1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910817434703321

Autore

Erdman Andrew L. <1965->

Titolo

Queen of vaudeville : the story of Eva Tanguay / / Andrew L. Erdman

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2012

ISBN

0-8014-6528-1

0-8014-6572-9

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (320 p.)

Disciplina

791.092

B

Soggetti

Women entertainers - United States

Vaudeville - United States - History - 20th century

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Most Famous Performer in America -- 1. Freak Baby and the Paper City -- 2. The Sambo Girl in New York -- 3. I Don't Care -- 4. The Cyclonic Comedienne; or, Genius Properly Advertised -- 5. Riding Salome to the Top -- 6. Rivals, Imitators, and Censors -- 7. Follies and Fortunes -- 8. Men and Other Travails -- 9. Mrs. John Ford -- 10. The Wild Girl -- 11. Knockdowns and Comebacks . . . and Knockdowns -- 12. Death and Other Endings -- Epilogue: George Jessel and Darryl Zanuck Don't Care -- Eva Tanguay Chronology -- Notes -- Sources and Select Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In her day, Eva Tanguay (1879-1947) was one of the most famous women in America. Widely known as the "I Don't Care Girl"-named after a song she popularized and her independent, even brazen persona-Tanguay established herself as a vaudeville and musical comedy star in 1904 with the New York City premiere of the show My Lady-and never looked back. Tanguay was, at the height of a long career that stretched until the early 1930's, a trend-setting performer who embodied the emerging ideal of the bold and sexual female entertainer. Whether suggestively singing songs with titles like "It's All Been Done Before But Not the Way I Do It" and "Go As Far As You Like" or wearing a daring dress made of pennies, she was a precursor to subsequent generations



of performers, from Mae West to Madonna and Lady Gaga, who have been both idolized and condemned for simultaneously displaying and playing with blatant displays of female sexuality. In Queen of Vaudeville, Andrew L. Erdman tells Eva Tanguay's remarkable life story with verve. Born into the family of a country doctor in rural Quebec and raised in a New England mill town, Tanguay found a home on the vaudeville stage. Erdman follows the course of her life as she amasses fame and wealth, marries (and divorces) twice, engages in affairs closely followed in the press, declares herself a Christian Scientist, becomes one of the first celebrities to get plastic surgery, loses her fortune following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and receives her last notice, an obituary in Variety. The arc of Tanguay's career follows the history of American popular culture in the first half of the twentieth century. Tanguay's appeal, so dependent on her physical presence and personal charisma, did not come across in the new media of radio and motion pictures. With nineteen rare or previously unpublished images, Queen of Vaudeville is a dynamic portrait of a dazzling and unjustly forgotten show business star.