Video posted to YouTube by ojamiguel. 1946 Ziegfield Follies [film] excerpt “Norma, the Sweepstakes Winner” staring Fanny Brice, Hume Cronyn, and William Frawley. This is a reprise of a skit Ms. Brice did on stage in the Ziegfield Follies [stage]. Hume Cronyn looks great here and is about twenty years younger than Ms. Brice. Many people wont remember William Frawley from his movie star days, but will certainly remember him as Fred of Fred and Ethal in I Love Lucy.
Public domain photographs from the George Grantham Bain Collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.
Top photograph is not dated: estimate from fashion: c. late 1910s.
Lower photograph: c. 1911.
Fania Borach, a.k.a. Fanny Brice.
Star of radio, television, stage (mainly the famed Ziegeld Follies), screen. Comedienne. Chanteuse.
October 29, 1892 (New York City, NY) – May 29, 1951 (Hollywood, CA)
Though a Yiddish accent was her signature shtick*, she didn’t speak the language.
I breathed and ate and drank and lived theater — in my neighborhood were all the nationalities of all of Europe. That is where I learned my accents; the Polish woman with her intonation rising up like chant. I saw Loscha of the Coney Island popcorn counter and Marta of the cheeses at Brodsky’s Delicatessen and the Sadies and the Rachels and the Birdies at the Second Avenue dance halls. They all welded together and came out staggeringly true to type in one big authentic outline. Fanny Brice, 1936
She made such an impression on folks that though she died when I was one, I feel like I remember her because my elders talked about her so ofen and her movies were shown as reruns. I apparently was not the only one so impressed: some fifteen years after her death she was honored with a portrayal by Barbara Streisand in Funny Girl. I saw the play on stage with Mimi Hines. Lily Tomlin‘s Edith Ann owes more than a nod to one of Fanny Brice’s most well-know and loved characters, Baby Snooks:
Copyrighted David Stone Martin illustration under fair use, NBC Publicity; web source: http://www.drawger.com/kroninger/?section=comments&article_id=4635.
Ms. Brice was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the child of Hungarian Jews. She grew up dreaming of the theatre, was fired by George M. Cohen, and saved by Irving Berlin. When she was fired by Cohen, she did the usual dance with small-time vaudeville venues that were typical of her day, but she remained determined to make it to Broadway. She went to see Berlin when she needed an act for a charity show. He introduced her to his new vamp Sadie Cohen song, Sadie Salome (go home), which I think morphed in Sadie, Sadie Married Lady in the movie Funny Girl. After that, she was hired by Zeigfield and her career took off. Her success was unprecedented. America embraced her despite her ethnic act. In fact they loved her, particularly the confrontational Baby Snooks, whom she played until shortly before her death of cerebral hemorrhage.
I breathed and ate and lived theatre — in my neighborhood were all the nationalities of all of Europe. That is where I learned my accents; the Polish woman with her intonation rising up like chant. I saw Loscha of the Coney Island popcorn counter and Marta of the cheeses at Brodsky’s Delicatessen and the Sadies and the Rachels and the Birdies at the Second Avenue dance halls. They all welded together and came out staggeringly true to type in one big authentic outline. Broadway, the American Musical, by Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon.
Ultimately, there’s a lot we can say about Fanny Brice; but the truth is, she was simply yet another really funny smart New York girl.
Video posted to YouTube by preservationhall01.
* schtick-Yiddish-a device (trick, cheating) to get attention.
