| Birth: | Oct. 29, 1891 | | Death: | May 29, 1951 | 
American comedienne, primarily on stage (a long run in the “Ziegfeld Follies”) and radio (“Baby Snooks”). Born on the Lower East Side of New York, a child of immigrants who owned a chain of saloons, she dropped out of school after the eighth grade to take a job as a chorus girl in a burlesque review (in those days burlesque was not automatically equated with striptease). At first she tried to avoid the ethnic stereotyping associated with her looks, but when she scored a hit with Irving Berlin's "Sadie Salome, Go Home" in the revue “The College Girls” (1909) with a put-on Yiddish accent (she spoke no Yiddish herself) while dancing a parody of the seductive veil dance in Richard Strauss' opera “Salome,” she found her niche – satiric take-offs of the beauty-obsessed. Showman Florenz Ziegfeld hired her for the “Follies” of 1910, and she continued to appear in the Follies until Ziegfeld’s death in 1932 (and even after: 1934 and 1936 versions were produced by the Shuberts). Despite her flair for manic comedy, she made one of her biggest marks in the “Follies” with the torch song “My Man,” standing nearly motionless and singing in a clear, unaccented voice (perhaps some of the depth of the performance came from her rocky relationship with small-time con-man and second husband Nicky Arnstein). The Baby Snooks character, a loveably obnoxious little brat, started out as a routine she did at parties, then was brought onstage for the Follies, but Brice had her biggest success with it on radio, appearing on virtually every major radio variety program from 1938 until her death. Brice played herself in the 1936 biopic “The Great Ziegfeld,” and was played by Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” (stage, 1964; film, 1968) and “Funny Lady” (1975), which portrayed Brice’s relationship with third husband Billy Rose. (A 1939 film musical, “Rose of Washington Square,” so closely paralleled the events of Brice’s life that she sued 20th Century-Fox for invasion of privacy and won.) (bio by: Paul F. Wilson)
Search Amazon for Fanny Brice | | | Burial:
Home of Peace Memorial Park
*
East Los Angeles
Los Angeles County
California, USA
*Former burial location |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Jan 01, 2001
Find A Grave Memorial# 133 |
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(4.5 after 149 votes)
