0:03

On a Sunday night in October nine

0:06

two once in a lifetime talents

0:12

Ye teamed

0:15

up for an unforgettable duet

0:17

on National TV. Twenty

0:20

one year old Barbara Streisand

0:22

was a guest on The Judy Garland

0:24

Show. Garland was then forty

0:27

one. Their medley of Happy

0:29

Days, Are Here Again and Get Happy

0:32

was sheer perfection, an instant

0:35

classic. Garland, already

0:37

in decline, though she didn't sound like

0:39

it that night, would die. Just six

0:41

years later, Streisand

0:46

was just breaking out two

0:48

story ships passing in the night?

0:59

What'd she do? Snooks? I've

1:01

been your

1:03

books away? Twenty five years

1:05

earlier, a very different duet,

1:08

It was Garland who was on the rise and

1:11

singing with an established star. Still

1:14

a year away from her trip down the Yellow

1:16

Brick Road. Teenage Judy was

1:18

starting to make a name for herself, appearing

1:20

in a movie musical called Everybody

1:23

Sing. In this number, she argues

1:25

in song with a little girl played

1:28

by a fortysomething woman named

1:31

Fanny Bryce, why

1:33

because because

1:37

where you are, Let's play cops and Clothes.

1:40

At the time, Fanny Bryce was

1:42

one of the biggest stars in the country.

1:46

Lady and Gentlemen present

1:49

Miss Fannie Bryce. Fanny Bryce Bryce

1:52

had conquered Broadway,

1:58

headlined movies You're gonna Hear

2:00

what I've got to say, and created

2:03

one of the most popular characters

2:05

on radio.

2:08

Fanny

2:10

Bryce was also a history maker

2:13

in original one of the first

2:15

great female comedy stars.

2:18

She was so famous that one day an

2:20

entire musical called Funny Girl

2:22

would be written about her life, a

2:24

musical that would star Barbara

2:26

Streisand. But while

2:29

Funny Girl would help turn Streisand

2:31

into a supernova, the real

2:33

Fannie Bryce would fade from

2:35

memory. It made people remember

2:38

her longer than I'm sure

2:40

they would have had there not been a

2:42

musical. But the life

2:45

as she lived it is not the

2:47

life story that we get in Funny

2:49

Girl from CBS Sunday

2:51

Morning and I Heart I'm Morocca

2:54

and this is mobituaries.

2:58

This moment Fanny Bryce, death

3:02

of the original Funny Girl. Don't

3:18

tell me not to live just sitting

3:20

pudder Life's candy in the suns

3:22

of Balla Budda, don't bring

3:25

around a clout to rate on my

3:27

parade.

3:30

That's Barbara streisand knocking

3:32

them dead. As Fanny Bryce in Broadways,

3:34

Funny Girl in Fast

3:38

forward fifty eight years to April,

3:42

Hello Gorgeous and the show's

3:44

first ever Broadway revival, starring

3:47

Beanie Feldstein. Alas,

3:50

the reviews for this production were less

3:53

than stellar, the show was

3:55

hobbling along until michell

3:58

Is getting rave reviews. Lee

4:00

star Leah Michelle was brought into play

4:02

Fanny, and the revival itself

4:05

was revived. It's ready

4:07

for me because I said,

4:22

I saw Leah and the show and she was

4:24

terrific. But make no mistake,

4:27

the lead role in Funny Girl is indelibly

4:29

connected to Really owned

4:32

by Barbara streisand people,

4:39

people need

4:41

people, Ah

4:47

the Peple.

4:56

After all, she won an oscar when she starred

4:58

in the movie version, just to few years after

5:00

her Broadway run. Now, to be

5:02

clear, this is not a mobituary for

5:05

streisand I mean, she's kind of immortal.

5:07

We'll talk more about her in Act two,

5:10

but this episode is about the woman she

5:12

came to eclipse Fanny Bryce.

5:15

Funny Girl, in many ways is a sanitized

5:18

life story. The story that the family

5:20

wanted to tell in Bryce's career

5:22

was much more a fever chart,

5:25

up and down and up and down and up and down.

5:28

Barbara Grossman is a theater professor

5:30

at Tufts University and wrote

5:32

an in depth biography on Bryce entitled

5:35

Funny Woman. She didn't simply

5:37

will herself to be the greatest star and everyone

5:39

accepted it and that was it. Well, she willed

5:42

herself to do it, but it took her a while

5:44

to find her footing and to figure out actually

5:46

who she was as an entertainer,

5:48

and to accept her great comic gifts.

5:53

Bryce was born Fannie a Borak

5:56

to a Jewish immigrant family in As

6:00

a small child, she lived in Newark, New

6:02

Jersey, where her mother Rose ran a

6:04

saloon and her father, known as

6:06

Pinuckle Charlie, drank and

6:09

played cards and did pretty

6:11

much nothing else. After

6:13

her parents split up, Fanny moved

6:15

with her mother to Brooklyn, where her career

6:18

began. She was not

6:20

yet fifteen when she stepped

6:22

on stage to perform at a vaudeville

6:24

house called Kenney's. It

6:26

was amateur night, and she later wrote

6:28

that when the audience saw a quote gawky,

6:31

nondescript girl in a rumpled linen

6:33

dress and cheap sailor hat, they

6:36

started booing and shrieking.

6:41

This was the kind of place where they gave performers

6:43

the hook literally a big iron

6:45

one. If the audience didn't like them,

6:51

then Fanny began singing a

6:53

sentimental ballad of the time, and

6:57

as the performance went on, the

6:59

crowd fell silent. There

7:02

was just something about that teenage

7:04

girl singing so seriously.

7:09

Banny's brother Lou would later give

7:11

this rather delightful description.

7:13

The theater quieted down like somebody

7:16

had hung a smallpox sign over

7:18

the door. When the crowd started

7:20

throwing money at Fanny, she knew

7:23

she was a hit. She

7:25

even got a few laughs while pausing her

7:27

dramatic song to pick up her money.

7:31

Soon after that night at Keeney's, she quit

7:33

school to pursue a life in show

7:35

business. When she auditioned

7:37

for one show in nine she

7:39

was asked if she had a specialty number.

7:42

After confidently saying she did, she

7:44

didn't, she went running to a young man

7:47

named Irving Berlin. Now

7:51

you might know Berlin as the writer of White

7:53

Christmas Easter Parade, God

7:55

Bless America, But this was

7:57

before all that. At that point,

7:59

he is writing Italian

8:01

dialect songs, Irish dialect songs,

8:04

and he said, Fanny,

8:06

with your face, you should do a

8:08

Yiddish dialect song, all

8:12

right, let's talk about her face. Well.

8:14

She had brown, curly hair, green

8:16

eyes, a wide mouth, and a prominent

8:19

nose. More on that later, Fanny

8:21

would describe hers as a quote Jewish

8:24

face. She was also tall for

8:26

the time, standing five ft six and

8:28

painfully thin, as she put it, with

8:31

legs that looked like two slats.

8:34

These features made her stand out and

8:36

would become tools for her comedy. She

8:38

knew she was a site gang, and she

8:41

played up that aspect of her physicality.

8:44

That she knew she couldn't be the prettiest goal on the stage.

8:46

She was going to be the funniest. The

8:49

dialect songs that Irving Berlin and

8:51

others were writing were tied to a

8:53

boom in ethnic comedy fueled

8:55

by the huge numbers of immigrants coming

8:57

to America in the late nineteenth and

9:00

early twentieth centuries. While

9:04

some of this material might seem offensive

9:06

today, immigrant communities of

9:08

the time ate it up. One

9:10

of those communities, comprised of Eastern

9:13

and Central European Jews, was

9:15

a Yiddish speaking There were Yiddish

9:17

newspapers and a thriving Yiddish

9:19

theater scene, which isn't surprising.

9:23

Nia means

9:26

rosadas, bubbs. The

9:29

Yiddish language, a combination of

9:32

German and Hebrew with a few other linguistic

9:34

ingredients thrown in. Has a kind of

9:37

musicality, with words that are

9:39

kind of fun to say, like schlamil, schlamozel,

9:42

bobby and book kiss. Why

9:44

did people consider the Yiddish accent funny?

9:47

Well, if you don't know Yiddish,

9:49

it kind of sounds funny.

9:53

And if you combine it with gestures

9:55

and manners, I mean, it's like

9:57

anything you can exaggerate it. And

10:00

when you combine it with her zany

10:02

flair for physical comedy,

10:04

it was just an irresistible combination.

10:07

Fanny took Irving Berlin's advice and

10:10

created her own comedic Yiddish

10:12

accented persona.

10:19

How

10:20

are you to

10:25

say? How marry you win? You might

10:27

be a

10:29

month. But

10:35

here's the thing, Fanny didn't

10:37

actually know Yiddish. Most

10:39

people would think, oh, Fanny Bryce, she

10:41

probably grew up speaking Yiddish. Well,

10:43

she liked people to think that, but she didn't.

10:45

But she could put on the accent just like

10:47

a mask and take it off. By this

10:49

time, Fanny was performing in burlesque

10:52

houses. Burlesque was

10:55

I suppose the lowest rung on the

10:57

show business ladder. If you're talking about American

10:59

popular and pertainment. When we tend to

11:01

think of burlesque, we think of stripped tease.

11:04

But burlesque wasn't just stripped tease.

11:06

It included singers, dancers, and

11:09

comedy acts. For somebody

11:11

like Bryce who was really trying to break into show

11:13

business, it was easier to get

11:15

into you didn't have to be quite

11:17

as pretty. It's around this time

11:20

she changed her name from Fannie A. Borak

11:22

to Fanny Bryce, but

11:25

she kept her comedic style, which

11:27

would be epitomized by later hits

11:29

like Secondhand Rose, about

11:31

a poor Jewish girl from the Lower East

11:33

Side. All

11:45

that fighting. She

11:51

was fast making a name for herself in

11:53

burlesque,

11:58

but her big came in when

12:02

she was cast in the zig Feld Follies.

12:05

The Follies started the greatest entertainers

12:08

of the day in a live review that

12:10

was nothing short of spectacular.

12:13

You had the zig Feld Girls, these

12:15

statuesque women who created

12:18

in and out with beautiful costumes.

12:21

The show was also renowned for its comedians,

12:24

the cowboy humorist Will Rogers,

12:26

the curmudgeon le W C. Fields,

12:28

whom my father always loved you

12:30

like children I do if they're probably

12:33

cooked. And the

12:35

beloved Apostle of pep Eddie

12:37

Canter, whose greatest hits I still

12:39

listen to, How are you going to keep him down

12:42

on the farm after they've

12:44

seen Harry? How

12:47

are you going to keep them away from?

12:49

I think it was Eddie Cander who said, when you make

12:51

it into the Follies, it's like when

12:53

you're a baseball player and you make it into the World

12:55

Series. It's the top. It's the top

12:58

of the show. Is this career? The screw

13:00

winning movie The Great Zigfeld starred

13:02

William Powell as impresario forlorenzig

13:05

Felt and depicts his discovery

13:08

of Fanny Bryce ms Brice.

13:10

I am really here to offer you a great opportunity.

13:13

That's what they all say in the movie. Fanny

13:15

plays herself. Everyone

13:18

was singing fancyne screening

13:21

at a wedding yesterday, Heed

13:24

on his feetle late some rag

13:27

time, and after

13:30

accepting Zigfeld's offer, we see

13:32

her make it to the big time. Look

13:34

at you. You're working for Zigfelt

13:37

now and you look like a million

13:39

dallars the first time

13:41

in your life. You clash. The

13:46

Folly's made Fanny a major

13:48

star. By nine six, the

13:51

New York Tribune was calling her the

13:53

funniest woman on the stage today.

13:55

Eventually she was pulling in three

13:57

thousand dollars a week, making her one

14:00

the highest paid women in show business,

14:02

a yearly income, one newspaper would later

14:04

note, said to be an excess of

14:07

that of the President of the United States.

14:10

But more than all that, she was an original,

14:13

a great female clown, and

14:15

a pioneer. Many of her

14:17

fans had probably never even met

14:19

a Jewish person or a woman of

14:22

any background who was so uninhibited

14:25

by turns, goofy and body,

14:27

unconcerned with society's notions

14:29

of how a lady ought to behave. In

14:32

contrast to the statuesque beauties

14:34

parading across the Folly stage,

14:36

Fanny was the anti Ziegfeld

14:39

girl. She would go on to satirize

14:41

performers like modern dancer Martha

14:44

Graham and theatrical grand Dame

14:46

Ethel Barrymore, and she became the

14:48

master of the parody number, turning

14:51

the hit song the Chic of Araby

14:53

into the chic of Avenue b

15:00

Unfanni ahead.

15:05

How did Jewish audiences feel about her performances?

15:08

They loved her Fanny knew

15:10

who she was representing and what she wanted

15:13

that representation to mean, later

15:15

saying, I never did a Jewish

15:17

song that would offend the race. In

15:19

anything Jewish I ever did, I wasn't

15:22

standing apart making fun of the race.

15:24

I was the race. And like

15:26

my own favorite performers, she had

15:29

a natural warmth. You can

15:31

hear it in her real voice in a p s

15:33

A she did during the Great Depression, encouraging

15:36

people to help the unemployed. What

15:38

are you doing, Fanny didding

15:40

a sweater? They

15:43

unemployed? My relation, all

15:46

my uncle, not one of

15:48

them, are working one

15:50

more stitching habby even all

15:53

kidna side folks. This is really a serious

15:55

matter. As for her romantic

15:58

life, well, if you've seen Funny

16:00

Girl, you know the name Nick.

16:05

What a beautiful, beautiful name.

16:09

When she's twenty one, she meets

16:12

Nick Arnstein. Who is he? That's

16:14

a good question. I mean he was basically

16:16

a gambler, a con man,

16:20

a criminal. Was he Omar Shariff

16:22

good looking? I don't know that anybody's

16:24

in Omar Sharif category,

16:26

but he was good looking. Egyptian

16:29

actor Omar Shariff played Nick Arnstein

16:31

in the Funny girl movie. Look

16:34

at pictures of the real Nick Arnstein, and

16:36

I'm pretty sure you'll agree that casting

16:38

Shariff was generous. Regardless,

16:40

Bannie Bryce fell for the real Arnstein

16:43

hard. She talks about kind

16:45

of love at first sight. He ended up taking her

16:48

up to his hotel room, where she

16:50

saw his monogram bathro even

16:52

his toothbrush she found elegant, and she just

16:55

was really swept up

16:58

by this man who appreciated

17:00

of the finer things in life, and I think she really did

17:02

love him. Never mind that Arnstein

17:04

was married when they met and didn't obtain a

17:06

divorce until Fanny was seven months

17:08

pregnant with their first child. That detail

17:11

isn't in the musical. They ended up having

17:13

a daughter and son. Arnstein

17:15

was also pretty much constantly engaged

17:17

in criminal activity, doing time

17:20

at Sing Sing for wire tapping and

17:22

leaven Worth for bank theft. The

17:24

two were finally married in nineteen nineteen

17:27

in between prison terms. Fanny

17:29

stood by Nick through most of these ups

17:31

and downs, which led to one

17:33

of her biggest career moments. When

17:36

she was in the fallies of ninety

17:38

one, it was actually Zigfeld who

17:41

gave her a number that became

17:43

really wonder her signature songs.

17:46

The song was My Man, the English

17:48

adaptation of a French song made famous

17:51

by the great Shantouse Westing Gay.

17:54

She said to down,

18:01

the French version is a

18:03

much rougher song.

18:05

I mean, it's really about a prostitute

18:07

who's singing about her pimp who beats

18:10

her and you know, abuses her. And

18:13

the American version, of course, was sanitized.

18:17

Call me love

18:22

it, mamma. Fanny's

18:28

performance of my Man was unlike

18:30

anything else she'd ever done, raw

18:33

and without a Yiddish accent. She

18:36

wore a torn dress and leaned

18:38

forlornly against a lamp post. No

18:40

cookie hand gestures,

18:43

just stripped down, just singing

18:46

the song. And look, I'm

18:48

sure she was singing from her

18:50

own pain. At the time

18:52

Fanny performed the number, Arnstein

18:55

had been found guilty of bond theft

18:57

and would soon be sentenced. Front

18:59

page news.

19:05

Oh My

19:17

Lanny's why My

19:21

Man became Fanny's signature song,

19:24

and for several more years, Fanny stood

19:26

by her man until she couldn't.

19:29

I do think that

19:32

she would have stayed with him, probably

19:34

forever, but he

19:36

committed the cardinal sin. She

19:39

learned of his infidelity, and

19:42

she was done. She stood by him,

19:44

she loved him, but when he

19:47

was unfaithful to her, she was done.

19:49

There was no coming back from No, there really wasn't.

19:52

My man was a breakthrough moment for Fanny.

19:54

It gave her hope that audiences could see

19:56

her as more than just a clown, and

20:00

to that end, she was about to make

20:02

a very big change. I

20:05

want to how much what it costs, because these an't

20:07

fixed stuff. I mean, by one of those pick surgeons.

20:10

Well, I wouldn't want an old carpenter doing it. I

20:29

have a confession to make. When I am

20:31

thinking about Funny Girl, as I often

20:33

do, I sometimes forget

20:36

that it's not the Barbara Streisand

20:38

story. Does that make me crazy?

20:40

No, You're absolutely on

20:43

target. In fact, I think it actually

20:45

is the Barbara Streisand story in many

20:47

ways. In some ways, it's more the Barbara

20:50

Streisand story than it is the Fannie Bryce story.

20:53

This is my friend Eric Near. He's

20:55

a contributing editor to the literary

20:58

and arts journal The Hudson Review, and

21:00

he knows more about musical theater than

21:02

I could ever hope to know. Will

21:04

return to the story of the real life Fanny

21:07

later in the episode, But first I wanted

21:09

to talk with Eric about how with Funny

21:11

Girl Barbara streisand came to

21:13

eclipse the memory of Fanny Bryce.

21:16

The depiction of Fanny ultimately

21:19

ends up being a little closer to Strei's

21:22

end than it does to the real Fanny Bryce.

21:24

And was that intentional? Well, I don't

21:27

think. Originally, Fannie Bryce

21:29

had been dead for over a decade when

21:31

a powerful Hollywood producer named

21:33

Ray Stark set about telling her

21:36

story. Ray Stark happened

21:38

to be married to Fanny's daughter. The

21:41

idea was to create a show about the

21:43

story of Fannie Bryce and the broad outlines

21:45

of her life working for Ziegfeld

21:48

and her marriage to Nick Arnstein, which was

21:50

of course very troubled, And they went through

21:52

a lot of sort of potential Fannies,

21:55

you know. Carol Burnett was considered interesting,

21:58

and Bancroft was attached for why she

22:00

was really hot after just winning an oscar for the

22:02

Miracle Worker? Did she singing the Miracle Worker?

22:05

Sullivan singing? Carol

22:08

Burnett and Anne Bancroft were already

22:10

big names, but Bunny Girl's

22:12

composer, a man named Julie

22:15

Stein, was writing the show's

22:17

score with a lesser known talent.

22:19

In mind three,

22:29

what you study

22:31

Rooster is Dustina.

22:38

At the time, Barbara Streisand was

22:40

just twenty and performing

22:42

in downtown Manhattan clubs like

22:45

The Village Vanguard and the

22:47

Bonsar described

22:49

back then as Kookie. Streisand

22:52

had stolen the show in her first

22:54

Broadway role in two

22:56

as the secretary Miss Marmelstein

22:59

and I can get her or your wholesale Stane,

23:03

you think at least missing I

23:15

could die. Julie

23:18

Stein saw her and said,

23:20

Okay, here's a girl who can really sing,

23:23

who is clearly Jewish

23:25

and will be convincing playing Fanny

23:27

Bryce, and who is also a comic

23:30

and has a wonderful sense of humor

23:32

a wonderful sense of stage comedy. It

23:35

was inevitable casting. There was really

23:37

no one else at the time who would have been

23:40

so perfect for the role. With a

23:42

new, exciting and volcanically

23:44

talented performer in the role, the

23:47

show's focus started to shift,

23:49

and so Funny Girl started

23:52

to bend in a way to be really

23:55

much more about Streisand

23:57

and her talent than it did about Annie

24:00

Bryce. Streisand's take on

24:02

Fanny Bryce was entirely her

24:04

own as she discussed in this backstage

24:07

radio interview from the opening night of Funny

24:09

Girl in four, did

24:12

you research the life of Fanny Boys

24:14

at all? No, I didn't want to approach

24:16

it is an invitation or

24:18

anything like that. I mean, they hired me

24:20

because whatever organic things

24:22

we had similar, you

24:25

know, they'll work for themselves. I understand

24:27

that you purposely kept yourself away from looking

24:30

at movies of hers, hearing programs of hers,

24:32

and so forth. I mean, I'm approaching it as a character

24:34

in a play who could have been any woman

24:36

who was torn between a career marriage

24:39

and has problems of her own.

24:42

As for what the two women had in common,

24:44

well, Streisand, like Bryce, wasn't

24:47

Broadway or certainly Hollywood's

24:49

definition of beautiful. Early

24:52

on, critics had no compunction writing

24:54

about her nose, speculating

24:56

on whether she'd ever get it fixed. Variety

24:59

even recommended a quote corrective

25:02

schnaz Bob Eric says

25:04

that kind of criticism may have only

25:06

made Streisand more determined to

25:08

make it, a determination that

25:11

served her well in the role of Fanny.

25:13

What we see and Funny Girl is Fanny

25:17

sort of using that insecurity

25:19

about her looks and about

25:21

not being taken seriously and channeling

25:24

that into this kind of fierce ambition

25:27

that is this sort of incredibly exciting

25:29

mix of anger and

25:31

insecurity that drives

25:33

her on and streisand just

25:36

really embodies that in an incredible

25:38

way. Let's listen to streisand

25:40

as a young Fanny singing, I'm

25:43

the greatest star in the movie

25:45

version of Funny Girl, Because

25:50

the greatest star I

25:53

am by far in

25:56

a case of art imitating life

25:59

imitating arts, stay with me here, this

26:01

number becomes as much a declaration

26:03

by Barbara streisand herself as

26:05

it does by the character she was playing. That's

26:08

a fascinating song because it kind of starts

26:11

a little bit as if she's trying to please. She's

26:13

kind of doing a little sticky stuff and funny

26:15

voices and trying to ingratiate

26:17

herself. Why they're going to hear of

26:21

a silver flute? Belcher

26:25

reached to a terrific when

26:28

I exposed. And then

26:31

something happens kind of midway through that song where

26:33

she kind of steps away

26:35

from that and just says, all right, hold

26:38

on, listen up, I am the

26:40

greatest star, and I don't

26:43

have any qualms about saying that

26:46

yes, who's the best

26:49

year? Yeah,

27:14

it's a gutsy kind of thing

27:17

to say in the

27:19

heroine's first big number in the show, because

27:21

it could come off as you know, a little

27:23

egotistical and pushy and a

27:25

little obnoxious. But when it's

27:28

performed in the way it's performed,

27:30

certainly by strikes out, as we see in the film,

27:33

there's no other response but yes,

27:35

you're right, which brings us to

27:37

a key difference between the two

27:39

women they're singing voices.

27:42

I don't want to be unfair to Fanny, she's not here to

27:44

defend herself. But let's do a little compare and

27:46

contrast. Let's listen to Fanny singing

27:49

my man

27:54

man I oh

28:04

now, let's listen to Barbara's ng

28:06

my man

28:11

so

28:17

is just as fakay

28:22

when it takes me and wrong.

28:35

Even accounting for differences

28:39

in audience tastes, there's

28:41

really no comparison that's right. The

28:43

way that Fanny sings it is

28:45

full of heart and full

28:48

of warmth and richness and

28:50

character, but it is a

28:52

style that sounds pretty dated to us now,

28:55

and the way that Straison sings my man

28:57

has not dated at all. In fact,

28:59

it's as powerful as it was when she

29:01

recorded it, you know, over fifty years ago.

29:04

And the secret to Straysand's power,

29:06

says Eric, has more to do with her

29:08

treatment of the words than music.

29:11

She's really acting the song. It's

29:14

as if she is making up

29:16

the song as she goes along. Strist And

29:18

really brings together a lot

29:20

of different kinds of vocalism

29:24

and then puts this whole

29:26

gloss of incredible sort

29:28

of sensuality and eroticism

29:31

over it, which may surprise people

29:33

because we don't think of her as being sort of a sexy

29:35

performer. But when

29:37

you hear her sing, she is cressing every

29:39

phrase with an incredibly sensual

29:42

approachest

29:47

of love, soundistan,

29:53

wist of your

29:55

love. Only

30:01

just listen to Streisand on a personal

30:03

favorite of mine, Alan and Marilyn

30:06

Bergman and Michelle Legrands, what

30:08

are you doing the rest of your life?

30:10

She is able to open

30:13

her voice up at the top of the

30:15

range in a way that lets

30:17

it really blossom into this kind

30:19

of soaring sounds. What God.

30:34

And It's just so important I think for

30:36

people to understand

30:39

that it was knew what she was

30:41

doing, like all great artists, was

30:44

new because she's such a fact of life. I think

30:46

it's easy to take for granted that's absolutely

30:49

true. And of course the sad fact

30:51

is that she had this incredible

30:54

success with Funny Girl and then never did a Broadway show

30:56

again. Indeed, streisand

30:58

would go on to conquer Hollywoo what but

31:01

rather than replace Fanny Bryce,

31:03

Eric believes Barbara's performance and

31:06

Funny Girl is the reason we remember

31:08

Fanny Bryce's name at all. Without

31:11

Funny Girl, I think she'd be basically a forgotten

31:13

a performer at this time. Funny

31:15

Girl has kept her name alive in

31:17

ways that the surviving fragments

31:20

that we have of video or audio

31:22

footage have not. Really who

31:24

can we compare Fanny Bryce to that

31:27

might give people a sense of the kind

31:29

of performer that she was. I

31:31

think there's definitely a bit

31:33

of Fanny Bryce and Bette Midler ther

31:37

John. So some lastness,

31:40

my face is Matt barg that's broke

31:44

that sense of zane nous

31:47

and the broadly funny

31:50

faces that she makes, combined with a

31:52

warmth and good natured nous.

31:54

Another heir to Bryce, the aforementioned

31:57

Carol Burnett, who's long running

31:59

and completely wonderful variety

32:01

show, was big on parody.

32:04

I love you that that that gown is

32:07

gorgeous, thank

32:09

you Stan Wind and I just couldn't resist

32:11

it. No

32:14

question that Carl Burnett was influenced

32:16

by Fanny Brice. You see it in

32:19

the facial expressions that she makes,

32:21

the willingness to put on any kind

32:23

of outrageous costume, the willingness

32:26

to look incredibly

32:28

silly and ridiculous, all

32:31

in the service of humor. To give

32:33

her her props. Fanny did do

32:35

that thing of being a big

32:37

star comic who kind of in

32:39

an act of performance jiu Jitsu, made

32:42

you cry with a song like my Man. That's

32:45

part of her appeal

32:47

is that she's zany and cookie

32:50

and will do anything of her laugh. But always

32:52

at the core there's this sense of a

32:54

true and real and kind and loving

32:57

person behind everything

32:59

that she does. Final question. Barbara

33:02

spells her first name b A R

33:05

B R A. When

33:07

you see younger gay men spell

33:10

her name with three a's, how

33:12

does it make you feel? It makes me feel

33:14

a little bit how I feel when I hear people

33:17

refer to cast albums as soundtracks.

33:20

Oouch, that hurts. It's like a night It's

33:22

painful, but you know, What drives

33:24

Barbara even more crazy is when people

33:26

mispronounced her last name. It was

33:28

a z sound instead of an asset, right.

33:31

And perhaps you've heard the story that when

33:33

Apple launched Siri, Sirie

33:35

was pronouncing her name Barbara streisand

33:38

Barbara picked up the phone and called Tim Cook

33:40

to ask him to fix the pronunciation

33:43

of her name by Sirie. And I'm sure they did it

33:45

right away, no doubt. When

33:48

I see that extra a, I mean to me, it's

33:51

tantamount to a hate crime. Mmh.

34:07

You even made

34:10

me feel sort of beautiful,

34:13

you know, for for a very long

34:15

time, beautiful.

34:20

The musical Funny Girl ends with Fanny

34:22

Bryce saying goodbye to her gambler

34:24

ne'er do well husband, Nicky Arnstein

34:26

for the very last time. But

34:29

that's not where Fanny's story ended. It's

34:31

around this time that Fanny did something that

34:33

stray Sand famously did not do.

34:37

In she had what was announced

34:39

as facial sculpture. Yes,

34:42

she had a nose job. She did. That's

34:45

Fanny Bryce. Biographer Barbara Grossman.

34:47

Again, as much as

34:50

we talked about she knew who she was,

34:52

and she knew what she wanted, and

34:55

she'd never thought of herself as pretty.

34:58

She didn't fit the established

35:01

beautiful type, and so

35:03

she saw having a smaller nose is not

35:06

just making her pretty, but allowing

35:08

her to do the kind of dramatic work that

35:11

she thought she would be better suited for

35:14

if she looked different. A

35:17

different, less ethnic look, her thinking

35:20

went, might also help her appeal to

35:22

a wider range of audiences around

35:24

the country. Writer Dorothy Parker

35:26

acidly equipped that Fanny quote

35:29

cut off her nose to spite her

35:31

race. Now I have to confess I

35:34

didn't even realize people got nose

35:36

jobs back then. But plastic

35:38

surgery had advanced during World

35:40

War One as the doctor's developed

35:43

new methods to reconstruct the faces

35:45

of disfigured soldiers. In

35:47

the years after the war, those methods

35:49

would be used for cosmetic surgery,

35:51

or what some called facial renovation.

35:57

When you look at pictures of Fanny post

35:59

nose job, the change doesn't look

36:01

that dramatic. Still, the procedure

36:04

made national news, mostly

36:06

because Fanny never publicity

36:08

shy, let reporters see her swathed

36:11

in bandages after the surgery.

36:14

Fanny referred to her nose job as a

36:16

return to normalcy, a play

36:19

on Warren Harding's presidential

36:21

campaign slogan. In an interview,

36:23

Fanny acknowledged it might take a

36:26

couple of seasons for the public to get used

36:28

to my new nose. But I'm

36:30

ambitious. Like every actress, I

36:33

know I can act, and I want to show the public

36:35

what I can do with a

36:37

new nose in front of her. Fanny

36:39

was ready for Hollywood, which was just

36:41

entering the sound era with the success

36:44

of Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer. Wait

36:46

a minute, Wait a minute

36:49

Yet, movie studios were on the hunt

36:51

for entertainers who could talk and

36:54

sing, and so Warner Brothers

36:56

signed Fanny. Her first film,

37:00

My Man, featured her singing

37:02

the now famous title tune, plus

37:04

some new songs.

37:20

She was even marketed as the female

37:23

Joelson, But audiences

37:25

didn't respond to Fanny in the same way

37:27

My Man was a flop. Did

37:30

some parts of the country just find her too

37:33

Jewish? Well? Variety seemed

37:35

to think so, writing bluntly and

37:38

disturbingly in its review of the film,

37:40

quote, certain localities

37:42

are apt to chill on the stars

37:45

distinct Hebrew clowning.

37:47

Now some of you may be thinking, wait a minute.

37:50

The Jazz Singer is the story of a canter

37:52

son who abandons the synagogue

37:55

for show business, only to return in

37:57

a climactic scene to chant yam ki

37:59

poor prayer while his father is on his

38:01

deathbed. That

38:13

was pretty Jewish and audiences

38:15

loved it. But that movie may have been

38:17

more of an exception to the rule, not

38:20

to mention it was ultimately a story of

38:22

assimilation. Fanny's

38:25

movie career was coinciding

38:27

with what would end up being a disappearance

38:30

of sorts of Jews in the stories

38:32

being told by the entertainment industry.

38:35

The nativism and anti immigrant

38:37

sentiment of the nineteen twenties and thirties

38:40

was leading to a desemitizing

38:42

of mainstream culture. Studio

38:45

bosses, many of them Jewish themselves,

38:48

seemed to believe that movies playing to the

38:50

whole country needed to downplay

38:52

Jewish faces, accents, and

38:54

themes. Characters and plots

38:57

featuring Jewish people were minimized

38:59

or ate it entirely. Many

39:03

Jewish film actors would leave the business

39:06

or try to assimilate as best they could.

39:09

For example, a decade or so after

39:12

Fanny, actress Lauren Bicall

39:14

born Betty Joan Persky

39:16

would be marketed by studio publicists

39:19

as being from society.

39:21

Interestingly, Bicall would play Barbara

39:24

Streisand's mother in the film

39:27

The Mirror Has Two Faces. Mother,

39:29

I made dinner, Why don't you put the coffee on?

39:32

I raised two daughters, I buried a husband.

39:34

I've made my coffee. Another issue

39:36

might have been Fanny's over the top stage

39:38

persona. Look, I love Broadway,

39:41

but sometimes the energy is just

39:43

too much for the big screen. There's a

39:45

reason why ethel Merman barely had a movie

39:48

career. Will you just shut up and

39:50

let me talk? Whatever it was,

39:52

it wasn't working. Fanny

39:54

would go on to make just six movies,

39:57

but her star would rise again in a print

40:00

medium. It was the nineteen thirties

40:02

radio's golden age, and Fanny

40:05

had the perfect character. Yes,

40:08

Dying Fanny with handle

40:11

s is Daddy Baby Snooks

40:13

was a character Fanny developed for the stage

40:16

back in her early performance days, and

40:18

this is important. The character didn't

40:20

rely on a Yiddish accent. You

40:23

can't really do Yiddish accent a comedy on the

40:25

radio because it's so physical.

40:28

It demands the gestures, the manners,

40:30

and the whole stick if you will,

40:33

And with Hitler's Germany posing an

40:35

increasing threat and anti Semitism

40:38

rampant on the home front. Fanny

40:40

likely reasoned that her Jewishness was

40:42

not something to emphasize, not

40:45

if you were trying to appeal to a national radio

40:47

audience. The Baby Snooks show

40:49

was pretty standard sitcom fair episodes

40:52

would revolve around Stooks causing trouble

40:54

or asking too many questions, and

40:57

her ever exasperated father having

40:59

to deal with her in Calfornia?

41:02

Where were you born in Denver? Mommy?

41:05

Mommy was born in New York? Dinner?

41:12

Her catchphrase became the question she would

41:14

keep asking throughout each episode,

41:17

setting her father over the edge. Why

41:19

did I have to put on my new great daddy

41:21

because my boss is coming for dinner and listen

41:24

to Snooks. You're not to come into

41:26

the dining room while we're having dinner, not

41:28

even if my boss asked you too. Why?

41:31

Why? I think in a way,

41:33

Snooks was easy.

41:35

It was bread and butter for her. She didn't

41:37

have to contort her body doing acrobatic

41:40

leaps, and you know, for

41:43

somebody who was getting older,

41:45

it was probably less

41:47

demanding than some of her parts, and audiences

41:50

enjoyed it. Banny and Snooks

41:52

were on the radio for over fourteen years.

41:55

Future I Love Lucy producer Jess

41:57

Oppenheimer was a writer for the Baby

41:59

Snooks Show and would take some of

42:01

the Snooks traits with him when he went to

42:03

write for My Favorite Husband, the

42:05

radio predecessor to I Love Lucy.

42:15

Oppenheimer wrote in his memoir that

42:17

he decided to make Balls radio character

42:19

quote a little bit more childlike

42:22

and impulsive and short, more

42:24

like Baby Snooks. Traces

42:26

of Snooks carried over to TV when

42:28

Lucille Ball became Lucy Ricardo.

42:31

Sure I wanted him to forget my birthday,

42:34

but he forgot my birthday.

42:39

But while Lucy transitioned to the

42:41

exciting new medium of television, Fanny

42:44

and Baby Snooks would not make that

42:46

leap. She had been

42:48

offered a Baby Snooks

42:51

show on television, and

42:53

she said no because she was

42:55

self aware enough to realize that on radio,

42:58

the audience, because they didn't have to look at her,

43:01

they could just hear and her voice, she could sound like

43:03

the Baby Stocks. But on TV

43:06

it's a cruel I it's the camera. Fanny

43:10

was getting tired, bored by the routine

43:13

of radio work. She wanted

43:15

to enjoy life in the California Sunshine,

43:18

spend time with her grandkids, and enjoy

43:20

her hobbies like painting and interior

43:23

decorating. She decorated the homes

43:25

of friends like Catherine Hepburn and Eddie

43:27

Cantor. For years, she

43:30

was also on her own after another

43:32

failed marriage. Following her

43:34

divorce from Nick Ornstein, she'd

43:36

married showman Billy Rose. By

43:40

most accounts, the two were a mismatch

43:42

and the marriage was not a happy one. It

43:45

also inspired a sequel to Funny Girl

43:47

called Funny Lady that We're

43:49

not going to talk about. The

43:52

marriage ended after nine years. In

43:57

November newspaper interview,

44:00

she shared her plans to retire from

44:02

show business the following year. You

44:05

can tell that the Fannie who had hustled and

44:07

strived for so long is

44:09

gone. The beginning of a career

44:11

is the most exciting anyway. It's fun

44:14

and wonderful. After you get there,

44:16

it's tough to stay there. That's when you

44:18

have to fight, she says. There's always

44:20

people to take your place, and they're

44:23

always better. Six

44:26

months later, in May,

44:29

Fanny Bryce died following

44:31

a cerebral hemorrhage. Fanny's

44:34

Rabbi Max Nossbaum, poignantly

44:37

noted Fanny Brice inherited

44:39

from our tradition not only

44:41

the capability of moving people to laughter

44:44

and two tears, but also she

44:46

inherited the heart that ennobled

44:48

her calling don't

44:57

if you want. Thirteen

45:03

years later, Barbara Streisand

45:06

would make Fanny Bryce a household

45:08

name again when Funny Girl opened

45:10

on Broadway. I'm a bagel and a

45:12

plateful of onion rolls. If

45:14

you ask most people today who Fanny Bryce

45:17

is, they probably don't know, or

45:19

they might conflate her story with Barbara

45:22

Streisand's. But Fanny was

45:24

a true comedy pioneer

45:26

for women and Jewish entertainers,

45:29

paving the way for Streisand and

45:31

so many others the

45:39

whole body else. Wouldn't

45:44

it be great if one day somebody

45:46

made a movie about Fanny

45:48

Bryce. I

46:03

certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary.

46:06

May I ask you to please rate and review our

46:09

podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries

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follow me on Twitter at Morocca.

46:16

Here all new episodes of mobituaries

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every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts,

46:22

and check out Mobituaries Great Lives

46:24

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and audiobook. It includes plenty

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of stories not in the podcast.

46:38

This episode of Mobituaries was produced

46:40

by Zoe Marcus. Our team

46:42

of producers also includes Aaron

46:44

Shrank, Wilcome, Martina Scacero, Ja

46:47

Curnis, and me Morocca. It

46:49

was edited by Moral Walls and engineered

46:52

by Josh Hahn, with fact checking

46:54

by Naomi Barr. Our production

46:56

company is Neon Hum Media. Our

46:59

archival produce sir is Jamie Benson.

47:01

Our theme music is written by Daniel

47:03

Hart. Indispensable support

47:05

from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervais,

47:08

Alan Pang, Reggie Basio and everyone

47:10

at CBS News Radio. Special

47:13

thanks to Jonathan Greenberg and Alberto

47:15

Robina the Indisputable.

47:18

Aaron Shrink is our senior producer.

47:20

Executive producers for Mobituaries include

47:23

Steve Raises and Morocca. The

47:25

series is created by Yours Truly

47:27

and as always undying gratitude

47:30

to Rand Morrison and John carp

47:32

for helping breathe life into

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Mobituaries.