sashaying through the streets of
Paris in summer, constantly followed by a swarm of flies. The swarm of men who
were also constantly following her, do not appear to have been discouraged.*
There was always a swarm of men.
Given that Mistinguett wasn’t conventionally attractive – one of the first
snippets of showbiz advice she was given when just starting out was not to
bother because she was too ugly – this was an outstanding example of the power
of self-promotion and self-confidence, as well as the good sense of the second
snippet of showbiz advice she had received – a couple of minutes later, during
the same conversation as the first – “please the men!”
One of the men that Mistinguett
pleased was Max Dearly.
Max Dearly was one of
Mistinguett’s favourite dancing partners. He was famous for being abusive to
women, a reputation they decided to make part of the act. Max would play a
thug. Mistinguett would play, what else but, a prostitute. They would dance.
The dance would become a fight. Costumes would be ripped. Faces would be
bruised. Max would drag Misty off stage by the hair for implied sexual assault.
The crowd loved it! They went wild!!**
But Mistinguett didn’t love Max.
Mistinguett loved Chevalier.
Chevalier had already dated the
emotionally turbulent Frehel, a teenage vaudeville star who had spent her
childhood on the cold Parisian streets. Not the most carefree of relationships,
Frehel attempted suicide soon after it ended and then disappeared into the
depths of Russia for a decade or so. Chevalier was probably looking for some
light-hearted fun at this point. In Mistinguett, significantly older,
significantly more experienced, and significantly more outgoing, he found his
fun.
But for Mistinguett, Chevalier
was more than just fun. He was the love of her life. She lusted for and pursued
him in a very Mistinguett manner, inventing an act for them in which they would
dance on tables, somersault and cartwheel across the stage, and ultimately dive
into each other’s arms, underneath the carpet, at which point her hand would
often clasp upon his penis.
Mistinguett was a creature that
America simply could not have produced - Eva Tanguay, of whom more in the next
chapter, arguably came close, but she doesn’t count, for she was Canadian - and
she was just getting started. We’ll be discussing her again, when she becomes a
spy. And even better, a double-agent (and then again when she eventually gets
around to making a record).
The reaction to all of this in
America, when they read about it in the newspapers, was… mixed. Respectable
church-going small towners might say something like “well I guess all of this
wearing a bird in your hat and calling it art is fine for Paris… but if that’s
supposed to be bohemian culture then give me a good ol’ minstrel show any day!”
But others were intrigued. If
only something vaguely resembling French culture could be recreated in New
York. Perhaps if some rich promoter wanted to impress his girlfriend who
wanted, like really wanted, to be French… to the extent that she was
constantly telling everyone that she was born in Paris, even though it had
actually been Poland… before then being raised on the Lower East Side… and thus
we return to the story of Florenz Ziegfeld, and the Broadway production,
titled, what else but, “A Parisian Model.” A Broadway production designed to
show-off his girlfriend/”common-law wife” Anna Held and thus keep her happy.
Showing herself off was amongst
Anna’s favourite activities, if not right at the very top. And Anna had a lot
to show off. Even under the voluminous fabric of the fashions of the time – and
even under the even more voluminous hats she wore, and the even more voluminous
flowers on top of those hats – you could tell that Anna’s curves were also…
voluminous.
Anna also had captivating eyes.
In order to publicize them, Florenz commissioned our friends J. Rosamond
Johnson, James Weldon Johnson and Bob Cole – not exactly the trio you would
expect - to write a song about them, “The Maiden With The Dreamy Eyes,” thereby
setting the scene for future songs about Anna Held’s eyes, of which there would
be a voluminous quantity.
Foreshadowing the sensory
overload that would soon follow, “The Parisian Model” featured not just Anna,
but a roller-skating ballet, and “nude” models. All of which was of course not
uncontroversial. It was however legal, on condition that the girls didn’t move.
The result of this loophole? Living nude statues!
It was all, as a bunch of critics
suggested, a little bit too Parisian for American tastes. Those critics however
were wrong. This watered-down version of Montmartre was exactly what New York
wanted. And Florenz Ziegfield was exactly the man to give it to them.
An obsession with ladies’ legs
was not the only thing that Ziegfield took from the Moulin Rogue. A sense of
scandal was also compulsory, the more extravagant or implausible the better. This
was something that Florenz had a talent for. When he was just a kid, he sold
tickets to other kids to witness his bowl of “invisible fish.” Genius! His
parents were so worried about his show business ways they sent him to a cattle
ranch in Wyoming to make a man out of him. It didn’t take.
When Florenz’s father sent him to
Europe to find an orchestra to bring back to America, he came back with
something better, something that Americans had not seen before: a German
bodybuilder.
He invited famous people
backstage to feel the bodybuilder’s biceps and invited journalists to watch. When
vaudeville took over Broadway in the opening years of the 20th century, he was
the perfect person to run it all. Since Anna was not only his
girlfriend/”common-law wife” but his biggest star, it was she who was the
subject of some of his more extravagant and implausible stunts; such as
spreading the rumour that Anna had 40 gallons of milk sent to her hotel
apartment every day for her to bathe in. Just in case some more sceptical
members of the public doubted the truthfulness of the rumour – which just to be
clear, I’m 99% sure was not true - she refused to pay for a delivery of sour
milk and let the press watch the consequent debate between her and the milkman.
Satisfied therefore that it must be true, American women across the nation
started taking milk baths, like it was the latest trend. There was also the
rumour that she’d had some of her ribs surgically removed. Whilst also almost
certainly not true, there was no other way of explaining the biologically
implausible sight of Anna, all hips and bosom with absolutely no waist at all!
Surely even a corset couldn’t achieve that! Although she did also market her
own range of corsets.
Anna was ahead of her time in so
many ways. She was said to be the first woman to drive a car, which would have
been priceless publicity itself even if she didn’t then drive a car on the
stage of her 1899 hit musical “Papa’s Wife.”
“A Parisian Model” was when all
these publicity stunts began to pay off, big time. Part of that was due to
Anna. Part of that was due to the roller-skating ballet dancers and “live nude
statues.” And part of that was due to including two of the sauciest Tin Pan
Alley tunes yet written.
First up, or at least at the end
of Act 1, was “Kiss Kiss Kiss (If You Want To Learn To Kiss)” in which Anna –
for that too, was her character’s name – confesses that she doesn’t know how to
kiss. Her duet partner – Silas Goldfinch, a millionaire trying to give away his
money - puts all the blame on the education system for not teaching her all the
things she ought to know. Anna feels that the situation has put her at a
distinct disadvantage suggesting that “such innocence as mine is never much
admired.” Silas agrees that this is so, and volunteers to teach her. Anna
rebuffs his advances – she tells him that his kisses would make her laugh - and
goes off to practice on her sweetheart’s photograph instead.***
The next act featured “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave.”
It was already becoming a bit of a hit and was –
like so many songs – “interpolated.” Partially because it was flirty and a
teensy bit naughty, but also because it once again drew the audience’s
attention to Anna’s eyes. “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave” had even been
promoted as “Anna Held’s Sensational Eye Song.”****
“I Just Can’t Make My Eyes
Behave” was written by Will B. Cobb and Gus Edwards, the same duo that wrote
“School Days”, and “Sunbonnet Sue” and a whole bunch of other songs for little
kids to sing in one of their “Kidz Kabarets.” For in parallel to their career
of monopolizing the market for charming, nostalgic children’s singalongs, Gus
and Will were also monopolizing the market for cheekier, slightly risqué fare.*****
“I Just Can’t Make My Eyes
Behave” was the big “A Parisian Model” hit, with Anna seeming truly upset with
being cursed by these mischievous eyes that are out of control and confounded
as to what she could possibly do about them: she just can’t make her eyes
behave! Those big brown eyes, she is their slave. Her lips say run away
from me, buuuuuuuut…. her eyes say come and play with me!******
“A Parisian Model” was so big –
and Florenz thus celebrated, in certain circles, as something of a genius,
almost a prophet, responsible for the discovery of… women’s legs? – that
Florenz was able to name his next big production after himself, calling it The
Ziegfeld Follies of 1907! The “Follies” part of the name being a nod to the Folies
Bergère in Paris. It was staged in a glass-ceilinged rooftop bar above a
theatre called Jardin de Paris, named after the beer - or more likely absinthe
- garden at the Moulin Rouge. Y’know, the one with the elephant. The whole
thing was modelled on Parisians.
The Ziegfeld Follies – or just
“The Follies” for short – were “loud, leering orgies of indelicacy and
suggestiveness.” That’s from a review by critic Percy Hammond. He also
described them as “sex entertainment”, unlikely to “meet the approval of
sticklers for decorum,” and “the greatest show on Earth.” So assumedly “loud,
leering orgies” was a compliment.
Sadly Anna didn’t end up
performing at the first Follies, for she was on tour for “Miss Innocence.” Nor
the second, for she was pregnant at the time and could not therefore possibly
fit into one of her trademarked corsets. By the time she could, Florenz had
moved on to a brand-new floozy.
“The Follies” were an instant pop
cultural phenomenon, and it was easy to see why. It was the dancing girls; or,
as they would soon be known, the Ziegfeld girls. Over one hundred of them. Some
of whom Florenz was sleeping with. He was definitely sleeping with Lillian
Lorraine, who moved into the hotel in which he lived, and where Anna was still
living too. Awkward. Lillian Lorraine was Ziegfeld’s favourite Ziegfeld girl.
“Who was your favourite Ziegfeld
girl?” was a conversation starter up and down Broadway. Everyone had an
opinion. Men discussed the matter seriously as though they were connoisseurs.
Was it Peggy Hopkins Joyce? Only 23
years old, she had already been married twice. The first time she was only a
teen. She soon got a divorce because her husband was too boring. That’s when
she came to New York armed with pencil thin eyebrows, curly blonde hair and an
insatiable appetite for fame.
Was it Annabelle Whitford? Annabelle
was a dancer who stole the whole skirt dancing thing from Loie Fuller and
starred in some of the earliest silent movies doing just that - and given that
these movies were only a couple of minutes long it literally was “just that” -
suggesting that maybe Loie hadn’t needed to move to Paris to get recognition
after all. Annabelle did add a little something to Loie’s dances though;
sometimes she dressed up as a butterfly.
Hopefully it wasn’t Doris Eaton
since she was only 14 when she first appeared and had to change her name to
Doris Levant as she successfully snuck her way around child labour laws. They
were all incredibly young. Even Lillian was only 17.
There were plenty of other
options. There were plenty of other girls. Sometimes they ended up in
Hollywood. Sometimes they made records. Their influence on popular culture
extended far beyond New York. Ziegfeld started to take the Follies out on a
national tour, just like a typical vaudeville show, only with a far bigger
budget and far fewer clothes. And he continued with the publicity stunts. Some
of which got a little bit out of control. Such as that time he got a hundred Ziegfeld
girls to perform on a beach, and half a million men turned up to gawk at them,
and the riot squad had to be called to calm everyone down.
Whilst it was the Ziegfeld girls -
and their legs - that were usually given credit for the Follies success, there
may be at least one other reason. Florenz was a superstitious man. He believed
that giving his production 13-letter titles gave them good luck. He really was
an odd little man.
Also the plot. People forget that
the Follies were more than legs, musical numbers, legs, comic skits and more
legs. The “Follies of 1907” for example was based on the premise of “what if
John Smith and Pocahontas travelled to… the modern day?!?!?” Cue a whole bunch
of impersonations of celebrities of the day, from Teddy Roosevelt to John D.
Rockefeller. This plot device was so popular that for the second Follies they’d
use it again. Only with Adam and Eve, presumedly to provide an excuse for even
more nudity!
“The Follies” became an annual
production, a charming time-capsule of the state of popular culture each year,
particularly that portion of popular culture that dealt with girls and their
legs. “The Follies” didn’t always produce a whole lot of hits but anyone
who headlined the revue was automatically crowned the brightest star in New
York. And the brightest star in New York in 1908 – when the second “Follies”
came around – was Nora Bayes.
Nora was a singer, but her main
claim to fame was a turbulent love life. Newspapers were always gossiping about
her. That’s hardly surprising. Gossiping about Nora was always far more
exciting than actually listening to her. When gossiping about Nora, she sounds
like a whizz-bang firecracker. When listening to her… you’d much prefer to be
gossiping about her. So let’s gossip about her!
At the time Nora became a star in
the second “Follies” she was married to Jack Norworth,******* who also had his
own, even more, turbulent love life. He had just gotten divorced from one
Broadway star, Louise Dresser, and everyone was expecting him to marry another,
the vocal suffragette Trixie Friganza, a story we’ll get into further in a
couple of chapters’ time. But then he met Nora on the set of the Follies and
married her instead. A week or so later. New York was scandalized. It was in
all the newspapers.
It was also in all the newspapers
when they got a divorce soon after. And then when they got married once again,
to each other, for a second time.
Nora Bayes was Jewish. Probably.
Almost certainly. She rarely talked about her past. Her origins were shrouded
in mystery. She had cut herself off from her upbringing, her ethnic identity.
Nora Bayes was American. Or more importantly, she was Nora Bayes. Still, it
made little sense when her first huge hit record was one in which she was
pretending to be Irish. We’ll get to that song too in a couple of chapters’
time.
Not quite as big as the song
where Nora pretended to be Irish, was the one in which Nora pretended to be
Irish, and German and… pretty much every other ethnicity that America could
offer. Every other European ethnicity anyway. It was “Young America” – from the
musical “The Jolly Bachelors” - and it was set in a classroom filled with a
children with the teacher calling each student up to declare their love of
America, in an English, Irish, French, Dutch or German accent.
“Their daddies may be English,
Irish, German, French or Dutch…. But if the kids are born in Yankee land the
rest don’t count for much, we’ll put them in our melting pot, teach them the
Golden Rule, then we’ll hatch our future President in any public school.”
“Young America” manages to combine a very Cohan-esque patriotism with a heavy dose of progressive utopianism. All of Nora’s accents are quite terrible though. (“Young America” is a 5)
Like those young children, the
future of America, where Nora came from didn’t really matter. What was
important was where she was going. And Nora made sure that where she was going
was always interesting.
But for the record: Nora was
probably born Rachel Eleanora Sarah Goldberg, probably to Polish Jewish
immigrants who probably owned a saloon in Chicago, whilst at the same time
being extremely Orthodox. Nora dreamt of getting away and joining the
profession her parents hated more than any other: the theatre. So desperate was
Nora to get away, that she married an undertaker and escaped to the Chicago
South-Side. It will not surprise you to learn that the marriage did not last
for long.
Neither did Nora’s career in
Chicago last long. Nora had bigger dreams. Nora had Broadway dreams. And so
Nora left.********
Leaving situations that she was
unhappy with, and never looking back, would fast become part of the Nora Bayes
persona. And philosophy. She would ultimately get married five times, divorcing
each one as soon as she started to feel bored. If Nora was bored of her
marriage, she’d leave it. If Nora was
bored of performing in a musical, she’d leave it. Such unpredictability made her
more and more famous. But nothing made her more famous than the time she did
the utterly unthinkable and quit “The Follies” in 1910.
Why did Nora quit “The Follies”?
Was it because she was jealous that Sophie Tucker – about more of whom soon –
had suddenly become more popular? Was it because the roof garden’s electric
fans blew her voice around the theatre until it “mixed with the drinks”? Was it
due to a feisty debate over whether or not she would wear stockings whilst
riding an elephant? ********* Or was it because she refused to sing any more
than a verse of “Shine On, Harvest Moon”, a song that had become so popular,
and so inescapable, that Nora was heartily sick of it? And Nora was
heartily sick of it, despite the fact that she and Jack had written it
themselves!
Or had they?
Because it is interesting that at
the same time she was refusing to sing “Shine On, Harvest Moon”, Nora was also
refusing to sick any song that wasn’t written by Jack. This sounds like an
admission that certain rumours were true. Rumours that “Shine On, Harvest Moon”
had actually been written by Dave Stamper, their “Japanese” piano player!
Rumours which get weirder and weirder the further you look into them.
At first it merely appears that Nora and Jack
bought the song off Dave Stamper. That’s nothing out of the ordinary, getting a
song writing credit was often a condition of singing the song and thus turning
it into a hit. There was a lot of that sort of thing going on. But Dave also needed
Jack and Nora’s help because he couldn’t read music. And because he couldn’t
read music, he had made up his own music notation system that only he could
read. Naturally this made it difficult for him to copyright his songs. He
needed Jack and Nora to write it out properly.
So Dave didn’t write music the
way a piano player was supposed to write music, but Nora and Jack also thought
that he didn’t look the way a piano player was supposed to look either. So they
convinced him to make himself up so that he’d look “Japanese”. They also
convinced him to never speak in public, thereby avoiding any awkwardness that
might come from nosey reporters asking him if he wrote the song or not. Since “Japanese”
piano players were rather rare in New York at the time, this seemed to make
reporters want to speak to him even more. But by the time they were able to
talk their way backstage to interview him, Dave had removed his make-up and
just walked right past them unbothered.
Of all the reasons that
performers in this book made themselves up to resemble other races, this has
got to be the more convoluted.**********
So, “Shine On, Harvest Moon”,
what was this song that was so huge that even its supposed composers got sick
of it, about?
There is a girl and there is a
boy and they are out in the countryside at night. But the girl is afraid of the
dark, and she wants to go inside. This poses a problem for the girl and the
boy, since if they go inside they won’t have the privacy required to engage in
the lovin’ for which they both pine. Lovin’ that they haven’t had since April,
January, June or July, a bemusing list of months. So the boy begs the moon to
keep on shining, since if doesn’t get any lovin’ now, he’ll have to wait until
Spring. “Snow time” we are informed is “no time” for spooning. Which begs the
question of how he had had previously gotten lovin’ in January?
The song ends with the boy
proposing to his gal, because that’s how all songs apparently had to end back
then, even on a stage as sinful and decadent as The Follies.
“Shine On, Harvest Moon” was a
huge hit, whether in sheet music form, on stage at the Follies where Nora sang
it, or on the phonograph, were she didn’t. ********** “Shine On, Harvest Moon”
was such a big hit that Tin Pan Alley – an institution already much mocked for
its over reliance on lunar lyrics – went full spoon-moon-June-tune.***********
But one moon-tune eclipsed them
all, possibly because not only did it mention the triplicate of moon, June and
spoon, but also croon and honeymoon! It was “By The Light Of The Silvery Moon”,
and because a moon song had worked so well before, Florenz inserted that too
into his Follies.
He got his new mistress, Lillian,
to sing it. It was her big spotlight moment. ************ Although not as big
of a spotlight moment as when she got to fly an airship over the top of the
audience - okay, sure it was hanging from the ceiling, but it still looked
impressive… and she was at the controls! – whilst singing “Up, Up, Up In My
Airship”!!
Partially due to Nora, but
largely due to his bevy of beautiful girls, by the turn of the decade Florenz
Ziegfeld was basically ruling Broadway. And from Broadway he was ruling the
popular culture of New York. And from New York he was ruling the popular culture
of much of the Western World. He and his floosies would continue to rule that world, for much of
the rest of this book. We'll meet him again.
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