Film homage Anna Held poster 1903 Tabor Opera House Leadville Colorado 1971-2008
by David Lee Guss
Title
Film homage Anna Held poster 1903 Tabor Opera House Leadville Colorado 1971-2008
Artist
David Lee Guss
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The Polish born Anna Held (1872-1918) was the toast, as a performer, lyricist and composer, of Broadway from 1896 to 1914, heavily promoted by master showman/impresario Florenz Ziegfeld (1867-1932).
"Mam'selle Napoleon" is a 1903 production of his. (The show opened 9 days before the Wright Brothers were the first humans to fly a heavier than air craft on December 17th.)
Held appeared in the 1907 edition of Ziegfeld's Follies. 21 Follies ran from 1907 to 1931 in New York City's New Amsterdam Theater; built in the style of architectural Art Nouveau.
The 1936 Film "The Great Ziegfeld" features Louise Rainer as Held. Both the film and Rainer won Academy Awards.
Eugene Sandow, the body builder/strong man, was managed by Ziegfeld. He stepped before the Thomas Edison camera in 1894. The Prussian born Sandow (1867-1925) was Ziegfeld's first star; a high point of The Chicago World's Fair (1893).
Sandow's 27 seconds appearance, displayed as brief film loops in Edison's Kinetoscope, was "part of the first commercial motion picture exhibition in history" on April 13, 1894 in New York City.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWM2ixqua3Y
An early talkie "Glorifing the American Girl" (1929) features two strip Technicolor recreations of Ziegfeld's stage productions. The skimpy costumes (or even lack of any) would never have passed the censors four years later when the Production Code was enforced.
Ziegfeld personally supervised the production numbers which feature show girls who had been in his Follles. He appears as himself in the film without credit.
Ziegfeld is considered the greatest Broadway impresario ever; especially with musical theater.
Future Tarzan, Johnny Weismuller, is glimpsed briefly as "Adonis" in the beginning of the "Loveland" number.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7gEgDVm50
Ziegfeld's crowning achievement was producing the ground breaking musical (music by Jerome Kern, book/lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein 2nd) "Show Boat" in 1927. Nine years later Universal filmed the play, based on a 1926 novel by Edna Ferber, under the direction of James Whale.
"Can't Help Loving Dat Man" is one of its finest moments; sung by Helen Morgan, Hattie McDaniel and Paul Robeson. Only a Brazilian version has been released on DVD.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5owzfuvE2k
This vintage poster is prominently displaced in the lobby of the Tabor Opera House in Leadville, Colorado.
Uploaded
June 9th, 2013
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