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The Man Who Invented Show Business
by Ethan Mordden
Any girl who twists her hat will be fired! – Florenz Ziegfeld
And no Ziegfeld girl ever did as she made her way down the gala stairways of
the Ziegfeld Follies in some of the most astonishing spectacles the
American theatergoing public ever witnessed.
When Florenz Ziegfeld started in theater, it was flea circus, operetta and
sideshow all rolled into one. When he left it, the glamorous world of
"show-biz" had been created. Though many know him as the man who "glorified the
American girl," his first real star attraction was the bodybuilder Eugen Sandow,
who flexed his muscles and thrilled the society matrons who came backstage to
squeeze his biceps. His lesson learned with Sandow, Ziegfeld went on to
present Anna Held, the naughty French sensation, who became the first Mrs.
Ziegfeld. He was one of the first impresarios to mix headliners of different
ethnic backgrounds, and literally the earliest proponent of mixed-race casting.
The stars he showcased and, in some cases, created have become legends: Billie
Burke (who also became his wife), elfin Marilyn Miller, cowboy Will Rogers, Bert
Williams, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor and, last but not least, neighborhood diva
Fanny Brice. A man of voracious sexual appetites when it came to beautiful
women, Ziegfeld knew what he wanted and what others would want as well. From
that passion, the Ziegfeld Girl was born. Elaborately bejeweled, they wore
little more than a smile as they glided through eye-popping tableaux that were
the highlight of the Follies, presented almost every year from 1907 to
1931.
Ziegfeld's reputation and power, however, went beyond the stage of the
Follies as he produced a number of other musicals, among them the
ground-breaking Show Boat. In Ziegfeld: The Man Who Created Show
Business, Ethan Mordden recreates the lost world of the Follies, a
place of long-vanished beauty masterminded by one of the most inventive,
ruthless, street-smart and exacting men ever to fill a theatre on the Great
White Way : Florenz Ziegfeld.
"Starred Review. The author's descriptions are enlivening, his profiles sharp, his tone casual and elegant. He may never have met a diversion he didn't like or a zinger he couldn't resist." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Highly recommended for theater collections." - Library Journal.
"[Ethan Mordden possesses] the kind of long view and deep investigation that almost no writer has previously brought to bear on the [history of the Broadway stage]." - The New York Times.
"Ethan Mordden, the almost absurdly prolific theatrical chronicler, has compiled a serious and engaging history. Mordden's evocation of the glory days of drama is a handsome reminder—the next best thing, as they say, to being there." - The Washington Post Book World.
"Starred Review. Erudite, but casual and conversational, and full of fresh perceptions, Mordden is a charmingly insightful raconteur who condenses 40 years' worth of opening nights into a single engrossing montage." - Publishers Weekly.
This information about Ziegfeld was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ethan Mordden has written extensively for The New Yorker and The New York Times. Besides non-fiction on theatre, music, and film, he is the author of the Buddies cycle of short stories. The stories, adapted for the stage by Scott Edward Smith as Buddies, played an engagement at the Celebration Theater in Los Angeles.
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