During the 1920’s and early 1930’s, one of the pinnacles of the entertainment world was the Ziegfeld Follies. On the stage, at Ziegfeld’s theater you could laugh to the performances of comedians like Fanny Brice, Will Rogers and W.C. Fields, hear the golden throats of signers like Al Jolson, and most importantly, see lots of beautiful women.

The Ziegfeld Follies were famous for the beautiful girls that dressed the stage, or sometimes undressed the stage as legs and bosoms were revealed or barely hidden. And here we have on of those showgirls as captured on film by Ziegfeld’s official photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston…

Ziegfeld Follies Paper Dolls (Dover Paper Dolls)

This sparkling collection spotlights 9 of the shows’ fabulous stars — plus Flo Ziegfeld himself — in 29 costumes.

Includes Anna Held, Billie Burke, Fanny Brice with costumes by Erte, John Harkrider, more.


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Ziegfeld: The Man Who Invented Show Business



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 theater going 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 theater on the Great White Way : Florenz Ziegfeld.


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