Read Online The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square by James Traub - Free Book Online
Authors: James Traub
Tags: History
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Ziegfeld was a handsome, dark-eyed man who dressed impeccably; and he understood how to stage-manage his serial romances in a way that Donald Trump could only envy. He fell in love with Anna, and then with an endless succession of beauties; these liaisons ensured that both he and they remained in the spotlight. Ziegfeld plied his beloved, whoever she was, with an endless stream of sable coats and diamond pins and hotel suites and private railroad cars; everything in their lives was the best, the biggest, the shiniest. The love was real, but the display was calculated. Ziegfeld was such a shameless promoter that when Anna’s $250,000 jewelry collection was stolen, she suspected he had done it to create a sensation; and when the same thing happened to the actress Billie Burke a decade or so later, she lodged the same accusation.
Ziegfeld was said to be coldhearted and selfish—his principal biographer seems to have loathed him—but he was also a magnificent character. His plays made him fantastically rich, but his recklessness kept him perpetually teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. His insouciance was legendary. P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, who wrote the book for several of Ziegfeld’s plays, describe him at a casino in Palm Beach: “Ziegfeld was standing by a table with a handful of the costly green chips, dropping them carelessly on the numbers and turning to talk to the woman next to him without watching the wheel. He won, but went on talking, leaving the chips where they lay. . . . Only when his companion squealed excitedly and pointed to the piled-up counters did he motion languidly to the croupier to push them towards him.” An awestruck Bolton says, “You feel that hundred-dollar bills mean no more to him than paper matches to a cigar store”; to which Wodehouse responds, “And half the time he hasn’t enough to buy a waistcoat for a smallish gnat.” This was Ziegfeld’s life; but it was also a myth—or what we would now call a lifestyle—every bit as potent as the dreams of giddy passion Ziegfeld retailed in his plays.
Ziegfeld’s own art was the presentation of female beauty. He sought, he said, “the embodiment of every man’s dream of the ideal woman.” And this was no vaporous ideal. He once explained that “in a really beautiful face, the height of the forehead should equal the length of the nose, the length of the nose equal the distance between the septum of the nose and the chin, the distance between the eyes equal the length of one of them.” He considered the “Titian beauty” the rarest of all; preferred the temperaments, if not the legs, of short girls; abhorred the knocked knee; and insisted that “thighs to be beautiful should exactly touch each other.” It is somewhat shocking to read that Ziegfeld’s ideal choral novice should be no more than sixteen, though of course at the time not many girls remained in school beyond that age. Ziegfeld taught these teenagers how to walk—breasts out, shoulders back, chin up—how to dress, how to talk, how to behave in public. Once he had turned them into Ziegfeld beauties, he added costumes, lighting, makeup, music: the magic of the stage.
Ziegfeld really hit his stride with the
Follies
of 1907. The
Follies
was hardly an innovative production: it was a remake of the popular Parisian “revue,” a series of skits and songs poking fun at the leading figures of the day, the shows, the crazes, the stars. And yet the show exuded a sense of cosmopolitan refinement, of dash and wit, that made it a tremendous success. It was also short—forty minutes—and moved at a head-spinning velocity that only added to the sense of excitement. The
Follies
were widely imitated but never eclipsed. Ziegfeld rechristened the show
Ziegfeld’s Follies,
turning it into a kind of branded product. He used the show to introduce his new beauties, as well as rising stars like the singer Fanny Brice. Every year the girls’ dresses grew more revealing and their
Ziegfeld was said to be coldhearted and selfish—his principal biographer seems to have loathed him—but he was also a magnificent character. His plays made him fantastically rich, but his recklessness kept him perpetually teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. His insouciance was legendary. P. G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton, who wrote the book for several of Ziegfeld’s plays, describe him at a casino in Palm Beach: “Ziegfeld was standing by a table with a handful of the costly green chips, dropping them carelessly on the numbers and turning to talk to the woman next to him without watching the wheel. He won, but went on talking, leaving the chips where they lay. . . . Only when his companion squealed excitedly and pointed to the piled-up counters did he motion languidly to the croupier to push them towards him.” An awestruck Bolton says, “You feel that hundred-dollar bills mean no more to him than paper matches to a cigar store”; to which Wodehouse responds, “And half the time he hasn’t enough to buy a waistcoat for a smallish gnat.” This was Ziegfeld’s life; but it was also a myth—or what we would now call a lifestyle—every bit as potent as the dreams of giddy passion Ziegfeld retailed in his plays.
Ziegfeld’s own art was the presentation of female beauty. He sought, he said, “the embodiment of every man’s dream of the ideal woman.” And this was no vaporous ideal. He once explained that “in a really beautiful face, the height of the forehead should equal the length of the nose, the length of the nose equal the distance between the septum of the nose and the chin, the distance between the eyes equal the length of one of them.” He considered the “Titian beauty” the rarest of all; preferred the temperaments, if not the legs, of short girls; abhorred the knocked knee; and insisted that “thighs to be beautiful should exactly touch each other.” It is somewhat shocking to read that Ziegfeld’s ideal choral novice should be no more than sixteen, though of course at the time not many girls remained in school beyond that age. Ziegfeld taught these teenagers how to walk—breasts out, shoulders back, chin up—how to dress, how to talk, how to behave in public. Once he had turned them into Ziegfeld beauties, he added costumes, lighting, makeup, music: the magic of the stage.
Ziegfeld really hit his stride with the
Follies
of 1907. The
Follies
was hardly an innovative production: it was a remake of the popular Parisian “revue,” a series of skits and songs poking fun at the leading figures of the day, the shows, the crazes, the stars. And yet the show exuded a sense of cosmopolitan refinement, of dash and wit, that made it a tremendous success. It was also short—forty minutes—and moved at a head-spinning velocity that only added to the sense of excitement. The
Follies
were widely imitated but never eclipsed. Ziegfeld rechristened the show
Ziegfeld’s Follies,
turning it into a kind of branded product. He used the show to introduce his new beauties, as well as rising stars like the singer Fanny Brice. Every year the girls’ dresses grew more revealing and their
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