100 Years Of Popular Music - 1922: Fanny Brice

Fanny Brice – 1922

1891-1951

Born in New York to Hungarian Jews, Fanny Brice dropped out of school at the age of 17 and began working in a burlesque revue. Within two years she was a headliner for Ziegfeld Follies. By the early twenties Fanny had an enormous hit with the song “My Man” for Victor Records. It was around this time that she married her second husband Julius “Nicky” Arnstein who had served prison time in Sing Sing and had gang connections. Arnstein's lifestyle would return to haunt the couple as he would later be convicted of Wall Street bond theft and would again serve time in prison. Brice, at great expense, funded his legal defense. After serving three years, Arnstein was released and and left Brice and their two children. Fanny would eventually marry again but that marriage also failed. Fanny Brice continued to perform and was best know for her Baby Snooks character that she would act out on radio until the 1950's. She died in 1951 of a brain hemorrhage. The 1968 movie “Funny Girl” starring Barbara Streisand is loosely based on the life of Fanny Brice.

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1921: Marion Harris

Marion Harris – 1921

1896-1944

Marion Harris started out as a Vaudeville singer in the Midwest in the early 1910's. By 1917 she was recording music and performing on Broadway. She is by many considered one of the first women to sing blues and jazz songs written by African-American songwriters. She continued to perform on stage throughout the 1920's and began acting and singing in films. In the mid-thirties Marion Harris moved to England where she had performed at London's Cafe de Paris but her home was destroyed in a Nazi rocket attack and moved back to the states. She died tragically from burns after falling asleep in bed with a lit cigarette in April of 1944.

100 Years Of Popular Music - 1920: Eddie Cantor

Eddie Cantor – 1920

1892 – 1964

With an extensive career that spanned most of his life, Eddie Cantor was the pop worlds first multi-talented mega-performer that conquered stage, radio, the silver screen and television. Known as the “Apostle of Pep”, the energetic Cantor was know for his witty comedic eye-rolling song and dance routines. Born in New York city and raised by his grandmother after both of his parents died by 1902, Eddie Cantor began his career as a waiter and singing for tips at a Coney Island saloon in the early 1900's backed by Jimmy Durante on piano.  By 1907 he was performing on stage in Vaudeville. In the late teens and throughout the 20's Cantor was a top performer for Ziegfeld Follies and was performing with Will Rogers, Fanny Brice and W.C. Fields. Already he was singing hits such as “Whoopee” and “If You Knew Susie”. In 1923 he appeared in the first short sound films performing his song and dance and was the one of the era's most successful entertainers credited as a singer, songwriter, dancer, composer, actor and the highest paid comedian of the 1930's. His relentless drive and ambition kept him going through the decades, even after loosing everything in the stock market crash of 1929 and adapting to the changing mediums of radio, film and television. Through his extensive charity work Cantor helped create the March of Dimes in the 1950's  Cantor married Ida Tobias in 1914 and had five daughters together which Eddie would mention jokingly in his radio act. They were married until her death in 1962. Cantor died two years later at the age of 72.

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