fanny brice

Fanny Brice (October 29, 1891 � May 29, 1951) was a popular and influential American comedian, singer, theatre and film actress and entertainer, remembered best for her many stage, radio and film appearances and her recordings. She was the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show.

In the decade following her death, she was portrayed on stage and film by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl.

Contents
1 Early life
2 Career
3 Brice portrayals
4 References
5 Watch
6 External links



[edit] Early life
Fanny Brice (occasionally spelled Fannie) was the stage name of Fania Borach, born in New York City, the third child of relatively well-off saloon owners of Hungarian Jewish descent. In 1908, she dropped out of school to work in a burlesque review, and two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies from 1910 into the 1930s.

In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing "My Man" which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for Victor Records. The second song most associated with her is "Second Hand Rose". She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man."

Her films include My Man (1928), Be Yourself! (1930) and Everybody Sing (1938) with Judy Garland. Brice, Ray Bolger and Harriet Hoctor were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946). For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at MP 6415 Hollywood Boulevard.


[edit] Career
From the 1930s until her death in 1951, Fanny made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks, a role she first premiered in a Follies skit. With first Alan Reed and then Hanley Stafford as her bedeviled Daddy, Baby Snooks premiered in The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air in February 1936 on CBS. She moved to NBC in December 1937, performing the Snooks routines as part of the Good News show, then back to CBS on Maxwell House Time, the half-hour divided between the Snooks sketches and comedian Frank Morgan, in September 1944. She was back to NBC in November 1948, in a full show of her own, first called Toasties Time but soon known as The Baby Snooks Show.

Brice was so meticulous about the program and the title character that she was known to perform in costume as a toddler girl even though seen only by the radio studio audience. She was 45 years old when the character began her long radio life. In addition to Reed and Stafford, her co-stars included Lalive Brownell, Lois Corbet, and Arlene Harris playing her mother, Danny Thomas as Jerry, Charlie Cantor as Uncle Louie and Ken Christy as Mr. Weemish. She was completely devoted to the character, as she told biographer Norman Katkov:

Snooks is just the kid I used to be. She's my kind of youngster, the type I like. She has imagination. She's eager. She's alive. With all her deviltry, she is still a good kid, never vicious or mean. I love Snooks, and when I play her I do it as seriously as if she were real. I am Snooks. For 20 minutes or so, Fanny Brice ceases to exist.
Baby Snooks writer Everett Freeman told Katkov that Brice didn't like to rehearse the role but always snapped into it on the air, losing herself completely in the character:

While she was on the air she was Baby Snooks. And after the show, for an hour after the show, she was still Baby Snooks. The Snooks voice disappeared, of course, but the Snooks temperament, thinking, actions were all there.

from the trailer for the film The Great Ziegfeld (1936) in which Brice appeared as herselfBrice had a short-lived marriage in her teens to a local barber, Frank White. Her second husband was professional gambler Julius "Nicky" Arnstein. During their marriage, Arnstein served 14 months for wiretapping in Sing Sing, where his celebrity wife visited him every week. When he was later sentenced to serve two years at Fort Leavenworth for conspiracy to carry stolen securities into the District of Columbia, a heartsick Brice divorced him. She went on to marry songwriter and stage producer Billy Rose and appeared in his revue Crazy Quilt, among others. Unfortunately, that marriage also failed.

Brice and Stafford brought Baby Snooks and Daddy to television only once, an appearance in 1950 on CBS-TV's Popsicle Parade of Stars. This was Fanny Brice's only appearance on television. Viewing the kinescope recording today, Fanny is a strange, but amusing sight: a middle-aged woman in a little girl's outfit (and none of the other cast seem to find this unusual). Brice handled herself well on the live TV broadcast but later admitted that the character of Baby Snooks just didn't work properly when seen. She returned with Stafford and the Snooks character to the safety of radio for her next appearance, on Tallulah Bankhead's legendary big-budget, large-scale radio variety show, The Big Show, in November 1950, sharing the bill with Groucho Marx and Jane Powell. In one routine Snooks knocks on Bankhead's dressing room door for advice on becoming an actress when she grew up in spite of Daddy's warning that she already lacked what it took.

Six months after her Big Show appearance, Fanny Brice died in Hollywood at the age of 59 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

She is interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. The May 29, 1951 episode of The Baby Snooks Show was broadcast as a memorial to the star who created the brattish toddler, crowned by Hanley Stafford's brief on-air eulogy: "We have lost a very real, a very warm, a very wonderful woman."


[edit] Brice portrayals
Although the names of the principal characters were changed, the plot of the 1939 film Rose of Washington Square was inspired heavily by Brice's marriage and career, to the extent it borrowed its title from a tune she performed in the Follies and included "My Man." She sued 20th Century Fox for invasion of privacy and won the case. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was forced to delete several production numbers closely associated with the star.

Barbra Streisand starred as Brice in the 1964 Broadway musical Funny Girl, which centered on Brice's rise to fame and troubled relationship with Arnstein. In 1968, Ms. Streisand won the Academy Award for Best Actress for reprising her role in the film version. The 1975 sequel Funny Lady focused on Brice's turbulent relationship with impresario Billy Rose and was as highly fictionalized as the original. Streisand also recorded the Brice songs "My Man," "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy with Somebody Else)" and "Second Hand Rose," which became a Top 40 hit.

Funny Girl and Funny Lady are examples of how plays and films take great liberties with the lives of historical figures and/or events. The Streisand film makes no mention of Brice's first husband at all. It also suggests that Arnstein turned to crime because his pride wouldn't allow him to live off Fanny; the real Nicky shamelessly sponged off her. The film suggests Nicky sold phony bonds; he was actually part of a gang that stole $5 million of Wall Street securities. Instead of turning himself in, as in the movie, Arnstein went into hiding. When he finally surrendered, he did not plead guilty, as he did in the movie, but fought the charges for four years, taking a toll on his wife's finances.

Two children were born of the Brice-Arnstein marriage but only one is depicted in the film. Daughter Frances married Ray Stark, producer of both the Broadway musical and the film, while son William became an artist of note. Brice had a long and successful collaboration with Irving Berlin that is never mentioned. Many of the events depicted in Funny Lady are extreme exaggerations of the truth or outright fabrications.

will play Fanny Brice in a fall concert version of Jule Styne and Bob Merrill's Funny Girl to benefit Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA.

Directed by Signature artistic director Eric Schaeffer, choreographed by Karma Camp and featuring the Signature Theatre Orchestra directed by Jon Kalbfleisch, Funny Girl ?the 1964 musical about Ziegfeld Follies star Brice ?will be presented 8 PM Nov. 5 at Signature.

A VIP reception for donors will follow the concert. Tickets range from $75 to $500.

In addition to Piro Donovan, who is a Helen Hayes Award winner and starred in Signature's recent The Witches of Eastwick, the troupe will feature George Dvorsky as Nicky Arnstein, with Matt Conner, Steven Cupo, Dana Krueger, Channez McQuay, Margo Seibert, Stephen Gregory Smith, Jane Pesci Townsend, Harry A. Winter and more.

This First Annual American Musical Concert Benefit is "to support the artistic, education, and community outreach programs of the award-winning Signature Theatre."

Barbra Streisand starred in the Broadway and Hollywood productions of the musical biography. The score includes "I'm the Greatest Star," "I Want to Be Seen with You Tonight," "Don't Rain On My Parade" and "People," among others. Fans generally regard the score as Styne's second best ?after Gypsy.

The original Broadway run played 1,348 performances at the Winter Garden, Majestic and Broadway Theatres. The cast also boasted Sydney Chaplin, Kay Medford and Jean Stapleton. Isobel Lennart penned the musical's libretto, based on incidents in the life of Fanny Brice before and after World War I.

Jerry Seinfeld is the latest in a long line of Jewish comic geniuses, such as Harold Lloyd, Eddie Cantor, George Burns, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Sid Ceasar, Lennie Bruce, Mel Brooks and Gilda Radner, to name but a few.

Seinfeld presents a relatively new image of the American Jewish comedian: low-key and au courant. With the exception of Lloyd and Burns, the great majority of successful American Jewish comedians attained popularity by fulfilling widely accepted ethnic Jewish stereotypes or by employing a manic, burlesque style of humor. In the first half of the 20th century, these expectations were almost impossible for Jewish comics to escape. No career illustrates the limits and possibilities of being a Jewish comedian better than that of Fanny Brice.

Born on the Lower East Side of New York in 1891, the third of four children of immigrant saloon-owners, Fania Borach decided early in life to become a performer. Historian Barbara Grossman notes that in an era in which entertainment was typically based on ethnic stereotypes -the drunken Irishman, the ignorant Pole, the Yiddish-accented greenhorn - Brice's "Semitic looks" slotted her into Jewish roles. Despite her efforts to succeed as a serious actress and singer, Brice - who spoke no Yiddish - rose to stardom performing comedy with a Yiddish accent.

In 1908, dropping out of school after the eighth grade, the gangly, strong-voiced Fanny Borach found work as a chorus girl in a burlesque review. By the end of that year, she changed her name to Brice, probably, Grossman speculates, to escape limited Jewish stage roles. Ironically, a year later, she would make her first Broadway mark in a musical comedy, The College Girls, singing Irving Berlin's "Sadie Salome, Go Home" with a put-on Yiddish accent, while dancing a parody of the seductive veil dance in Richard Strauss' opera Salome. Her act brought down the house. Despite her desires, Brice had found her place as a "Jewish" entertainer.

Brice starred in the Ziegfield Follies in the 1920s and 1930s and became known for her beautiful voice and limber grace, which she always used in the service of humor. When she tried dramatic Broadway roles, her plays were unsuccessful.

As Brice's fame increased, so did her notoriety. In 1918, she married Jules "Nicky Arnstein, a handsome, urbane but somewhat inept con man and thief she had lived with for six years. Despite Arnstein's infidelity and a stretch in Sing Sing Prison for illegal wiretapping, the devoted Brice stayed with him, had two children and supported him by working on-stage almost constantly. Brice's tumultuous relationship with the ne'er-do-well Arnstein gave her material for a rare non-ethnic success: appearing in the Ziegfield Follies of 1921, the usually manic comedienne stood nearly motionless on the stage and, singing in a beautiful, unaccented voice, moved audiences to tears with her rendition of "My Man" with its now-classic lyrics, "But whatever my man is, I am his - forever."

In 1924, Arnstein was charged in a Wall Street bond theft. Brice insisted on his innocence and funded his legal defense, at great expense. Arnstein was convicted and sentenced to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. Released in 1927, the ungrateful and unfaithful Arnstein disappeared from Brice's life and that of his two children. Reluctantly, Brice divorced him.

Brice had some of her greatest success during her years as Mrs. Arnstein, including her famous song "Second Hand Rose." Yet, in 1923, as biographer Grossman puts it, Brice "tired of being a sight gag" and had her nose surgically straightened. Still, acceptance eluded her when she tried her hand at "American" drama.

After a failed marriage to Broadway impresario Billy Rose and starring roles in Hollywood film, Brice found a niche -broadcast radio - that made her comfortable. In 1938, she launched her own weekly radio show. A wonderful mimic and impersonator with a great ear for dialect, Brice chose instead to limit herself to one character, Baby Snooks, a precocious, bratty toddler - who had no accent. Her enormously successful run on radio lasted until her death in 1951, just as television was beginning to capture the radio audience.

Barbra Streisand paid tribute to Brice in her loosely biographical film Funny Girl. Lily Tomlin popularized a Baby Snooks-like character on television, Edith Ann, who sits in a rocking chair and makes ironic observations on the adult world. Both stars possess a freedom to choose roles that women have earned since Brice was slotted as Sadie Salome. Just as significant, the acceptance of Jerry Seinfeld's comfortable Jewish identity by a national audience illustrates the great liberation that American Jewry, male or female, has gained in the world of entertainment.





Democratic Leadership Conference Chairman Harold Ford Jr., a former Memphis congressman who lost a closely contested Senate race last year, is engaged.
Ford, 37, told a New York Post celebrity columnist he proposed to Emily Threlkeld, 26, on Friday during a trip to France. He confirmed the announcement with newspapers in Tennessee.


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Threlkeld is a business development manager for fashion designer Carolina Herrera in New York. Ford said his marriage proposal followed a three-year relationship.

Threlkeld contributed $4,100 to Ford's campaign in 2005 and 2006, according to data compiled by The Center for Responsive Politics.

Since losing his bid for the Senate to Republican Bob Corker, Ford has become chairman of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, a vice president at the investment firm Merrill Lynch and an instructor at Vanderbilt University.

An adviser for Ford didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.



On Sunday night, Ronald Perelman hosted a dinner at the Waverly Inn on Charles Street to celebrate the nationwide launch of Revlon Colorist, a new line of Preminum Haircolor products. The guest of honor was Sheryl Crow who is the spokesperson for the product. Other guests included Sophie Dahl and Danny Baker, Law and Order's Alana de la Garza, Rachel Roy and Damon Dash, Linda Wells and Charlie Thompson, Graydon and Anna Carter, Harold Ford and Patti McEnroe.


Ronald Perelman and Sheryl Crow


Ms. Crow flew in that morning and launched the product on Regis and Kelly and made an in store appearance at Walgreens at the Empire State Building. In addition to being the spokesperson for the product, Crow will work with Revlon on several charity based initiatives

The product will be supported by a multi-media campaign that will include television, print, in-store and internet placements featuring Crow's original version of the Buddy Holly hit "Not Fade Away." The campaign was shot by photographer Ellen Von Unworth in Nashville and New York.

In addition to her role as spokesperson for Revlon Colorist, Crow will serve on the advisory board of The Revlon/UCLA Women's Cancer Research Program's national clinical network of oncologists. The network provides patients throughout the country with access to cutting edge clinical trials without having to travel away from homes and families to comprehensive cancer centers for treatment.