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9780195085525

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Once again, Herb Goldman has proven to be a master at transforming cold grey facts and scholarly research into lively and vibrant literature. Fanny Brice is a treasure of inside information and is as enlightening as it is engaging to read. --Ronald J. Fields, author of W.C. Fields: A Life<br> This is an excellent biography of Fanny Brice. Herbert Goldman has done a splendid job unearthing a great deal of new information which he has presented with considerable skill. --Charles Higham, author of The Duchess of Windsor<br> An affectionate chronicle of three lively decades in the theater's pre-World War II heyday. --The New York Times Book Review<br>

'Fascinating account of the Funny Girl's career.' Peter Hepple, Stage & Television Today

<br> Once again, Herb Goldman has proven to be a master at transforming cold grey facts and scholarly research into lively and vibrant literature. Fanny Brice is a treasure of inside information and is as enlightening as it is engaging to read. --Ronald J. Fields, author of W.C. Fields: A Life<p><br> This is an excellent biography of Fanny Brice. Herbert Goldman has done a splendid job unearthing a great deal of new information which he has presented with considerable skill. --Charles Higham, author of The Duchess of Windsor<p><br> An affectionate chronicle of three lively decades in the theater's pre-World War II heyday. --The New York Times Book Review<p><br>

'Fascinating account of the Funny Girl's career.' Peter Hepple, Stage & Television Today

Well-written life of the great comedienne, today known best as the original of Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl and Funny Woman; by the author of 1988's well-received Jolson. Goldman, an intense researcher, caps his present bio with a big stageography-filmography-discography-bibliography. Brice (1891-1951) has had only one previous biography, 1952's The Fabulous Fanny by Norman Katkov, which was adapted from her own unpublished memoirs and had little to say about her career. Aside from Streisand's misleading musical film-bios, she is semi-forgotten and remembered largely for her radio shows as Baby Snooks. But in many ways, her life holds tremendous fascination, and the present work hasn't a dull moment. Brice, born Borach on New York's Lower East Side, showed early comic talents, began earning $30 a week as a kid by winning amateur contests all over Brooklyn and Manhattan and playing in light stage-shows. She grew professionally in vaudeville and burlesque, moving from chorus girl to singer-dancer, was a knockout at Yiddish dialect or throwaway lines of Brooklynese (which Streisand captured perfectly). Then, at only 19, she landed in Ziegfeld's Follies for 1910 and thereafter was featured in every edition but two until 1923. As a singer she could thrill audiences, much like Al Jolson or the later Judy Garland, while her genius for comedy, as in her mock ballet The Dying Duck, melted them into salty puddles of hysteria. Her fame grew exponentially when her first husband, con man Nick Arnstein, was jailed and later became a world-famous fugitive. His selfishness finally killed the marriage, and Fanny later married impresario Billy Rose, another failed union. Her great hit, a closed-eyes rendition of My Man, was not the show-stopper of Funny Girl: audiences at the real thing were too wiped out for a huge response. A celebrity bio the way they should be written. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Herbert G. Goldman is a free-lance writer who lives in New York City. He is currently working on a biography of Eddie Cantor.

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