Well-written life of the great comedienne, today known best as the
original of Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl and Funny Woman; by the
author of 1988's well-received Jolson. Goldman, an intense
researcher, caps his present bio with a big
stageography-filmography-discography-bibliography. Brice
(1891-1951) has had only one previous biography, 1952's The
Fabulous Fanny by Norman Katkov, which was adapted from her own
unpublished memoirs and had little to say about her career. Aside
from Streisand's misleading musical film-bios, she is
semi-forgotten and remembered largely for her radio shows as Baby
Snooks. But in many ways, her life holds tremendous fascination,
and the present work hasn't a dull moment. Brice, born Borach on
New York's Lower East Side, showed early comic talents, began
earning $30 a week as a kid by winning amateur contests all over
Brooklyn and Manhattan and playing in light stage-shows. She grew
professionally in vaudeville and burlesque, moving from chorus girl
to singer-dancer, was a knockout at Yiddish dialect or throwaway
lines of Brooklynese (which Streisand captured perfectly). Then, at
only 19, she landed in Ziegfeld's Follies for 1910 and thereafter
was featured in every edition but two until 1923. As a singer she
could thrill audiences, much like Al Jolson or the later Judy
Garland, while her genius for comedy, as in her mock ballet "The
Dying Duck," melted them into salty puddles of hysteria. Her fame
grew exponentially when her first husband, con man Nick Arnstein,
was jailed and later became a world-famous fugitive. His
selfishness finally killed the marriage, and Fanny later married
impresario Billy Rose, another failed union. Her great hit, a
closed-eyes rendition of "My Man," was not the show-stopper of
Funny Girl: audiences at the real thing were too wiped out for a
huge response. A celebrity bio the way they should be written.
(Kirkus Reviews)
"I've done everything in the theatre except marry a property man,"
Fanny Brice once boasted. "I've acted for Belasco and I've laid 'em
out in the rows at the Palace. I've doubled as an alligator; I've
worked for the Shuberts; and I've been joined to Billy Rose in the
holy bonds. I've painted the house boards and I've sold tickets and
I've been fired by George M. Cohan. I've played in London before
the king and in Oil City before miners with lanterns in their
caps." Fanny Brice was indeed show business personified, and in
this luminous volume, Herbert G. Goldman, acclaimed biographer of
Al Jolson, illuminates the life of the woman who inspired the
spectacularly successful Broadway show and movie Funny Girl, the
vehicle that catapulted Barbra Streisand to super stardom.
In a work that is both glorious biography and captivating theatre
history, Goldman illuminates both Fanny's remarkable career on
stage and radio--ranging from her first triumph as "Sadie Salome"
to her long run as radio's "Baby Snooks"--and her
less-than-triumphant personal life. He reveals a woman who was a
curious mix of elegance and earthiness, of high and low class, a
lady who lived like a duchess but cursed like a sailor. She was
probably the greatest comedienne the American stage has ever known
as well as our first truly great torch singer, the star of some of
the most memorable Ziegfeld Follies in the 1910s and 1920s, and
Goldman covers her theatrical career and theatre world in vivid
detail. But her personal life, as Goldman shows, was less
successful. The great love of her life, the gangster Nick Arnstein,
was dashing, handsome, sophisticated, but at bottom, a loser who
failed at everything from running a shirt hospital to manufacturing
fire extinguishers, and who spent a good part of their marriage
either hiding out, awaiting trial, or in prison. Her first marriage
was over almost as soon as it was consummated, and her third and
last marriage, to Billy Rose, the "Bantam Barnum," ended
acrimoniously when Rose left her for swimmer Eleanor Holm. As she
herself remarked, "I never liked the men I loved, and I never loved
the men I liked." Through it all, she remained unaffected,
intelligent, independent, and, above all, honest.
Goldman's biography of Al Jolson has been hailed by critics,
fellow biographers, and entertainers alike. Steve Allen called it
"an amazing job of research" and added "Goldman's book brings
Jolson back to life indeed." The Philadelphia Inquirer said it was
"the most comprehensive biography to date," and Ronald J. Fields
wrote that "Goldman has captured not only the wonderful feel of Al
Jolson but the heartbeat of his time." Now, with Fanny Brice,
Goldman provides an equally accomplished portrait of the greatest
woman entertainer of that illustrious era, a volume that will
delight every lover of the stage.
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