The Ziegfeld Follies | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Brainchild of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld and his first wife, European singer Anna Held, The Ziegfeld Follies dominated the American theatrical revue scene from 1907 until the late 1920s and early 1930s when the popularity of vaudeville began to diminish. Featuring scores of women in elaborate costumes and boasting the debut of some of the country's most popular songs like "Shine on Harvest Moon," The Follies started as an American version of satiric French cabaret acts whose sophistication Ziegfeld hoped to evoke in order to appeal to a high-hat audience. Ziegfeld's attempt at continental appeal, however, could not match the flamboyance and over-thetop glitz his own personal flair lended to his works. Thus The Ziegfeld Follies offered a hybrid: high-brow artistic endeavor reflected, for example, in the Art Nouveau sets designed by artist Nathan Urban and near vulgarity evidenced by skimpy, even gaudy, costuming. Though The Passing Show originating in 1894 constitutes the very first American revue, Ziegfeld's combination of dance routines, still tableaux, stand-up comedy, political satire, one-act plays, and optical illusions became the most well known, an emblem of its era and the quintessential revue. The spectacle was what critic Marjorie Farnsworth calls, "a feast of desire" and it reflected what F. Scott Fitzgerald called the Jazz Age and its celebration of economic prosperity and hedonism.

The key to The Ziegfeld Follies' extraordinary popularity and influence lay in Ziegfeld's appreciation for the revue staple, the chorus girl. Where other revue shows at the time typically used around twenty chorus girls and perhaps two or three costume-changes a show, Ziegfeld arrayed 120 girls before his audiences. He dressed them in imported fabrics of tremendous extravagance and his own outrageous design, giving them five or six wardrobe changes an evening. He famously handpicked not only his fabrics but his chorus line as well, selecting only those he considered the most beautiful women of the day. Based on his connoisseurship of women and his helping to launch the Broadway musical called Glorifying the American Girl, Ziegfeld became known as "the Glorifier." He adored women and had numerous affairs with his employees, but he also viewed them as art objects to sculpt and perfect. He wrote newspaper columns outlining his specifications for the perfect female figure. In the mid-1920s he declared the tall statuesque look "out" and the shorter, more vivacious figure "in." His aim was to create a fantasy world of radiant women with perfect figures whose beauty and allure transcended anything any spectator could have ever before witnessed. The Follies offered outlandish dance numbers, including one in which the chorines dressed as taxicabs and moved across a darkened stage, their headlamps the only light. Ziegfeld also billed optical illusions that played off the encroaching movie industry. In one, he displayed a film of a featured performer running down a path. At the end of the path there suddenly appeared the actress herself, the screen apparently disappearing behind her. In another famous routine, "Laceland," the dancers wore glow-in-the-dark painted costumes and dressed as milliner objects—scissors, thimble, needle, etc.—and danced around a woman tatting lace. As early as 1909 Ziegfeld rigged his theatre ceiling to "fly" performer Lillian Lorraine above audience's heads while she sang, "Up, Up, Up in My Airship." Ziegfeld is also credited with the idea of a chorine or featured female performer entering the stage by descending a staircase. This image was later picked up and magnified by musical choreographer, Busby Berkeley in movies like his Gold Digger series, all of which were influenced by The Ziegfeld Follies.

The Follies chorus became known as "Ziegfeld Girls." Discussed in gossip columns as public personalities, Ziegfeld Girls were precursors to movie stars, both figuratively and literally. Before them, chorus girls were anonymous, everyday women. After Ziegfeld promoted them, they became celebrities, and many of them then went on to become famous film stars. That list includes Barbara Stanwyck, Paulette Goddard, and Ziegfeld's last wife, Billie Burke.

The Ziegfeld Follies launched a number of other famous personalities. Among the male comedians to take their first bow on Ziegfeld's stage were Bert Lahr, Eddy Cantor, and the well-loved humor-ist, Will Rogers, who began his career with Ziegfeld by making fun of politicians and satirizing news of the day. His style was folksy but his humor had a contemporary edge. The comedienne Fanny Brice also made her name as a long-running performer in The Ziegfeld Follies as did legendary songwriters, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and Oscar Hammerstein.

The Ziegfeld Follies' vaunted showgirl lives on in the nightclub acts of Las Vegas and Atlantic City but she's lost the lavish, individualized attention Florenz Ziegfeld bestowed upon her. His own legend survives in films based on his career and the dizzying, singular history of The Follies. These include 1941's Ziegfeld Girl, directed by Busby Berkeley and featuring James Stewart and Lana Turner and the 1946 Academy Award-winning Ziegfeld Follies directed by Vincent Minnelli and starring William Powell as Ziegfeld. Fanny Brice's life and career became the subject of the 1964 play, Funny Girl, made into a film in 1968 and for which actress and singer Barbra Streisand won an Academy Award. A follow-up film also based on Brice and featuring Streisand appeared in 1975 titled, Funny Lady. In the mid-1990s, Broadway staged The Will Rogers Follies, a Tony Award-winning musical billed as "paying tribute to two American legends—Will Rogers and The Ziegfeld Follies. "

Cantor, Eddie. The Great Glorifier. New York, A. H. King, 1934.

Carter, Randolph. The World of Flo Ziegfeld. New York, Praeger, 1974.

Farnsworth, Marjorie. The Ziegfeld Follies. New York, Bonanza Books, 1956.

Higham, Charles. Ziegfeld. Chicago, Regnery, 1972.

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