Held, Anna (1873–1918), singer and actress. The tiny, slightly plump, coquettish entertainer, with reddish‐brown hair and large, expressive brown eyes was born in Paris of Polish‐French parentage. Her early years were impoverished, and when her father died young, her mother took her to London, where she appeared in the chorus of some musicals. In 1895 Florenz Ziegfeld, who later married her, saw Held perform and brought her to America. Playgoers first saw her in an 1896 revival of A Parlor Match. The “veiled naughtiness of her songs” coupled with her sly, teasing delivery won her instant fame. She appeared in La Poupee (1897), Papa's Wife (1899), The Little Duchess (1901), Mam'selle Napoleon (1903), Higgledy Piggledy (1904), The Parisian Model (1906), and Miss Innocence (1908). After her separation from Ziegfeld she devoted most of her time to vaudeville, but she returned to musical comedy for a final time in Follow Me (1916). Among the songs associated with her were “Won't You Come and Play with Me?,” “I Just Can't Make My Eyes Behave,” and “It's Delightful to Be Married.”

The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. Copyright © 2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.