Tucker, Sophie [née Sonia Kalish] (1884–1966), singer. Long billed as “The Last of the Red‐Hot Mamas,” the buxom, brash, blonde performer gave her birthplace as either Russia or Poland. She was still a babe in arms when her parents brought her to America, but within a few years she was singing for customers in her parents' Hartford, Connecticut, restaurant. By 1906 Tucker was performing in vaudeville, later appearing in the [ Ziegfeld] Follies of 1909 and reaching the Palace Theatre in 1914. Among the songs she made famous were “After You've Gone,” “My Yiddishe Mama,” and “Some of These Days,” which became her theme number. Vaudeville historians Charles and Louise Samuels wrote that she “had the biggest, brassiest voice of all. The beat in her voice made your heart pound with it, and in syncopated time.” From 1919 to 1941 Tucker appeared in half a dozen Broadway musicals, most notably as the ambitious Mrs. Goodhue in Leave It to Me! (1938). She continued to perform until her death, playing mostly nightclubs in her last years. Autobiography: Some of These Days, 1945.

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