Julian Eltinge in Madame Behave

Eltinge as groom and bride

Julian Eltinge was internationally renown as a female impersonator in the aughts and teens of the 20th century. He made his name on vaudeville stages and in Broadway theatres - even as he christened the Julian Eltinge Theatre on Broadway, September 11, 1910. In the 1920s as Prohibition was changing the country and vaudeville was dying, Eltinge went to Hollywood and made several films. One of these films is called Madame Behave and I've just posted the film to YouTube with a score made of jazz tunes from the 1920s. (See song titles and artists at the bottom of this post.)

Madame Behave • 1925

I had never seen Eltinge perform on film and by the contemporaneous reviews I'd read of his live performances, I imagine he had a lovely singing voice and his female mimcry was legitimately spot on (and not what we would consider campy). In fact, Eltinge was so popular with the female population for his raiment and makeup that he started a cottage industry with Julian Eltinge's Magazine of Beauty Hints and Tips which promoted his own line of cosmetics, corsets and shoes. One ad has a picture of Eltinge as a woman with the copy "See What the Julian Eltinge Cold Cream Does for a Man. Imagine What It Will Do For a Woman".

No one pronounces Eltinge's name correctly.
Here are instructions from the horse's mouth.

My guess is that Madame Behave was made to capitalize on Eltinge's fame because it doesn't hold up to the imagination after reading reviews of Eltinge's live performances. We (obviously) don't hear a singing voice and we certainly don't see a high standard of female mimicry on screen so it does nothing to capture what Eltinge did on stage. In Madame Behave, Eltinge jokes around and gets in his gowns quickly and without care. There are some scenes in which he is well put together but by 1925 Eltinge was in his forties and more overweight than in his youth so it's difficult to compare the time periods in that respect. Madame Behave is also not funny despite its best attempts. The film co-stars Ann Pennington as Eltinge's girlfriend and there is a minute or so of Pennington dancing the Charleston; she was a very famous dancer of the day known for her Black Bottom and others so this is something of a see.

Cast of Madame Behave: Jack Duffy, Evelyn Francisco, Lionel Belmore
Ann Pennington kissing Eltinge (in drag) and David Jones

Other than Pennington and the fact that it is a surviving Eltinge film, Madame Behave is similar to movies like Charley's Aunt, Tootsie and Some Like It Hot in its use of drag is a pretext that a straight man must do to get out of whatever situation he finds himself. Unfortunately, it's just not as good as the aforementioned titles but it is 95 years old! Music used to score Madame Behave includes the following tracks in order of aural appearance.

• Chant of the Weed Don Redman and his Orchestra
• Four O’Clock Blues The Original Memphis Five
• The Minor Drag Fats Waller
• Viper’s Dream Django Reinhardt
• Bull Frog Blues Six Brown Brothers
• Do-Doodle-Om Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Forgetful Blues The Original Memphis Five
• New Orleans Wiggle Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Pianoflage Fate Marable’s Society Syncopators
• Red Man Blues Piron’s New Orleans Orchestra
• Red Onion Drag Louis Dumaine’s Jazzola Eight
• Sad New Blues The Original Memphis Five
• Pillow Fight SFX
• All Muggled Up Blue Steele And his Orchestra
• Astoria Strut Jones and Collins Astoria Hot Eight
• Dear Almanzoer Celestin’s Original Tuxedo Jazz Orchestra
• Henpecked Blues The Original Memphis Five
• Mobile Stomp Sam Morgan’s Jazz Band
• New Orleans Blues Johnny de Droit and His New Orleans Jazz Orchestra
• West Indies Blues Piron's New Orleans Orchestra

More pictures from (and an article or two regarding) Julian Eltinge's life and career are available on my Julian Eltinge Pinterest board.

Follow my board Julian Eltinge on Pinterest.

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Sophie Tucker & Josephine Baker

Sophie Tucker was an American vaudeville singer whose meteoric career lasted the 80 years of her life. In 1910, after years of amateur performances Tucker was given the opportunity to perform on a legitimate vaudeville stage. The theater owner though said she could only perform in blackface. Much to her chagrin but needing to make a living, she did it. Over the ten years she performed in blackface her color went from 'burnt cork' to 'high yellow'. Once 'high yellow' she then ended her performances by removing her wig to reveal blonde hair, and her gloves to reveal white skin. One day in Chicago, she 'forgot' her makeup and went on as herself. She never used the makeup again.

Click here for information about Sophie's autobiography.

Josephine Baker was an American vaudeville performer who also performed in the legitimate theater in New York City. Her most famous theatrical performance was in the chorus of 1922's Shuffle Along (currently being revived on Broadway) but it was her blackface performances that were noticed and landed her the opportunity to open in La Revue Negre in Paris, France where Baker's erotic performances and infamous banana skirt earned her notoriety and money. Ultimately she gave up her American citizenship and became a French citizen.

In 1951, Baker was invited back to the US for an engagement in Copa City, a nightclub in Miami, Florida. She agreed to the run only if the audience would not be segregated. Baker received death threats and bricks were thrown at the club. Tucker, who was booked to play Copa City following Baker, heard this and called a press conference in which she announced she would introduce Josephine Baker so if anyone wanted to do bodily harm to Ms. Baker they'd have to go through Sophie first. Opening night went off without a scuffle, the show received rave reviews, was standing room only and Baker was named the NAACP's Woman Of The Year.

The two icons became friends for life.

For more pictures, see Sophie Tucker & Josephine Baker on Pinterest.

Follow Michael,'s board Sophie Tucker & Josephine Baker on Pinterest.

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Watch and Wear: Florence Lawrence

She made more movies than Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn combined. She was more recognized by moviegoers than Meryl Streep. She equaled Hedy Lamarr by inventing something society still uses to this day. And she had plastic surgery before Joan Rivers made it vogue. Yet no one remembers her: The Biograph Girl, The Imp Girl, The Girl of a Thousand Faces. Historically, she is referred to as the first Movie Star but it was the early 20th century before actors and characters were documented on film stock. Anonymously, she was so loved that the American public demanded to know her name and soon they found out: Florence Lawrence.

The Taming Of The Shrew 1908

Florence started performing on stage and in vaudeville as Baby Florence, the Child Wonder before finding work as an extra for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in the fledgling film industry of turn of the century New York City. D.W. Griffith was her director and Billy Bitzer her cinematographer. Her natural abilities turned into bigger parts and the public started writing letters to Biograph asking who she was. Florence was soon hired by the Independent Moving Picture Company (IMP). The company even capitalized on her fame by referring to her in IMP advertisements as The Biograph Girl. It was this marketing move by IMP that forced other film production companies to start advertising the names and faces of the actors appearing in their pictures.

The Lure Of The Gown 1909

Before these production companies followed suit though, they tried to nip it in the bud by announcing to the national press that Miss Lawrence, The Biograph Girl, had been killed in an automobile accident. Lawrence's pictures and the story were plastered all over the national newspapers. The story was so ensconced in the mindset of the film-going public that she had to travel to St. Louis (where the story originated) to quell the rumors of her demise. The plan worked but by her own admission Florence took a sabbatical from motion pictures starting in 1913.

Growing Up With The Movies is the story of Florence’s early career
as told to writer Monte M. Katterjohn. This PDF (also accessible on archive.org)
contains all four parts as published in Photoplay magazine issues
dated November/December 1914 and January/February 1915.

The Country Doctor 1909

According to Kelly R. Brown’s 1999 biography The Biograph Girl, Florence was able to afford an automobile. In 1914, she developed a mechanical signaling arm that, with the press of a button, raised or lowered a flag on the car’s rear bumper that signaled which way the car would turn. She also devised a brake signal that worked on the same principle: with the press of a button, a “STOP” sign flipped up from the back bumper. Because Florence never bothered to file patents, unlike Hedy Lamarr, she never got the recognition she deserved. (Her mother, also an inventor, patented the first electrical windshield wipers in 1917 but never got credit either.)

Florence did attempt a comeback in 1922 by starring in The Unfoldment but nothing much came of it. It was around this time she reportedly got a nose job to help in procuring work. She ultimately found work at M-G-M usually in uncredited bit parts. In 1937, she was diagnosed with a disease described a rare bone marrow disease which was incurable at the time. On December 28, 1938, Florence called in sick and some time in the afternoon swallowed cough syrup and ant paste. She was found by a neighbor and was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital where she was pronounced dead at 2:45 p.m. A suicide note found in her home was addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow and stated:

Dear Bob,

Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that. Lovingly, Florence - P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.

Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health" and she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery). In 1991 an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker which reads The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star. In 2000 William J. Mann published The Biograph Girl which blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, a doctor helps Lawrence fool the public into thinking she committed suicide but instead lives at a nursing home. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home and decides to write a biography about her. In 2013, the Gale Theatre Company introduced Florence which tells her story through dance, video, and physical theater.

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How Clara Bow Broke Into The Movies

How I Broke Into The Movies was published in 1930 and contains articles on the title theme written by movie stars of the day like Laura LaPlante, Jean Hersholt, Douglas Fairbanks, Dolores Costello, Richard Dix, Leatrice Joy, and 53 other notable actors. As time goes by, I will be publishing these articles under the umbrella label WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE - because they are.

The first article from the book was published in my blography on Marion Davies. The second article was published in my blography on Colleen Moore - which also announced the WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of the Moore's 1925 silent film Ella Cinders - newly scored with jazz music of the 1920s. This latest upload reveals the story of how Clara Bow, another flapper of the silent screen (and boisterous actress of many sound films) broke into the movies - in her own words.

Clara Bow is most famous for her performance as the perky and gregarious shop girl in IT and for then becoming known as the IT girl because of it. Elinor Glyn is the English novelist who wrote the book and the screenplay based on it. (Many of her books are available to read on archive.org.) With IT, you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man. IT can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction. Although she is credited with the invention of the term, the concept predates Glyn's book and movie but it was Clara who caused it to have a huge impact on the culture of the 1920s.

IT the full movie starring Clara Bow

How Clara Bow Broke Into The Movies continues after the
WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE of How I Broke Into The Movies by Clara Bow.

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How I Broke Into The Movies Clara Bow picture
Right click to open the image in a new tab.

How I Broke Into The Movies by Clara Bow
Right click to open the image in a new tab.

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Following the phenomenal success of IT, Clara was the top female star in Hollywood for four years running (1927-1930). This time period included four of her sound films which negates the false impression that she stopped making movies because a thick Brooklyn accent got in the way of her transition to sound. She was actually afraid of the microphone and, because of her ability to make money for the studio, Paramount Pictures pushed her into talking films without training.

Clara sings I'm True To The Navy Now in Paramount on Parade from 1930.
The song was not in Clara's movie of the same name.

The following films can be viewed on archive.org. I'm guessing the uploader - not me for once - changed the titles to fool the copyright police. All are sound films except for Wings.

1. Love Among The Millionaires from 1930 is listed as Poor Boy Rich Girl (although the embedded screen title is Rich Boy, Poor Girl). It's a musical romance in which Clara sings! (That's Worthwhile Waiting For, Believe It Or Not, I've Found My Man, Love Among the Millionaires, Rarin' To Go)
2. The Saturday Night Kid from 1929 is listed as Love 'Em And Leave 'Em. Clara co-stars with the husky-voiced Jean Arthur very early in her career!!
3. True To The Navy from 1930 is listed as The Girlfriend Of The Navy. Clara's future husband Rex Bell appears as well as Frederic March and uncredited turns from Frances Dee and Louise Beavers!!
4. The Wild Party from 1930 is listed as Stella's Merits. Clara stars with Frederic March (again) and is directed by Dorothy Arzner!!
5. Hoop-La from 1933 is listed as (surprise) Hoop-La and is Clara's last movie role. She was 28 when she left Hollywood and made almost as many sound features as she made silent ones.
6. Wings (a 111 minute version) from 1927 is listed as The Shooting Star. The silent film is available on DVD at it's original length of almost two and a half hours and is the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Parisian Love can be viewed here.

Other reasons that contributed to Clara's departure from Hollywood were the lifelong mental health issues from which she suffered, enduring many stays in the sanitarium and shock treatments. She also went through a media circus when she charged her secretary Daisy DeVoe with financial mismanagement; DeVoe spouted many personal and damaging details about Clara while on the stand and the scandal sheets ate it up.

Rare film footage of Clara Bow in color

One (of many) falsehood(s) that followed Bow throughout her life (and was published in the gossip tome Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger) was that she bedded the entire University Of Southern California football team. Her on-screen wrestling match with a very well-endowed, male Great Dane dog in the 1933 talkie Call Her Savage probably did not help her in the eyes of the increasingly puritanical American public. She left Hollywood around the same time the Production Code was put into place and lived quietly with Bell (who also left Hollywood for a career in politics). They had two children and Bow died in 1965 from a heart attack.

Clara Bow: Discovering the IT Girl, TCM documentary

Get Your Man a 1927 silent film, literally as this version has no musical soundtrack

This interview was published in a 1929 book by Lee Shippey called Personal Glimpses of Famous Folks and Other Selections from the Lee Side o' L.A.

I found this PDF on Dr. Macro's wonderful movie scan site
and uploaded it to archive.org for safe keeping.

Follow my board Clara Bow on Pinterest.

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How Marion Davies Broke Into The Movies

Portrait from How I Broke Into The Movies

The best silent film actors allow the viewer to hear their voices despite the silence (and the piano); this talent makes Marion Davies one of the loudest of the era. Watching her lampoon her own image in King Vidor's superlative 1928 comedy Show People is a revelation. As Peggy Pepper she conveys naiveté, passion, humor, poignance and arrogance without uttering a sound. This becomes even more fascinating when you read her 1975 (transcribed from tape) autobiography The Times We Had. When she speaks of her time as a performer - which started on the stage at 13 years young - she remembers only how bad she was.

Even before meeting William Randolph Hearst, the man who became her benefactor, mentor, and life-long lover, Marion's career was in gear. She had always wanted to be a performer and followed in the footsteps of her older sister as a pony girl (small dancer of any age), a chorine and a Ziegfeld showgirl in the New York theatre. By 1917, she had written a photoplay called Runaway Romany; the script was directed by her brother-in-law and gave Marion her first (starring) role in pictures.

The article continues after this WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE

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This is an article written by Ms. Davies for a book published in 1930 called
How I Broke Into The Movies. It contains similarly written articles by Joan
Crawford, Buster Keaton, Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, Al Jolson, Greta Garbo
and 53 other notable actors. Right click to open the image in a new tab.

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Marion's affair with the married William Randolph Hearst was fodder for gossip columnists throughout her life. Initially it was their relationship alone and the 25 years age difference. In the early 20s came the death of Thomas Ince aboard the Hearst yacht (fictionalized in the 1997 play The Cat's Meow) and the financial success of her (Hearst produced) Cosmopolitan Pictures dramatic vehicles such as When Knighthood Was In Flower and Little Old New York. In the later 20s, Hearst and Davies were building the Santa Monica Beach House in Southern California and Hearst Castle at San Simeon in Northern California while Marion's career rose to even greater heights, financially and critically, with breakout comedy roles in Quality Street, The Patsy and the aforementioned Show People.

The full movie is on archive.org.

When films started to speak, Marion was worried about her transition. She had always fought a childhood stutter - way into adulthood - and didn't think she could speak lines without it getting in the way. But she did! Although none of her sound pictures reached the classic heights of her silents, she co-starred with some of the (soon to be) biggest stars in Hollywood: Bing Crosby in Going Hollywood (1933), Gary Cooper in Operator 13 (1934), Clark Gable in Polly Of The Circus (1932), Dick Powell in the Napoleonic era semi-musical Hearts Divided (1936), Cain and Mabel (1936) and Robert Montgomery in Ever Since Eve, her last film made in 1937. (Davies is also credited as producer on many of her films, both silent and talkers.)

This clip from the 1930 musical The Florodora Girl
not only shows her comic expertise and musical
background but proves Marion was game for anything.

In 1941, a film was released that cemented a skewed image of Marion in the minds of the public for decades to follow. Orson Welles' Citizen Kane concerned the titular newspaper magnate and his no-talent wife Susan Alexander. Because it was commonly agreed that Kane was a thinly veiled version of Hearst, it came to be that Alexander must be a thinly veiled version of Davies. With a poor self-image, Marion herself undoubtedly believed the gossip.

Fortunately, Welles himself set the record straight in the foreword he wrote to Marion's autobiography. And in 1992 This is Orson Welles, a book by Welles and Peter Bogdanovich (director of the 2001 film version of The Cat's Meow) confirmed that Samuel Insull's building of the Chicago Opera House, and business tycoon Harold Fowler McCormick's lavish promotion of the opera career of his second wife, were direct influences on the Citizen Kane screenplay. Welles called Marion an extraordinary woman.

After leaving her career, Marion spent the rest of her life caring for the elderly Hearst (who died in 1951) and doing charity work. Davies had always been a very astute business woman, investing in California real estate rather than the stock market; this simple decision left her very well off and she even gave $1 million to Hearst himself at a time during the 1930s depression era when his fortunes were turning to bankruptcy.

Marion married 11 weeks after Hearst's death. It is said that Horace Brown encouraged her drinking - which was always somewhat out of control. (Hearst was a teetotaler.) Although she filed for divorce twice it was never finalized before Marion died of stomach cancer on September 22, 1961.

An odd postscript to the Hearst/Davies love story became a newspaper headline on October 3, 1993 when Marion's niece Patricia Lake died of lung cancer. Part of the decades of gossip concerned Ms. Lake who is the daughter of Marion's sister Rose. Right before her death she proclaimed that she was indeed the daughter of Davies and Hearst; Marion had told her this when she was a young girl of 11 and Hearst confirmed it on her wedding day when the couple gave her away. Although published in her obituary, the claim could never be verified and has never been commented on by the Hearst family.

Another Marion Davies WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE

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The relationship of Davies and Hearst was fictionalized in the 1985 television movie
The Hearst and Davies Affair starring Robert Mitchum and Virginia Madsen.
The movie is not great but tries hard. If you're a fan of Marion it is very watchable
with Virginia Madsen turning in a charming performance. It has never been released
digitally but if you'd like a rip of the VHS tape, leave a comment with your email.
I also have downloads of the out-of-print (and unavailable elsewhere) When
Knighthood Was In Flower, Quality Street, Marianne and several others.

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More Marion Davies digital ephemera including a documentary on her life

The Brat starring Marion Davies and Joel McCrea aired
as an episode of the Lux Radio Theater on July 13, 1936.

See my Pinterest page for a slew of
pictures of Marion from throughout her life and career.

Finally, Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies was produced in 2001
and narrated by Charlize Theron. Out of print, the DVD goes for hundreds of dollars but
the documentary is available for viewing on MySpace. Watch it now before it's removed!

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Keeping Fit With Rudolph Valentino

In 1923 Rudolph Valentino, the silent screen's infamous Latin lover, published an 81 page book called How To Keep Fit. And for the last few months, I have been doing just that with Rudolph. In the book, he tailors his exercise activity by the coast on which he happens to be: outdoor types of exercises in California and indoor types of exercises in New York. Fortunately, having just moved to New York from California myself, it is the New York, anaerobic type exercises that he has documented with photographs.

I've cherry-picked fitness information and photos from the book (excising the wrist rolls) and organized it in an easy-to-follow format. Mr. Valentino's circuit can be done at home, day or night, without much apparatus or expense. Every body part is accounted for and Valentino has limited the movements so that a period of fifteen to twenty minutes each day completes the circuit. There is a link at the bottom of the article to download the complete book (with wrist rolls) in PDF format.

It is not necessary to spend much time at these exercises. Approach them with a spirit of energy and concentration. Let one follow after the other but make no attempt to exhaust yourself.Your exercises should be stimulating rather than fatiguing.Continue each movement until only slightly tired and then go one to the next one, making sure that you do each one with spirit and energy.

And as Rudolph stresses throughout All who have mechanical defects should take care when following this regimine.

1. Exercises 1-4: Neck, Spine
2. Exercises 5-9: Back
3. Exercises 10-13: Chest, Shoulders
4. Exercises 14-16: Abdomen
5. Exercises 17-23: Arms
6. Exercises 27-30: Legs
7. The Tonic

Exercises 1-4: Neck, Spine

Perform these neck exercises (primarily for the upper spine) with a vigorous stretching action. The manner of execution has everything to do with successful results. It loosens the vertebrae of the upper spine and acts as a tonic upon the central nervous system. Bring the head far forward stretching hard and then bring the head far backward. It is more important to do them energetically a few times than carelessly a great number of times.

Turn your head far to one side and then to the other, stretching the chin as far over each shoulder as you can comfortably.

The bridge is partly for the neck and partly for the back. Lower the body to rest upon the floor and raise it back to this position. Support your weight with your hands until your neck is developed enough that you can rely on it to support the body. Repeat 5 or 10 times as a pure strength building exercise. (Ed. Note: Even those without mechanical defects should take care with this one.)

Exercises 5-9: Back

This body-twisting exercise wrings the spinal column, maintaining elasticity. With arms outstretched to the sides, bring the body far around to one side, then far around to the other side. Stretch in each case so as to twist the spine as much as you can, thus stretching the internal organs as well.

Side-bending exercises are best performed with your arms outstretched to each side as in the photograph. Swing one arm high over the head as you bend over, and then reverse. Bend as far to each side as you can as this liver-squeezer will compress, stretch and stimulate the internal organs.

Bending far backward is more effective with arms outstretched upward, as in the photograph. The first time you attempt this you may not be able to bend far back. Take care in your attempts. Perform in conjunction with the following at least ten times, possibly twenty.

Reverse the preceding movement. Don't touch the floor but stretch the arms backward between the legs.

Rotate the entire upper body from the waist up in a circle, first around in one direction and then the other. Bend forward horizontally, then swing around far to one side, continue backwards (photograph) and around to the other side.

Exercises 10-13: Chest, Shoulders

All movements which stretch the arms above the head can be recommended for improving the general posture of the body. With a starting position of arms at the sides, swing the arms up sideways and high over head, repeating five or ten times. Next execute a similar movement, swinging the arms straight forward and upward high over the head. In each instance, stretch vigorously upwards and observe what it does to your chest - they are actually deep breathing exercises. Inhale, raise - exhale, lower.

Clasp your hands behind your back, then pull the shoulders backward and downward. Execute this exercise with an energetic stretching impulse. Relax for a moment and repeat at least ten times.

Clasp your hands together and vigorously pull your arms across the front of your chest. Vary this by lowering hands to waistline, raising to the front of the face and finally clasping behind the head (as in the photograph below). Repeat five or ten times in each position. The harder you pull, the greater the benefit, the more you will like this exercise.

This is the behind the head hand clasp pull described above.

This exercise is just the reverse of the preceding inasmuch as it involves pushing the hands together instead of pulling, and it employs just the opposite muscle groups.

Exercises 14-16: Abdomen

The old reliable is best done with arms folded as in the photograph, lying down, rising, and repeating ten to 20 times. Supplement this exercise with the raising of the legs while lying on the back, either to the vertical position or bringing them way back to touch the floor with the toes behind the head.

While easier when the feet are braced, holding them down with concentrated mental effort is preferred.

Arrange furniture as shown in the photograph, clasp your hands behind your head and lower the body until the head touches the floor. The rise to a sitting position and repeat ten times.

Exercises 17-23: Arms

The dip may be done on a level floor with the body held straight and rigid, lowering the chest to the floor and pushing up again to arm's length. It is easier if performed as in the top photograph, with a table, or between the arms of an arm chair. Hold the body rigid, bend elbows, lowering the body, and then push up to arm's length, repeating ten times.

This manner of the dip is more advanced. The two photographs (with feet on table) are self explanatory. If you are not able to do this, practice on a level floor for two or three weeks. When you can do this with the feet on the chair you will find it extremely interesting.

You will need a bar. Nearly every man can chin himself once or twice. Can you do it ten times, or twenty times? You can reverse the position of the hands for variety.

Exercises 27-29: Legs

In a deep knee bend, lower the body to a squatting position, then rises to a standing position, repeating and continuing for ten or twenty times. In each case as you rise to the standing position, rise high upon the toes thus bringing into action the muscles of the calves. Hold a weight to make the exercise more effective.

This one leg deep knee bend is regarded as a test of strength and coordination. Squat and rise first on one leg half a dozen times, and then on the other.

It is most readily done by stretching the arms forward to maintain balance.

The Tonic

Place hands on the floor about 2 feet away from the wall. Throw your feet up against the wall as in the photograph. The purpose is to correct any prolapsus of the vital organs and to readjust or balance the circulation of the blood. When taking this position two to three times in succession, this exercise is like a tonic. Valentino also has a chapter on better eating - as do I.

WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE: This isn't technically a WORLD INTERNET PREMIERE because I downloaded the book from a torrent. Kudos to the originator of the torrent and the scanner of the book. I am uploading it to archive.org so that the book will be available for generations to come...or at least until the planet implodes. Whichever comes first.

THE END

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The Myth³ of Helen Morgan

Helen Morgan is the flame who gave the term torch singer a light. Her voice can be described as a perfectly pitched, small, quivering soprano and fortunately, all of Morgan's recorded tracks (including classic interpretations of Bill and Can't Help Lovin' That Man from Show Boat) can be downloaded for free and added to iTunes. Unfortunately, there is not much verifiable information about Morgan's life itself - which began on August 2, 1900 and ended on October 9, 1941. There have been three attempts to define a history for Helen Morgan and these three all tell a different story.

• Television: Helen Morgan
• Film: The Helen Morgan Story
• Book: Helen Morgan Her Life and Times
• The Myths and the Facts

Helen Morgan sings Bill - Show Boat 1936

Television: Helen Morgan

Playhouse 90 was a late Fifties-era anthology that produced weekly 90 minute plays and broadcast them on (the somewhat new medium of) television. Helen Morgan, an episode of this series, was directed by George Roy Hill (who achieved great fame when he directed Paul Newman and Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting) and the drama told its story from the perspective of Helen's mother, Lulu Lang Riggins Morgan. It is unfortunate that this drama has never been available for purchase because it is the best of the lot. Polly Bergen is a phenom as Helen, acting the woman from a naive teen with long hair to a bobbed, soused entertainer dying on screen. Her takes on Helen's classic songs are spot on; not imitations of the beloved recordings but intimate interpretations in a not dissimilar voice. Ms. Bergen rightfully won an Emmy award for her performance. It is riveting in spite of the kinetoscopic quality of the print. (If you're interested in a digital file of this historic program email me for a link.)

Film: The Helen Morgan Story

The Helen Morgan Story was released to movie theatres a few months after the telecast of Helen Morgan. Ann Blyth plays Helen and lip syncs to vocal tracks provided by Gogi Grant, a pop singer of the 1950s. Ms. Grant's tracks are a major problem with the film because she sounds like a pop singer of the 1950s - and a not very emotive one at that. Ann Blyth is fine during the earlier dramatic moments but her final moments are hysterically campy. The script is fictionalized (romantic lead/bootlegger/hottie Paul Newman, for example) and is more a remake of Love Me Or Leave Me (the Ruth Etting film biography with Doris Day and James Cagney) than an original. The film also glosses over Morgan's shining professional accomplishment: her performances as Julie LaVerne in Show Boat and, in fact, ends happily with a (fictional) testimonial dinner in her honor notwithstanding the fact that she died at 41 from cirrhosis of the liver brought about by her alcoholism. It's Hollywood claptrap.

Book: Helen Morgan Her Life and Times

Helen Morgan Her Life and Times was written by Gilbert Maxwell and published in 1974. A literary biography can tell a great tale of its subject but this is no literary biography. Maxwell details Morgan's affairs and marriages (seemingly) based on newspaper accounts and the book reads as such. It feels light - presumably because even forty years ago the myths around Helen had taken hold and information was scarce. The book does collate the facts on Helen's performing career, including whole chapters on all versions of Show Boat, her 1929 film debut Applause (directed by Rouben Mamoulian), the musical Jermone Kern and Oscar Hammerstein wrote specifically for Morgan Sweet Adeline (with hits Why Was I Born? and Don't Ever Leave Me), and the legal troubles stemming from her performances in the speakeasies of the Prohibition era. It's a factual read but full of holes.

Helen Morgan, Irene Dunne, Hattie McDaniel, Paul Robeson
Show Boat 1936

The Myths and the Facts

There are some common threads that can be found in all of these biographies. Helen was generous to a fault, spending all of her money on friends and acquaintances and ending up with nothing for herself. (Sure you'll make a million dollars and throw it all away says her mother, Lulu, in the television drama.) Helen was also revered by the underworld; once she started opening her eponymous nightclubs, many men of this ilk were enamored by her. Helen had a decade long affair with a married man although each biography identifies a different man. And according to Wikipedia, Helen had three marriages - the book documents two, the movie mentions one, the drama none.

Helen speaking with, and singing about, first husband Maurice Mashke, Jr.
Married in 1933, it lasted two years

Her father (or lack thereof) is painted in all three biographies as the source of her somber existence, life-long depression and inability to connect with the right man (as an adult). The television drama opens with Helen going to see her father for the first time in 19 years. According to the book, Lulu gave birth alone but Tom Morgan came back again. The cinematic Helen (in the film's only reference to her father) tells her married lover, Wade, that her father was around when she was 11.

The story in which the teenage Helen, as a Cracker Jack employee, put two prizes in each box because she enjoyed imagining the faces of the children was mentioned in all biographies but, not always dealt with is the myth that concerns whether or not Helen had a child. The television drama adds an unwed, pregnant showgirl who briefly gives her baby to Helen before siccing a shyster on her to get it back. (Lulu Morgan is given story credit on the drama which makes this particular tale all the more interesting.) Neither the film nor the book mention a child, an adoption or an abortion but interestingly, the comment (pasted below the break) was posted to a forum a few years back.

Helen Morgan had a baby girl on June 25th, 1926, and she gave up the baby for adoption. In Springfield, Illinois, in the presence of Rhoda Eisenberg (aunt of the adopting parents) Minnettee Groupe and Harry Hyman Haffner. This baby, named Elaine Haffner, married Norman Danglo (deceased) and they had four children, one of them me - Jeff Danglo. Both my mother and father related the story of how Aunt Rhoda told my mother the truth about her real mother when she was 30. My Dad secretly told me of how she walked around the house singing for a year - she had a pretty good voice. In 1980 or so, I wrote Aunt Rhoda and asked for a written account of what happened. She called my mother quite upset, "Why does your son want to know about that woman!" and I dropped the matter. She died 1985 or so. Anyway, I can't prove it but it's been our family story forever. JD

Most certainly all of these three biographies cement Helen's reputation as a piano sitter. How she began sitting on pianos though depends on the source. On television, Helen jumps on an upright piano in order to be seen and heard over the loud and boisterous speakeasy crowd; a very effective scene. According to the book, this is a fallacy proffered by Billy Rose and the truth is that an enterprising, unknown admirerer picked up Helen while she was performing to packed houses at the French Troc in Montreal when she was 12 years old. And in the movie, Morgan never gets off the piano. The curtain opens on Helen's first speakeasy performance with Ann Blyth already atop a grand piano and throughout the entire movie (including ubiquitous performance montages and sundry nightclub performances) Blyth lipsyncs from atop a piano leading one to believe something was amiss with her legs. (Ooops, that was Jane Froman.) Helen was also a scarf twirler and the television drama includes another effective scene in which a fellow entertainer hands Helen one to keep her hands busy.

Her film career is barely mentioned in either of the video biographies and there is nothing to lead me to believe (as The Helen Morgan Story would have me believe) that Helen ever tried to convince drunks in a dive bar that she was, in fact, a BIG star, or that she woke up in a mental institution taking a sealed hot bath à la Neely O'Hara in Valley Of The Dolls. (The book also scoffs at this travesty of a scene.) The 1957 film does have two wonderful scenes though: one is a rent party with a fun-loving bull dyke leading the dance with a surprising outcome, and the second is in a jail cell where Helen interacts with an unknown actress who gives a perfectly comic performance as a fellow inmate.

Helen singing It Can't Go On Like This from Roadhouse Nights 1930
Jimmy Durante is the waiter

It's unfortunate that Helen's life has been distilled to the myths presented in these biographies. Time will move forward and information will not survive its ravages but at least the work survives. The first time I saw Show Boat I was floored by this sprite - emotionally succumbing to the depths of her heights. Listening to her recorded tracks and watching Applause (and the myriad videos now available on YouTube) only cements Helen Morgan's status as a legend albeit the myth of a legend.

Follow Michael,'s board The Myth³ of Helen Morgan on Pinterest.

Lots more pictures of Helen Morgan on my Pinterest board.

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