Fanny Brice

Movie, stage, and radio actress, and comedienne, and Ziegfeld Girl, Fanny Brice (29th October, 1891 - 29th May, 1951) appeared in Hollywood movies between 1928 and 1938, and is photographed here by Alfred Cheney Johnston. Her first movie at the age of 37 was Archie Mayo’s American part-talkie for Warner Bros. Pictures ‘My Man’ (1928), also starring Guinn “Big Boy” Williams. She then appeared in Thornton Freeland’s Pre-Code musical comedy featuring the music of Billy Rose, ‘Be Yourself’ (1930), co-starring Robert Armstrong, then in Alfred E. Green’s Pre-Code comedy ‘The Man from Blankley’s’ (1930), also starring John Barrymore and Loretta Young, then in Ben Hecht’s and Charles MacArthur’s Pre-Code drama ‘Crime Without Passion’ (1930), also starring Claude Rains, Helen Hayes, Marjorie Main, and Ben Hecht himself, then as herself in Robert Z. Leonard’s musical drama ‘The Great Ziegfeld’ (1936), also starring William Powell, Luise Rainer, Myrna Loy, Frank Morgan, Virginia Bruce, Reginald Owen, and Ray Bolger, then in Edwin L. Marin’s musical comedy ‘Everybody Sing’ (1938), also starring Judy Garland, Billie Burke, Reginald Owen, and Tenor Allan Jones, and then in Roy Del Ruth’s segment of the musical comedy ‘Ziegfeld Follies’ (1938), also starring William Powell, Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Lucille Bremer, and Kathryn Grayson. Fanny Brice was famous for her radio programme ‘The Baby Snooks Show’, and her life was memorialized in the Jule Styne, Bob Merrill, and Isobel Lennert musical ‘Funny Girl’ (1964), with the role of “Fanny Brice” played by Barbra Streisand in both the stage production and in the 1968 movie, and more recently played by Beanie Goldstein and Lea Michele on the Broadway Stage.