Florenz Ziegfeld

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Ziegfeld, Florenz, Jr. (1867–1932), producer. The most famous of all American showmen, still synonymous with glamour and opulence, he was born in Chicago, where his father ran a musical conservatory. As director of musical events for the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the elder Ziegfeld sent his son to Europe to secure talent. Instead of hiring distinguished musical figures, the young Ziegfeld signed on music‐hall performers and circus acts. In 1893 he also became manager of the strongman Eugene Sandow, and his promotion of the muscle man established his own name, too. Ziegfeld's first Broadway production was an 1896 revival of A Parlor Match, which featured his first wife, Anna Held. His subsequent productions, mostly vehicles for Held, were Papa's Wife (1899), The Little Duchess (1901), The Red Feather (1903), Mam'selle Napoleon (1903), Higgledy Piggledy (1904), and A Parisian Model (1906). Even in these early productions he began to earn a reputation for offering a chorus line of beautiful girls in sumptuous costumes. His next production was the Follies of 1907, which initiated the famous series called the Ziegfeld Follies. His other musical productions included The Soul Kiss (1908), Miss Innocence (1908), Over the River (1912), A Winsome Widow (1912), The Century Girl (1916), Miss 1917, Sally (1920), Kid Boots (1923), Annie Dear (1924), Louie the 14th (1925), No Foolin' (1926), Betsy (1926), Rio Rita (1927), Show Boat (1927), Rosalie (1928), The Three Musketeers (1928), Whoopee (1928), Show Girl (1929), Bitter Sweet (1929), Simple Simon (1930), Smiles (1930), a 1932 revival of Show Boat, and Hot‐Cha! (1932). Although he was often accused in his day of being indifferent to great comics or great show songs, his roster of brilliant clowns and the numerous still‐popular melodies that came from his shows belie the accusations. He also produced a number of nonmusical plays, including Rose Briar (1922) for his second wife, Billie Burke. Ziegfeld's personal extravagances were as well publicized as his shows—among them his penchant for sending long telegrams to people within reach of his phone. His productions were the costliest of their day and were praised not merely for their richness but for their tasteful visual beauty, especially those designed by Joseph Urban. The producer's excellences so overshadowed those of his associates in contemporary eyes that, for example, the original production of Show Boat was hailed by most critics as a Ziegfeld show and not a Kern or Hammerstein show. Writing of the earlier Sally, Alexander Woollcott concluded, “It is of none of these, not of Urban, nor Jerome Kern, not of Leon Errol, not even of Marilyn Miller that you think as you rush for the subway at ten minutes to midnight. You think of Mr. Ziegfeld. He is that kind of producer. There are not many of them in the world.” Through much of his career he was associated with two of New York's almost legendary theatres, the New Amsterdam, where most of his Follies played, and the Ziegfeld, which he opened in 1927. Biography: Ziegfeld, Charles Higham, 1972.

Florenz Ziegfeld (1869-1932) developed the American musical revue and became a dominant force in musical theater in the early 20th century.

Florenz Ziegfeld was born in Chicago, III., on March 21, 1869. His father was a German musician of the old school who eventually became president of the Chicago Musical College. Young "Flo" found this dignified life too quiet. In his first venture into show business he managed Sandow, the strong man of the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893. He next turned to theatrical management. In London in the 1890s he met the French beauty Anna Held and placed her under contract. Recognizing the American public's insatiable urge to know about the private lives of stars, he promoted Held into national attention with press releases describing her milk baths. He married her in 1897; they were divorced in 1913.

Ziegfeld's early musical productions enjoyed modest success; more important, he was perfecting his style. In 1906 The Parisian Model featured the beautiful girls and intricate though precise musical numbers that made him famous. That summer he visited Paris, and the Folies-Berge‧re became the model for his annual Ziegfeld Follies. Recognizing that the risqué elements of the Folies would be unacceptable in the United States, Ziegfeld substituted more displays of beautiful girls.

Few realized the future of the Ziegfeld Follies when it first opened in July 1907. Presented on the New York Theater roof, the Follies was an immediate success, and in September Ziegfeld moved it indoors. By 1910 others were beginning to copy his format, but no other revues had the precision, discipline, and homogeneity of the Ziegfeld Follies.

In 1915 Ziegfeld added an important element when he hired Joseph Urban as designer. Urban's sense of spectacle was perfectly suited to the Ziegfeld idea - beautiful girls, intricate numbers, lavish and artistic design. The Ziegfeld pattern was completed with stars: Fannie Brice, Marilyn Miller, Bert Williams, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Gilda Grey, Gallagher and Shean, and Will Rogers were under contract at one time or another. Ziegfeld had a sharp eye for talent. The first Follies had cost only $13,000 to produce; the preproduction costs of the 1927 Follies totaled nearly $300,000.

While continuing the Follies, Ziegfeld returned to musical comedy in 1920. Among his hits were Sally (1920), Show Boat and Rio Rita (both 1927), and Bitter Sweet (1929). Ziegfeld abandoned the Follies in 1927; by the time he returned to it in 1931, the magic was gone. He had lost some of his touch, and the mood of the country, deep in the Great Depression, had changed. He died on July 22, 1932, in Hollywood, Calif.

Further Reading

No definitive work on Ziegfeld has appeared, but Cecil Smith, Musical Comedy in America (1950), contains information about his career.

Additional Sources

Ziegfeld, Richard E., The Ziegfeld touch: the life and times of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., New York: H.N. Abrams, 1993.

(1867?-1932), theatrical producer and creator of The Ziegfeld Follies. As the master showman of the early twentieth century, Ziegfeld brought a unique and sophisticated style, taste, and extravagance to the theater, popularizing a new form of entertainment called the revue.

Perhaps in reaction to his strict father's classical music career, Ziegfeld entered show business as a producer of variety entertainments, such as "dancing ducks" and later "Sandow, the Strongman." But not until his production of A Parlor Match, with French performer Anna Held, did Ziegfeld demonstrate his talent as an impresario by using beautiful women, lavish costumes, and elaborate scenery to create spectacle. Ziegfeld staged A Parlor Match so that the production emphasized Held's beauty and risqué charm; although she appeared in only one scene, she became the star of the show. Ziegfeld entered into a common law marriage with Held soon after this success; they divorced in 1912. Later he married Billie Burke, a musical comedy star who appeared as Glenda, the good witch, in the film The Wizard of Oz.

As a result of the success of A Parlor Match, the producing firm of Klaw and Erlanger approached Ziegfeld to mount a light musical entertainment for the summer season. He devised a show that combined European style with American topical humor. The result, The Follies of 1907, was so successful that Ziegfeld produced the show annually, eventually calling it The Ziegfeld Follies.

Twenty-one editions of the Follies were staged. Over the years, the productions developed from a modest topical review of current events with a chorus of women, staged during the slack summer season, to a complex spectacular presentation, lavish in style and grand in scale, serving as the regular season's premiere entertainment. In a two-act presentation of twenty-three scenes, Ziegfeld blended comedy sketches, dances, and specialty acts with costly costumes and innovative scenery into a carefully crafted production that emphasized the beauty of the sixty-woman chorus--the Follies' most noted feature. The shows were kaleidoscopic, for Ziegfeld was a master at blending these elements into an organic, spectacular whole. Called the "Great Glorifier," Ziegfeld created a theatrical environment in which the chorus as well as the featured performers, such as Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, and Eddie Cantor, assumed a special and heightened star status.

Because of the Follies' emphases on opulence, spectacle, and beauty, the shows embodied the values of an America imbued with the notion of prosperity and the American Dream. Significantly, the names of the elite who attended on opening nights--the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Guggenheims, show business celebrities--were mentioned in newspaper reviews of the shows.

The Follies also represented the height of American show business, for Ziegfeld did not let financial considerations impinge upon artistic ones in the creation of his personal theatrical vision. With his death in 1932, at the height of the depression, the American theater lost not only a great showman but a form of entertainment never matched or duplicated since.

Bibliography:

Randolf Carter, The World of Flo Ziegfeld (1962); Charles Higham, Ziegfeld (1972).

Author:

Geraldine Maschio

See also Musical Theater.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.
Born	March 21, 1867(1867-03-21) Chicago, Illinois
Died	July 22, 1932 (aged 65) Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Spouse(s)	Billie Burke (1914-1932)
Domestic partner(s)	Anna Held (1897-1913)

Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld, Jr. (March 21, 1867 – July 22, 1932) was an American Broadway impresario. He is best known for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907-1931), inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He was known as the "glorifier of the American girl".^[1]

Contents 1 Early life and career 1.1 Ziegfeld Theatre and Show Boat 2 Death 3 Film 4 Broadway productions 5 References 6 External links

Early life and career

Ziegfeld was born in Chicago to German immigrant parents. His father, Florenz Ziegfeld, Sr., ran a successful College of Music. Ziegfeld's first foray into entertainment was at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition, where he managed the strongman, Eugen Sandow. His stage spectaculars, known as the Ziegfeld Follies, began with Follies of 1907 and were produced annually until 1931. These extravaganzas, with elaborate costumes and sets, featured beauties chosen personally by Ziegfeld in production numbers choregraphed to the works of prominent composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern.^[1]

The Follies featured many performers who, though well-known from previous work in other theatrical genres, achieved unique financial success and publicity with Ziegfeld. Included among these are Nora Bayes, Fanny Brice, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Marilyn Miller, Will Rogers, Bert Williams and Ann Pennington.

His promotion of the Polish-French Anna Held, including press releases about her milk baths, brought her fame and set a pattern of star-making through publicity. Ziegfeld helped oversee her meteoric rise to national fame. It was Held who first suggested an American imitation of the Parisian Follies to Ziegfeld. ^[2] Ziegfeld never married Held, but they maintained a common-law relationship, outrageously scandalous in that day and age, which ended in 1913, allegedly solely because he moved his mistress into an apartment one floor up from theirs.

The following year, Ziegfeld married actress Billie Burke, best known for playing Glinda in The Wizard of Oz. They had one child, Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson, born in 1916. The family lived on his estate in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, and Palm Beach, Florida.^[3]

Ziegfeld Theatre and Show Boat

Flo Ziegfeld and Sandow, c. 1893

At a cost of $2.5 million, he built the 1600-seat Ziegfeld Theatre on the west side of Sixth Avenue between 54th and 55th Streets. Designed by Joseph Urban and Thomas Lamb, the auditorium was egg-shaped with the stage at the narrow end. A huge medieval-style mural, The Joy of Life, covered the walls and ceiling. To finance the construction, Ziegfeld borrowed from William Randolph Hearst, who took control of the theater after Ziegfeld's death.

The Ziegfeld Theatre opened February, 1927, with his production of Rio Rita, which ran until April, 1928, followed by Show Boat. Although he recognized its artistic value, he was terrified Show Boat would fail because of its unusually dramatic storyline. According to an eyewitness, the audience barely applauded on opening night, but it was not because they disliked the show, but because they were so taken aback. It was a great success, with a run from December, 1927, until May, 1929. In 1932, after Ziegfeld lost much of his money in the stock market crash, he staged a revival of Show Boat backed by "angels" David and Barney Warfield. It became the biggest grosser on Broadway, until the Great Depression affected its run (May to October, 1932). That same year, he brought his Follies stars to CBS Radio with The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.^[4]

Death

Ziegfeld died in Hollywood, California on July 22, 1932 from pleurisy related to a previous lung infection.^[1] He had been in Los Angeles only a few days after moving from a New Mexico sanitarium.^[1] His death left Burke with substantial debts, driving her toward film acting in an effort to settle them. He is interred in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, Westchester Co., New York.

Film

Screen versions of three of Ziegfeld's hit stage musicals were produced in the early sound film era: Sally (First National, 1929) starring Marilyn Miller; Rio Rita (RKO, 1929) starring Bebe Daniels and John Boles; and Whoopee! (Goldwyn, 1930) starring Eddie Cantor. All were filmed in Technicolor and closely followed the original stage productions, although Whoopee featured an almost entirely new score. Rio Rita and Whoopee were both made under Ziegfeld's personal supervision.

Show Boat was filmed three times. The first version, a part-talkie released in 1929 while the show was still playing, was not really based on the show, but on the Edna Ferber novel that inspired the musical, and was very, very different from the show. Nevertheless, Ziegfeld appeared in a sound prologue made to be shown before the actual film. The other two film versions of Show Boat were made after Ziegfeld's death, and were more faithful to the show. The highly acclaimed and financially successful 1936 film version featured many people who had either worked on or appeared in the show. The 1951 Technicolor film, while often disparaged by critics, was even more of a box-office hit.

A semi-biographical film, The Great Ziegfeld, was produced in 1936. A film recreating the Follies in an all-star screen version, Ziegfeld Follies, was produced in 1946. Both were made by MGM and featured William Powell as Ziegfeld.

A made-for-television film, Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women, starring Paul Shenar as Ziegfeld, Samantha Eggar as Billie Burke and Barbara Parkins as Anna Held, was produced by Columbia Pictures amd shown on NBC in 1978. This movie occasionally plays on STARZ cable channel in a truncated version.

Broadway productions

• A Parlor Match - 1893
• The French Maid - 1897
• Papa's Wife - 1899
• The Little Duchess - 1901
• Red Feather - 1903
• Mam'selle Napoleon - 1903
• Higgledy-Piggledy - 1904
• Higgledy-Piggledy - 1905
• The Parisian Model - 1906
• The Follies of 1907 - 1907
• The Parisian Model - 1908
• The Soul Kiss - 1908
• The Follies of 1908 - 1908
• Miss Innocence - 1908
• The Follies of 1909 - 1909
• The Follies of 1910 - 1910
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1911 - 1911
• Over the River - 1912
• A Winsome Widow - 1912
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1912 - 1912
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1913 - 1913
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1914 - 1914
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1915- 1915
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1916 - 1916
• The Century Girl - 1916
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1917 - 1917
• The Rescuing Angel - 1917
• Miss 1917 - 1917
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 - 1918
• By Pigeon Post - 1918
• Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic - 1919
• Caesar's Wife - 1919
• Ziegfeld Girls of 1920 - 1920
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1920 - 1920
• Sally - 1920
• Ziegfeld 9 O'clock Frolic - 1921
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 - 1921
• The Intimate Strangers - 1921
• Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic - 1921
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1922 - 1922
• Rose Briar - 1922
• Sally - 1923
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1923 - 1923
• Kid Boots - 1923
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1924 - 1924
• Annie Dear - 1924
• Louis the 14th - 1925
• Ziegfeld's Revue 'No Foolin' - 1926
• Betsy - 1926
• Rio Rita - 1927
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1927 - 1927
• Show Boat - 1927
• Rosalie - 1928
• The Three Musketeers - 1928
• Whoopee! - 1928
• Show Girl - 1929
• Bitter Sweet - 1930
• Simple Simon - 1930
• Smiles - 1930
• Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 - 1931
• Hot-Cha! - 1932
• Show Boat - 1932

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Florenz Ziegfeld Dies in Hollywood After Long Illness". New York Times. July 23, 1933. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0321.html. Retrieved 2009-02-19. "Florenz Ziegfeld, musical comedy producer, died tonight at a hospital here. Death came at 10:31 P. M., after an unexpected setback that developed only tonight. Only Dr. Marcus Radwin, attending physician, and a nurse were in the room when the producer died." 
2. ^ Cambridge Guide to the American Theatre, (New York: Cambridge UP, 1995) 511
3. ^ "Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson, Daughter of Legendary Broadway Impresario". Jazz News. 2008-04-25. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=18104. Retrieved 2008-05-11. 
4. ^ Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-507678-8.

External links

• Florenz Ziegfeld at the Internet Broadway Database
• Florenz Ziegfeld at the Internet Movie Database
• Ziegfeld biography by John Kenrick
• Florenz Ziegfeld at Find a Grave
• Portrait of Ziegfeld and his wife Billie Burke

Persondata
NAME	Ziegfeld, Florenz, Jr.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Ziegfeld, Flo
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Broadway impresario
DATE OF BIRTH	March 21, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH	Chicago, Illinois
DATE OF DEATH	July 22, 1932
PLACE OF DEATH	Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

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