Ziegfeld, Florenz, Jr. (1867–1932), producer. The most famous of all American showmen, still synonymous with glamour and opulence, he was born in Chicago, where his father ran a musical conservatory. As director of musical events for the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the elder Ziegfeld sent his son to Europe to secure talent. Instead of hiring distinguished musical figures, the young Ziegfeld signed on music‐hall performers and circus acts. In 1893 he also became manager of the strongman Eugene Sandow, and his promotion of the muscle man established his own name, too. Ziegfeld's first Broadway production was an 1896 revival of A Parlor Match, which featured his first wife, Anna Held. His subsequent productions, mostly vehicles for Held, were Papa's Wife (1899), The Little Duchess (1901), The Red Feather (1903), Mam'selle Napoleon (1903), Higgledy Piggledy (1904), and A Parisian Model (1906). Even in these early productions he began to earn a reputation for offering a chorus line of beautiful girls in sumptuous costumes. His next production was the Follies of 1907, which initiated the famous series called the Ziegfeld Follies. His other musical productions included The Soul Kiss (1908), Miss Innocence (1908), Over the River (1912), A Winsome Widow (1912), The Century Girl (1916), Miss 1917, Sally (1920), Kid Boots (1923), Annie Dear (1924), Louie the 14th (1925), No Foolin' (1926), Betsy (1926), Rio Rita (1927), Show Boat (1927), Rosalie (1928), The Three Musketeers (1928), Whoopee (1928), Show Girl (1929), Bitter Sweet (1929), Simple Simon (1930), Smiles (1930), a 1932 revival of Show Boat, and Hot‐Cha! (1932). Although he was often accused in his day of being indifferent to great comics or great show songs, his roster of brilliant clowns and the numerous still‐popular melodies that came from his shows belie the accusations. He also produced a number of nonmusical plays, including Rose Briar (1922) for his second wife, Billie Burke. Ziegfeld's personal extravagances were as well publicized as his shows—among them his penchant for sending long telegrams to people within reach of his phone. His productions were the costliest of their day and were praised not merely for their richness but for their tasteful visual beauty, especially those designed by Joseph Urban. The producer's excellences so overshadowed those of his associates in contemporary eyes that, for example, the original production of Show Boat was hailed by most critics as a Ziegfeld show and not a Kern or Hammerstein show. Writing of the earlier Sally, Alexander Woollcott concluded, “It is of none of these, not of Urban, nor Jerome Kern, not of Leon Errol, not even of Marilyn Miller that you think as you rush for the subway at ten minutes to midnight. You think of Mr. Ziegfeld. He is that kind of producer. There are not many of them in the world.” Through much of his career he was associated with two of New York's almost legendary theatres, the New Amsterdam, where most of his Follies played, and the Ziegfeld, which he opened in 1927. Biography: Ziegfeld, Charles Higham, 1972.

Florenz Ziegfeld (1869-1932) developed the American musical revue and became a dominant force in musical theater in the early 20th century.

Florenz Ziegfeld was born in Chicago, III., on March 21, 1869. His father was a German musician of the old school who eventually became president of the Chicago Musical College. Young "Flo" found this dignified life too quiet. In his first venture into show business he managed Sandow, the strong man of the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893. He next turned to theatrical management. In London in the 1890s he met the French beauty Anna Held and placed her under contract. Recognizing the American public's insatiable urge to know about the private lives of stars, he promoted Held into national attention with press releases describing her milk baths. He married her in 1897; they were divorced in 1913.

Ziegfeld's early musical productions enjoyed modest success; more important, he was perfecting his style. In 1906 The Parisian Model featured the beautiful girls and intricate though precise musical numbers that made him famous. That summer he visited Paris, and the Folies-Berge‧re became the model for his annual Ziegfeld Follies. Recognizing that the risqué elements of the Folies would be unacceptable in the United States, Ziegfeld substituted more displays of beautiful girls.

Few realized the future of the Ziegfeld Follies when it first opened in July 1907. Presented on the New York Theater roof, the Follies was an immediate success, and in September Ziegfeld moved it indoors. By 1910 others were beginning to copy his format, but no other revues had the precision, discipline, and homogeneity of the Ziegfeld Follies.

In 1915 Ziegfeld added an important element when he hired Joseph Urban as designer. Urban's sense of spectacle was perfectly suited to the Ziegfeld idea - beautiful girls, intricate numbers, lavish and artistic design. The Ziegfeld pattern was completed with stars: Fannie Brice, Marilyn Miller, Bert Williams, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Gilda Grey, Gallagher and Shean, and Will Rogers were under contract at one time or another. Ziegfeld had a sharp eye for talent. The first Follies had cost only $13,000 to produce; the preproduction costs of the 1927 Follies totaled nearly $300,000.

While continuing the Follies, Ziegfeld returned to musical comedy in 1920. Among his hits were Sally (1920), Show Boat and Rio Rita (both 1927), and Bitter Sweet (1929). Ziegfeld abandoned the Follies in 1927; by the time he returned to it in 1931, the magic was gone. He had lost some of his touch, and the mood of the country, deep in the Great Depression, had changed. He died on July 22, 1932, in Hollywood, Calif.

Further Reading

No definitive work on Ziegfeld has appeared, but Cecil Smith, Musical Comedy in America (1950), contains information about his career.

Additional Sources

Ziegfeld, Richard E., The Ziegfeld touch: the life and times of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., New York: H.N. Abrams, 1993.

For more information on Florenz Ziegfeld, visit Britannica.com.

(1867?-1932), theatrical producer and creator of The Ziegfeld Follies. As the master showman of the early twentieth century, Ziegfeld brought a unique and sophisticated style, taste, and extravagance to the theater, popularizing a new form of entertainment called the revue.

Perhaps in reaction to his strict father's classical music career, Ziegfeld entered show business as a producer of variety entertainments, such as "dancing ducks" and later "Sandow, the Strongman." But not until his production of A Parlor Match, with French performer Anna Held, did Ziegfeld demonstrate his talent as an impresario by using beautiful women, lavish costumes, and elaborate scenery to create spectacle. Ziegfeld staged A Parlor Match so that the production emphasized Held's beauty and risqué charm; although she appeared in only one scene, she became the star of the show. Ziegfeld entered into a common law marriage with Held soon after this success; they divorced in 1912. Later he married Billie Burke, a musical comedy star who appeared as Glenda, the good witch, in the film The Wizard of Oz.

As a result of the success of A Parlor Match, the producing firm of Klaw and Erlanger approached Ziegfeld to mount a light musical entertainment for the summer season. He devised a show that combined European style with American topical humor. The result, The Follies of 1907, was so successful that Ziegfeld produced the show annually, eventually calling it The Ziegfeld Follies.

Twenty-one editions of the Follies were staged. Over the years, the productions developed from a modest topical review of current events with a chorus of women, staged during the slack summer season, to a complex spectacular presentation, lavish in style and grand in scale, serving as the regular season's premiere entertainment. In a two-act presentation of twenty-three scenes, Ziegfeld blended comedy sketches, dances, and specialty acts with costly costumes and innovative scenery into a carefully crafted production that emphasized the beauty of the sixty-woman chorus--the Follies' most noted feature. The shows were kaleidoscopic, for Ziegfeld was a master at blending these elements into an organic, spectacular whole. Called the "Great Glorifier," Ziegfeld created a theatrical environment in which the chorus as well as the featured performers, such as Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, and Eddie Cantor, assumed a special and heightened star status.

Because of the Follies' emphases on opulence, spectacle, and beauty, the shows embodied the values of an America imbued with the notion of prosperity and the American Dream. Significantly, the names of the elite who attended on opening nights--the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Guggenheims, show business celebrities--were mentioned in newspaper reviews of the shows.

The Follies also represented the height of American show business, for Ziegfeld did not let financial considerations impinge upon artistic ones in the creation of his personal theatrical vision. With his death in 1932, at the height of the depression, the American theater lost not only a great showman but a form of entertainment never matched or duplicated since.

Bibliography:

Randolf Carter, The World of Flo Ziegfeld (1962); Charles Higham, Ziegfeld (1972).

Author:

Geraldine Maschio

See also Musical Theater.

(flôr'ənz zēg'fĕld) , 1869–1932, American theatrical producer, b. Chicago. In 1907 he first produced the Ziegfeld Follies, for 24 years an annual revue famous for its extraordinarily elaborate staging, variety of performers, and chorus of beautiful women. Anna Held, Billie Burke, Fannie Brice, Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, and W. C. Fields were among his stars. His other spectacular productions included Sally, Rio Rita, Rosalie, Show Boat, and Bitter Sweet. He was married to Anna Held from 1897 to 1913 and in 1914 married Billie Burke.

Bibliography

See M. Farnsworth, The Ziegfeld Follies (1956).

(1867-1932)

1907

Follies of 1907. The producer initiates the first in an annual series of stage extravaganzas that would continue until 1925. Each features a chorus line of beautiful girls in sumptuous costumes and the leading musical and comic performers of the day, including Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, W. C. Fields, Will Rogers, and many others.

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