Fanny Brice
Encyclopedia
Fanny Brice was a popular and influential American illustrated song
"model," comedienne, singer, theatre
and film
actress, who made many stage
, radio
and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show
. Thirteen years after her death, she was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand
in the musical Funny Girl and its 1968 film adaptation
.
, the third child of relatively well-off saloon owners of Hungarian Jewish descent.
In 1908, Brice dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, and two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld
, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies
from 1910 to 1911. She was hired again in 1921 and performed in them into the 1930's. In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing "My Man
" which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for Victor Records.
The second song most associated with Brice is "Second Hand Rose," which she introduced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921.
She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man".
Brice's Broadway
credits include Fioretta, Sweet and Low
, and Billy Rose
's Crazy Quilt. Her films include My Man (1928), Be Yourself! (1930) and Everybody Sing
(1938) with Judy Garland
. Brice, Ray Bolger
and Harriet Hoctor
were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld
(1936) and Ziegfeld Follies
(1946). For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at MP 6415 Hollywood Boulevard.
. With first Alan Reed
and then Hanley Stafford
as her bedeviled Daddy, Baby Snooks premiered in The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air
in February 1936 on CBS
.
She moved to NBC
in December 1937, performing the Snooks routines as part of the Good News show, then back to CBS
on Maxwell House Coffee Time, the half-hour divided between the Snooks sketches and comedian Frank Morgan
, in September 1944. Brice's longtime Snooks sketch writer, Philip Rapp and David Freedman, brought in partners, Arthur Stander and Everett Freeman, to develop an independent, half-hour comedy program. The program launched on CBS in 1944, moving to NBC in 1948, with Freeman producing. First called Post Toasties Time (named for the show's first sponsor), the show was renamed The Baby Snooks Show within short order, though in later years it was often known colloquially as Baby Snooks and Daddy.
Brice was so meticulous about the program and the title character that she was known to perform in costume as a toddler girl even though seen only by the radio studio audience. She was 45 years old when the character began her long radio life. In addition to Reed and Stafford, her co-stars included Lalive Brownell, Lois Corbet and Arlene Harris
playing her mother, Danny Thomas
as Jerry, Charlie Cantor as Uncle Louie and Ken Christy as Mr. Weemish. She was completely devoted to the character, as she told biographer Norman Katkov: "Snooks is just the kid I used to be. She's my kind of youngster, the type I like. She has imagination. She's eager. She's alive. With all her deviltry, she is still a good kid, never vicious or mean. I love Snooks, and when I play her I do it as seriously as if she were real. I am Snooks. For 20 minutes or so, Fanny Brice ceases to exist."
Baby Snooks writer/producer Everett Freeman told Katkov that Brice didn't like to rehearse the role ("I can't do a show until it's on the air, kid") but always snapped into it on the air, losing herself completely in the character: "While she was on the air she was Baby Snooks. And after the show, for an hour after the show, she was still Baby Snooks. The Snooks
voice disappeared, of course, but the Snooks temperament, thinking, actions were all there."
. Prior to their marriage, Arnstein served fourteen months in Sing Sing
for wiretapping. Brice visited him in prison every week. In 1918 they were married, after living together for six years. In 1924, Arnstein was charged in a Wall Street bond theft. Brice insisted on his innocence, and funded his legal defense at great expense. Arnstein was convicted and sentenced to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth
where he served three years. Released in 1927, Arnstein disappeared from Brice's life and that of his two children. Reluctantly, Brice divorced him. She went on to marry songwriter and stage producer Billy Rose
and appeared in his revue Crazy Quilt, among others. Their marriage also failed.
She returned with Stafford and the Snooks character to the safety of radio for her next appearance, on Tallulah Bankhead
's big-budget, large-scale radio variety show, The Big Show
, in November 1950, sharing the bill with Groucho Marx
and Jane Powell
. In one routine Snooks knocks on Bankhead's dressing room door for advice on becoming an actress when she grew up in spite of Daddy's warning that she already lacked what it took.
in East Los Angeles, California
. A half-century later, at the time of Brice's daughter Frances' death in 1992, Fanny Brice's ashes were reinterred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles
, some 20 miles west of her original interment place. Today, the ashes, and those of her daughter, repose in an outdoor pavilion.
Although the names of the principal characters were changed, the plot of the 1939 film Rose of Washington Square
, in which the principal characters were portrayed by Tyrone Power
and Alice Faye
, was inspired heavily by Brice's marriage and career, to the extent it borrowed its title from a tune she performed in the Follies and included "My Man
." She sued 20th Century Fox for invasion of privacy
and won the case. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck
was forced to delete several production numbers closely associated with the star.
Barbra Streisand
starred as Brice in the 1964 Broadway
musical Funny Girl, which centered on Brice's rise to fame and troubled relationship with Arnstein. In 1968, Streisand won an Academy Award for Best Actress
for reprising her role in the film version (sharing the Oscar with Katharine Hepburn
, for The Lion in Winter, in the Academy's only tie vote for Best Actress in its history). The 1975 sequel Funny Lady
focused on Brice's turbulent relationship with impresario
Billy Rose
and was as highly fiction
alized as the original. Streisand also recorded the Brice songs "My Man," "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy with Somebody Else)" and "Second Hand Rose," which became a Top 40 hit.
Funny Girl, and its sequel Funny Lady
, took liberties with the events of Brice's life. They make no mention of Brice's first husband at all, and suggest that Arnstein turned to crime because his pride would not allow him to live off Fanny, and that he was wanted by the police for selling phony bonds. In reality, however, Arnstein sponged off Brice even before their marriage and was eventually named as a member of a gang that stole $5 million worth of Wall Street
securities. Instead of turning himself in, as in the movie, Arnstein went into hiding. When he finally surrendered, he did not plead guilty as he did in the movie, but fought the charges for four years, taking a toll on his wife's finances. It is thought that Ray Stark
, the producer of the play and both movies and Brice's son-in-law, changed Arnstein's story in order to avoid a lawsuit, as Arnstein was still alive at the time. Brice's son William was not mentioned in the play or movies by mutual agreement; other changes – such as the portrayal of Brice's mother as living in modest means rather than well-off or the omission of Brice's first husband – may have been done in the interest of compelling storytelling.
In 2010, One Night with Fanny Brice, a one-woman show about Brice, written and directed by Chip Deffaa
and starring Kimberly Faye Greenberg, premiered in New Jersey. The cast album, on the Original Cast label (OC-3831), was released in September 2010. The next production of the show, by the American Century Theatre Co. of Arlington, Virginia, starring Esther Covington, is slated to open in November 2010, directed by Ellen Dempsey.
The 1946 Warner Bros.
cartoon
Quentin Quail
features a character based on Brice's characterization of Baby Snooks.
Two children were born of the Brice-Arnstein marriage. Daughter Frances (1919–1992) married Ray Stark
, while son William
(1921–2008) became an artist of note, using his mother's surname.
The Stony Brook campus of the State University of New York
(SUNY at Stony Brook) formerly had a Fannie Brice Theatre, a small 75-seat venue which has been used for a variety of performances over the years, including a 1988 production of the musical Hair, staged readings, and a studio classroom space. The building was razed in 2007 to make way for new dormitories.
Illustrated songs
An illustrated song is a type of performance art and was a popular form of entertainment in the early 20th century in the United States.Live performers and music recordings were both used by different venues to accompany still images projected from glass slides...
"model," comedienne, singer, theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
actress, who made many stage
Stage (theatre)
In theatre or performance arts, the stage is a designated space for the performance productions. The stage serves as a space for actors or performers and a focal point for the members of the audience...
, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
and film appearances and is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series, The Baby Snooks Show
The Baby Snooks Show
The Baby Snooks Show was an American radio program starring comedienne and Ziegfeld Follies alumna Fanny Brice as a mischievous young girl who was 40 years younger than the actress who played her when she first went on the air. The series began on CBS September 17, 1944, airing on Sunday evenings...
. Thirteen years after her death, she was portrayed on the Broadway stage by Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
in the musical Funny Girl and its 1968 film adaptation
Funny Girl (film)
Funny Girl is a 1968 romantic musical film directed by William Wyler. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart was adapted from her book for the stage musical of the same title...
.
Early life
Fanny Brice (occasionally spelled Fannie Brice) was the stage name of Fania Borach, born in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the third child of relatively well-off saloon owners of Hungarian Jewish descent.
In 1908, Brice dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, and two years later she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld
Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. , , was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies , inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat...
, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
from 1910 to 1911. She was hired again in 1921 and performed in them into the 1930's. In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing "My Man
Mon Homme
"Mon Homme" is a popular song known by its English translation, My Man. The song was originally composed by Jacques Charles, Channing Pollack, Albert Willemetz, and Maurice Yvain.-History:...
" which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for Victor Records.
The second song most associated with Brice is "Second Hand Rose," which she introduced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921.
She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor and also cut several for Columbia. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man".
Brice's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
credits include Fioretta, Sweet and Low
Sweet and Low (musical)
Sweet and Low is a musical revue produced by Billy Rose and starring James Barton, Fanny Brice, George Jessel, and Arthur Treacher. It features sketches by David Freedman and songs by various composers and lyricists....
, and Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
's Crazy Quilt. Her films include My Man (1928), Be Yourself! (1930) and Everybody Sing
Everybody Sing (film)
Everybody Sing is a 1938 musical comedy film starring Judy Garland, Allan Jones, Fanny Brice, Reginald Owen and Billie Burke.-Plot:Young Judy Bellaire has trouble fitting in at school, causing trouble by introducing her jazzy style into music class and being expelled as a result...
(1938) with Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
. Brice, Ray Bolger
Ray Bolger
Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
and Harriet Hoctor
Harriet Hoctor
Harriet Hoctor was a ballerina, dancer, actress and instructor from Hoosick Falls, New York. Composer George Gershwin composed a symphonic orchestral piece specifically for Hoctor in the film Shall We Dance .-Family:Born to Timothy Hoctor and Elizabeth Kearny, Harriet Hoctor was one of four...
were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
(1936) and Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
(1946). For her contribution to the motion picture industry, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at MP 6415 Hollywood Boulevard.
Radio
From the 1930s until her death in 1951, Fanny made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks, a role she premiered in a Follies skit co-written by playwright Moss HartMoss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...
. With first Alan Reed
Alan Reed
Alan Reed was an American actor and voice actor, best known as the original voice of Fred Flintstone on The Flintstones and various spinoff series...
and then Hanley Stafford
Hanley Stafford
Hanley Stafford . An actor principally on radio, he is remembered best for playing Lancelot Higgins on The Baby Snooks Show. He is commemorated by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.-External links:...
as her bedeviled Daddy, Baby Snooks premiered in The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air
The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air
The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air, broadcast on CBS during the 1930s, attempted to bring the success of Florenz Ziegfeld's stage shows to the new medium of radio....
in February 1936 on CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
.
She moved to NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
in December 1937, performing the Snooks routines as part of the Good News show, then back to CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
on Maxwell House Coffee Time, the half-hour divided between the Snooks sketches and comedian Frank Morgan
Frank Morgan
Frank Morgan was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of the title character in the film The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
, in September 1944. Brice's longtime Snooks sketch writer, Philip Rapp and David Freedman, brought in partners, Arthur Stander and Everett Freeman, to develop an independent, half-hour comedy program. The program launched on CBS in 1944, moving to NBC in 1948, with Freeman producing. First called Post Toasties Time (named for the show's first sponsor), the show was renamed The Baby Snooks Show within short order, though in later years it was often known colloquially as Baby Snooks and Daddy.
Brice was so meticulous about the program and the title character that she was known to perform in costume as a toddler girl even though seen only by the radio studio audience. She was 45 years old when the character began her long radio life. In addition to Reed and Stafford, her co-stars included Lalive Brownell, Lois Corbet and Arlene Harris
Arlene Harris
Arlene Harris was a Canadian-born American radio, film, and television actress. Before her career in film, she was well-known as a comic actress on the radio program, The Chatterbox....
playing her mother, Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas was an American nightclub comedian and television and film actor, best known for starring in the television sitcom Make Room for Daddy . He was also the founder of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...
as Jerry, Charlie Cantor as Uncle Louie and Ken Christy as Mr. Weemish. She was completely devoted to the character, as she told biographer Norman Katkov: "Snooks is just the kid I used to be. She's my kind of youngster, the type I like. She has imagination. She's eager. She's alive. With all her deviltry, she is still a good kid, never vicious or mean. I love Snooks, and when I play her I do it as seriously as if she were real. I am Snooks. For 20 minutes or so, Fanny Brice ceases to exist."
Baby Snooks writer/producer Everett Freeman told Katkov that Brice didn't like to rehearse the role ("I can't do a show until it's on the air, kid") but always snapped into it on the air, losing herself completely in the character: "While she was on the air she was Baby Snooks. And after the show, for an hour after the show, she was still Baby Snooks. The Snooks
voice disappeared, of course, but the Snooks temperament, thinking, actions were all there."
Marriages
Brice had a short-lived marriage in her teens to a local barber, Frank White, whom she met in 1911 in Springfield, Massachusetts, when she was touring in "College Girl." The marriage lasted only a few days and she brought suit for divorce. Her second husband was professional gambler Julius W. "Nicky" ArnsteinNicky Arnstein
Julius W. "Nicky" Arnstein was an American businessman, professional gambler, and con artist. Among his aliases were "Nick Arnold," "Nicholas Arnold," "Julius Arnold," "Wallace Ames," "John Adams," and "J...
. Prior to their marriage, Arnstein served fourteen months in Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
for wiretapping. Brice visited him in prison every week. In 1918 they were married, after living together for six years. In 1924, Arnstein was charged in a Wall Street bond theft. Brice insisted on his innocence, and funded his legal defense at great expense. Arnstein was convicted and sentenced to the Federal penitentiary at Leavenworth
United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth
The United States Penitentiary , Leavenworth was the largest maximum security federal prison in the United States from 1903 until 2005. It became a medium security prison in 2005.It is located in Leavenworth, Kansas...
where he served three years. Released in 1927, Arnstein disappeared from Brice's life and that of his two children. Reluctantly, Brice divorced him. She went on to marry songwriter and stage producer Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
and appeared in his revue Crazy Quilt, among others. Their marriage also failed.
Television appearance and later years
Brice and Stafford brought Baby Snooks and Daddy to television only once, an appearance in June 1950 on CBS-TV's Popsicle Parade of Stars. This was Fanny Brice's only appearance on television. Brice handled herself well on the live TV broadcast but later admitted that the character of Baby Snooks just didn’t work properly when seen.She returned with Stafford and the Snooks character to the safety of radio for her next appearance, on Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Bankhead
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was an award-winning American actress of the stage and screen, talk-show host, and bonne vivante...
's big-budget, large-scale radio variety show, The Big Show
The Big Show (NBC Radio)
The Big Show, an American radio variety program featuring 90 minutes of top-name comic, stage, screen and music talent, was aimed at keeping American radio in its classic era alive and well against the rapidly-growing television tide...
, in November 1950, sharing the bill with Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx
Julius Henry "Groucho" Marx was an American comedian and film star famed as a master of wit. His rapid-fire delivery of innuendo-laden patter earned him many admirers. He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers, of whom he was the third-born...
and Jane Powell
Jane Powell
Jane Powell is an American singer, dancer and actress.After rising to fame as a singer in her home state of Oregon, Powell was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer while still in her teens...
. In one routine Snooks knocks on Bankhead's dressing room door for advice on becoming an actress when she grew up in spite of Daddy's warning that she already lacked what it took.
Death
Six months after her Big Show appearance, on May 29, 1951, Fanny Brice died in Hollywood of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 59. The May 29, 1951 episode of The Baby Snooks Show was broadcast as a memorial to the star who created the brattish toddler, crowned by Hanley Stafford's brief on-air eulogy: "We have lost a very real, a very warm, a very wonderful woman." Brice was cremated. Her ashes were interred in the Chapel Mausoleum at the Jewish Home of Peace CemeteryHome of Peace Cemetery
The Home of Peace Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery located at 4334 Whittier Boulevard west of Interstate 710 in East Los Angeles, California.The cemetery is located across from Calvary Catholic Cemetery and next to Beth Israel Cemetery and Mount Zion Cemetery .There are a number of famous rabbis...
in East Los Angeles, California
East Los Angeles, California
East Los Angeles is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States...
. A half-century later, at the time of Brice's daughter Frances' death in 1992, Fanny Brice's ashes were reinterred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
The Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is a cemetery in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California. It is located at 1218 Glendon Avenue in Westwood....
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, some 20 miles west of her original interment place. Today, the ashes, and those of her daughter, repose in an outdoor pavilion.
Brice portrayals
Rose of Washington Square
Rose of Washington Square is a 1939 American musical drama film. Set in 1920s New York City, it focuses on singer Rose Sargent and her turbulent relationship with con artist Barton DeWitt Clinton, whose criminal activities threaten her professional success in the Ziegfeld Follies.Although the names...
, in which the principal characters were portrayed by Tyrone Power
Tyrone Power
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr. , usually credited as Tyrone Power and known sometimes as Ty Power, was an American film and stage actor who appeared in dozens of films from the 1930s to the 1950s, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads such as in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan,...
and Alice Faye
Alice Faye
Alice Faye was an American actress and singer, called by The New York Times "one of the few movie stars to walk away from stardom at the peak of her career." She is remembered first for her stardom at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her husband, bandleader and comedian...
, was inspired heavily by Brice's marriage and career, to the extent it borrowed its title from a tune she performed in the Follies and included "My Man
Mon Homme
"Mon Homme" is a popular song known by its English translation, My Man. The song was originally composed by Jacques Charles, Channing Pollack, Albert Willemetz, and Maurice Yvain.-History:...
." She sued 20th Century Fox for invasion of privacy
Invasion of privacy
United States privacy law embodies several different legal concepts. One is the invasion of privacy, a tort based in common law allowing an aggrieved party to bring a lawsuit against an individual who unlawfully intrudes into his or her private affairs, discloses his or her private information,...
and won the case. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl F. Zanuck
Darryl Francis Zanuck was an American producer, writer, actor, director and studio executive who played a major part in the Hollywood studio system as one of its longest survivors...
was forced to delete several production numbers closely associated with the star.
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
starred as Brice in the 1964 Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
musical Funny Girl, which centered on Brice's rise to fame and troubled relationship with Arnstein. In 1968, Streisand won an Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
for reprising her role in the film version (sharing the Oscar with Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
, for The Lion in Winter, in the Academy's only tie vote for Best Actress in its history). The 1975 sequel Funny Lady
Funny Lady
Funny Lady is a 1975 film starring Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall, and Ben Vereen.A sequel to the 1968 film Funny Girl, it is a highly fictionalized account of the later life and career of comedienne Fanny Brice and her marriage to songwriter and empresario Billy Rose...
focused on Brice's turbulent relationship with impresario
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
Billy Rose
Billy Rose
William "Billy" Rose was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. He is credited with many famous songs, notably "Me and My Shadow" , "It Happened in Monterey" and "It's Only a Paper Moon"...
and was as highly fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
alized as the original. Streisand also recorded the Brice songs "My Man," "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy with Somebody Else)" and "Second Hand Rose," which became a Top 40 hit.
Funny Girl, and its sequel Funny Lady
Funny Lady
Funny Lady is a 1975 film starring Barbra Streisand, James Caan, Omar Sharif, Roddy McDowall, and Ben Vereen.A sequel to the 1968 film Funny Girl, it is a highly fictionalized account of the later life and career of comedienne Fanny Brice and her marriage to songwriter and empresario Billy Rose...
, took liberties with the events of Brice's life. They make no mention of Brice's first husband at all, and suggest that Arnstein turned to crime because his pride would not allow him to live off Fanny, and that he was wanted by the police for selling phony bonds. In reality, however, Arnstein sponged off Brice even before their marriage and was eventually named as a member of a gang that stole $5 million worth of Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
securities. Instead of turning himself in, as in the movie, Arnstein went into hiding. When he finally surrendered, he did not plead guilty as he did in the movie, but fought the charges for four years, taking a toll on his wife's finances. It is thought that Ray Stark
Ray Stark
Ray Stark was an American film producer and powerbroker known for his Machiavellian ways.While putting together the Broadway musical Funny Girl - the highly fictionalized account of the life of his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice - its producer David Merrick took Stark and his wife to see an unknown...
, the producer of the play and both movies and Brice's son-in-law, changed Arnstein's story in order to avoid a lawsuit, as Arnstein was still alive at the time. Brice's son William was not mentioned in the play or movies by mutual agreement; other changes – such as the portrayal of Brice's mother as living in modest means rather than well-off or the omission of Brice's first husband – may have been done in the interest of compelling storytelling.
In 2010, One Night with Fanny Brice, a one-woman show about Brice, written and directed by Chip Deffaa
Chip Deffaa
Chip Deffaa is an author, jazz historian, playwright, songwriter and director. For 18 years, he wrote for the New York Post, covering jazz, cabaret, and theater...
and starring Kimberly Faye Greenberg, premiered in New Jersey. The cast album, on the Original Cast label (OC-3831), was released in September 2010. The next production of the show, by the American Century Theatre Co. of Arlington, Virginia, starring Esther Covington, is slated to open in November 2010, directed by Ellen Dempsey.
The 1946 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
Quentin Quail
Quentin Quail
Quentin Quail is a screwball animated cartoon, part of the Merrie Melodies series. It presents a tale about a quail who goes through various trials and tribulations to try to get a worm for his baby, Toots , only to be rebuffed by her because the worm looks like Frank Sinatra.-External links:*Big...
features a character based on Brice's characterization of Baby Snooks.
Legacy
Ray Stark
Ray Stark was an American film producer and powerbroker known for his Machiavellian ways.While putting together the Broadway musical Funny Girl - the highly fictionalized account of the life of his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice - its producer David Merrick took Stark and his wife to see an unknown...
, while son William
William Brice
William Brice was an artist known for his large-scale abstract paintings.-Biography:Born to actress Fannie Brice and gambler/criminal Nicky Arnstein, April 23, 1921, he spent his early years living with his mother and his sister Frances , while their father was in prison on a variety of charges...
(1921–2008) became an artist of note, using his mother's surname.
The Stony Brook campus of the State University of New York
State University of New York
The State University of New York, abbreviated SUNY , is a system of public institutions of higher education in New York, United States. It is the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States, with a total enrollment of 465,000 students, plus...
(SUNY at Stony Brook) formerly had a Fannie Brice Theatre, a small 75-seat venue which has been used for a variety of performances over the years, including a 1988 production of the musical Hair, staged readings, and a studio classroom space. The building was razed in 2007 to make way for new dormitories.
Further reading
- Goldman, Herbert, Fanny Brice: The Original Funny Girl, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-508552-3.
- Grossman, Barbara, Funny Woman: The Life and Times of Fanny Brice, Indiana University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-253-20762-2.