Speaker 1: On a Sunday night in October nine two once in
Speaker 1: a lifetime talents Ye teamed up for an unforgettable duet
Speaker 1: on National TV. Twenty one year old Barbara Streisand was
Speaker 1: a guest on The Judy Garland Show. Garland was then
Speaker 1: forty one. Their medley of Happy Days, Are Here Again
Speaker 1: and Get Happy was sheer perfection, an instant classic. Garland,
Speaker 1: already in decline, though she didn't sound like it that night,
Speaker 1: would die. Just six years later, Streisand was just breaking
Speaker 1: out two story ships passing in the night? What'd she do? Snooks?
Speaker 1: I've been your books away? Twenty five years earlier, a
Speaker 1: very different duet, It was Garland who was on the
Speaker 1: rise and singing with an established star. Still a year
Speaker 1: away from her trip down the Yellow Brick Road. Teenage
Speaker 1: Judy was starting to make a name for herself, appearing
Speaker 1: in a movie musical called Everybody Sing. In this number,
Speaker 1: she argues in song with a little girl played by
Speaker 1: a fortysomething woman named Fanny Bryce, why because because where
Speaker 1: you are, Let's play cops and Clothes. At the time,
Speaker 1: Fanny Bryce was one of the biggest stars in the country.
Speaker 1: Lady and Gentlemen present Miss Fannie Bryce. Fanny Bryce Bryce
Speaker 1: had conquered Broadway, headlined movies You're gonna Hear what I've
Speaker 1: got to say, and created one of the most popular
Speaker 1: characters on radio. Fanny Bryce was also a history maker
Speaker 1: in original one of the first great female comedy stars.
Speaker 1: She was so famous that one day an entire musical
Speaker 1: called Funny Girl would be written about her life, a
Speaker 1: musical that would star Barbara Streisand. But while Funny Girl
Speaker 1: would help turn Streisand into a supernova, the real Fannie
Speaker 1: Bryce would fade from memory. It made people remember her
Speaker 1: longer than I'm sure they would have had there not
Speaker 1: been a musical. But the life as she lived it
Speaker 1: is not the life story that we get in Funny
Speaker 1: Girl from CBS Sunday Morning and I Heart I'm Morocca
Speaker 1: and this is mobituaries. This moment Fanny Bryce, death of
Speaker 1: the original Funny Girl. Don't tell me not to live
Speaker 1: just sitting pudder Life's candy in the suns of Balla Budda,
Speaker 1: don't bring around a clout to rate on my parade.
Speaker 1: That's Barbara streisand knocking them dead. As Fanny Bryce in Broadways,
Speaker 1: Funny Girl in Fast forward fifty eight years to April,
Speaker 1: Hello Gorgeous and the show's first ever Broadway revival, starring
Speaker 1: Beanie Feldstein. Alas, the reviews for this production were less
Speaker 1: than stellar, the show was hobbling along until michell Is
Speaker 1: getting rave reviews. Lee star Leah Michelle was brought into
Speaker 1: play Fanny, and the revival itself was revived. It's ready
Speaker 1: for me because I said, I saw Leah and the
Speaker 1: show and she was terrific. But make no mistake, the
Speaker 1: lead role in Funny Girl is indelibly connected to Really
Speaker 1: owned by Barbara streisand people, people need people, Ah the Peple.
Speaker 1: After all, she won an oscar when she starred in
Speaker 1: the movie version, just to few years after her Broadway run. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, this is not a mobituary for streisand
Speaker 1: I mean, she's kind of immortal. We'll talk more about
Speaker 1: her in Act two, but this episode is about the
Speaker 1: woman she came to eclipse Fanny Bryce. Funny Girl, in
Speaker 1: many ways is a sanitized life story. The story that
Speaker 1: the family wanted to tell in Bryce's career was much
Speaker 1: more a fever chart, up and down and up and
Speaker 1: down and up and down. Barbara Grossman is a theater
Speaker 1: professor at Tufts University and wrote an in depth biography
Speaker 1: on Bryce entitled Funny Woman. She didn't simply will herself
Speaker 1: to be the greatest star and everyone accepted it and
Speaker 1: that was it. Well, she willed herself to do it,
Speaker 1: but it took her a while to find her footing
Speaker 1: and to figure out actually who she was as an entertainer,
Speaker 1: and to accept her great comic gifts. Bryce was born
Speaker 1: Fannie a Borak to a Jewish immigrant family in As
Speaker 1: a small child, she lived in Newark, New Jersey, where
Speaker 1: her mother Rose ran a saloon and her father, known
Speaker 1: as Pinuckle Charlie, drank and played cards and did pretty
Speaker 1: much nothing else. After her parents split up, Fanny moved
Speaker 1: with her mother to Brooklyn, where her career began. She
Speaker 1: was not yet fifteen when she stepped on stage to
Speaker 1: perform at a vaudeville house called Kenney's. It was amateur night,
Speaker 1: and she later wrote that when the audience saw a
Speaker 1: quote gawky, nondescript girl in a rumpled linen dress and
Speaker 1: cheap sailor hat, they started booing and shrieking. This was
Speaker 1: the kind of place where they gave performers the hook
Speaker 1: literally a big iron one. If the audience didn't like them,
Speaker 1: then Fanny began singing a sentimental ballad of the time,
Speaker 1: and as the performance went on, the crowd fell silent.
Speaker 1: There was just something about that teenage girl singing so seriously.
Speaker 1: Banny's brother Lou would later give this rather delightful description.
Speaker 1: The theater quieted down like somebody had hung a smallpox
Speaker 1: sign over the door. When the crowd started throwing money
Speaker 1: at Fanny, she knew she was a hit. She even
Speaker 1: got a few laughs while pausing her dramatic song to
Speaker 1: pick up her money. Soon after that night at Keeney's,
Speaker 1: she quit school to pursue a life in show business.
Speaker 1: When she auditioned for one show in nine she was
Speaker 1: asked if she had a specialty number. After confidently saying
Speaker 1: she did, she didn't, she went running to a young
Speaker 1: man named Irving Berlin. Now you might know Berlin as
Speaker 1: the writer of White Christmas Easter Parade, God Bless America,
Speaker 1: But this was before all that. At that point, he
Speaker 1: is writing Italian dialect songs, Irish dialect songs, and he said, Fanny,
Speaker 1: with your face, you should do a Yiddish dialect song,
Speaker 1: all right, let's talk about her face. Well. She had brown,
Speaker 1: curly hair, green eyes, a wide mouth, and a prominent nose.
Speaker 1: More on that later, Fanny would describe hers as a
Speaker 1: quote Jewish face. She was also tall for the time,
Speaker 1: standing five ft six and painfully thin, as she put it,
Speaker 1: with legs that looked like two slats. These features made
Speaker 1: her stand out and would become tools for her comedy.
Speaker 1: She knew she was a site gang, and she played
Speaker 1: up that aspect of her physicality. That she knew she
Speaker 1: couldn't be the prettiest goal on the stage. She was
Speaker 1: going to be the funniest. The dialect songs that Irving
Speaker 1: Berlin and others were writing were tied to a boom
Speaker 1: in ethnic comedy fueled by the huge numbers of immigrants
Speaker 1: coming to America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Speaker 1: While some of this material might seem offensive today, immigrant
Speaker 1: communities of the time ate it up. One of those communities,
Speaker 1: comprised of Eastern and Central European Jews, was a Yiddish
Speaker 1: speaking There were Yiddish newspapers and a thriving Yiddish theater scene,
Speaker 1: which isn't surprising. Nia means rosadas, bubbs. The Yiddish language,
Speaker 1: a combination of German and Hebrew with a few other
Speaker 1: linguistic ingredients thrown in. Has a kind of musicality, with
Speaker 1: words that are kind of fun to say, like schlamil, schlamozel,
Speaker 1: bobby and book kiss. Why did people consider the Yiddish
Speaker 1: accent funny? Well, if you don't know Yiddish, it kind
Speaker 1: of sounds funny. And if you combine it with gestures
Speaker 1: and manners, I mean, it's like anything you can exaggerate it.
Speaker 1: And when you combine it with her zany flair for
Speaker 1: physical comedy, it was just an irresistible combination. Fanny took
Speaker 1: Irving Berlin's advice and created her own comedic Yiddish accented persona.
Speaker 1: How are you to say? How marry you win? You
Speaker 1: might be a month. But here's the thing, Fanny didn't
Speaker 1: actually know Yiddish. Most people would think, oh, Fanny Bryce,
Speaker 1: she probably grew up speaking Yiddish. Well, she liked people
Speaker 1: to think that, but she didn't. But she could put
Speaker 1: on the accent just like a mask and take it off.
Speaker 1: By this time, Fanny was performing in burlesque houses. Burlesque
Speaker 1: was I suppose the lowest rung on the show business ladder.
Speaker 1: If you're talking about American popular and pertainment. When we
Speaker 1: tend to think of burlesque, we think of stripped tease.
Speaker 1: But burlesque wasn't just stripped tease. It included singers, dancers,
Speaker 1: and comedy acts. For somebody like Bryce who was really
Speaker 1: trying to break into show business, it was easier to
Speaker 1: get into you didn't have to be quite as pretty.
Speaker 1: It's around this time she changed her name from Fannie A.
Speaker 1: Borak to Fanny Bryce, but she kept her comedic style,
Speaker 1: which would be epitomized by later hits like Secondhand Rose,
Speaker 1: about a poor Jewish girl from the Lower East Side.
Speaker 1: All that fighting. She was fast making a name for
Speaker 1: herself in burlesque, but her big came in when she
Speaker 1: was cast in the zig Feld Follies. The Follies started
Speaker 1: the greatest entertainers of the day in a live review
Speaker 1: that was nothing short of spectacular. You had the zig
Speaker 1: Feld Girls, these statuesque women who created in and out
Speaker 1: with beautiful costumes. The show was also renowned for its comedians,
Speaker 1: the cowboy humorist Will Rogers, the curmudgeon le W C. Fields,
Speaker 1: whom my father always loved you like children I do
Speaker 1: if they're probably cooked. And the beloved Apostle of pep
Speaker 1: Eddie Canter, whose greatest hits I still listen to, How
Speaker 1: are you going to keep him down on the farm
Speaker 1: after they've seen Harry? How are you going to keep
Speaker 1: them away from? I think it was Eddie Cander who said,
Speaker 1: when you make it into the Follies, it's like when
Speaker 1: you're a baseball player and you make it into the
Speaker 1: World Series. It's the top. It's the top of the show.
Speaker 1: Is this career? The screw winning movie The Great Zigfeld
Speaker 1: starred William Powell as impresario forlorenzig Felt and depicts his
Speaker 1: discovery of Fanny Bryce ms Brice. I am really here
Speaker 1: to offer you a great opportunity. That's what they all
Speaker 1: say in the movie. Fanny plays herself. Everyone was singing
Speaker 1: fancyne screening at a wedding yesterday, Heed on his feetle
Speaker 1: late some rag time, and after accepting Zigfeld's offer, we
Speaker 1: see her make it to the big time. Look at you.
Speaker 1: You're working for Zigfelt now and you look like a
Speaker 1: million dallars the first time in your life. You clash.
Speaker 1: The Folly's made Fanny a major star. By nine six,
Speaker 1: the New York Tribune was calling her the funniest woman
Speaker 1: on the stage today. Eventually she was pulling in three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a week, making her one the highest paid
Speaker 1: women in show business, a yearly income, one newspaper would
Speaker 1: later note, said to be an excess of that of
Speaker 1: the President of the United States. But more than all that,
Speaker 1: she was an original, a great female clown, and a pioneer.
Speaker 1: Many of her fans had probably never even met a
Speaker 1: Jewish person or a woman of any background who was
Speaker 1: so uninhibited by turns, goofy and body, unconcerned with society's
Speaker 1: notions of how a lady ought to behave. In contrast
Speaker 1: to the statuesque beauties parading across the Folly stage, Fanny
Speaker 1: was the anti Ziegfeld girl. She would go on to
Speaker 1: satirize performers like modern dancer Martha Graham and theatrical grand
Speaker 1: Dame Ethel Barrymore, and she became the master of the
Speaker 1: parody number, turning the hit song the Chic of Araby
Speaker 1: into the chic of Avenue b Unfanni ahead. How did
Speaker 1: Jewish audiences feel about her performances? They loved her Fanny
Speaker 1: knew who she was representing and what she wanted that
Speaker 1: representation to mean, later saying, I never did a Jewish
Speaker 1: song that would offend the race. In anything Jewish I
Speaker 1: ever did, I wasn't standing apart making fun of the race.
Speaker 1: I was the race. And like my own favorite performers,
Speaker 1: she had a natural warmth. You can hear it in
Speaker 1: her real voice in a p s A she did
Speaker 1: during the Great Depression, encouraging people to help the unemployed.
Speaker 1: What are you doing, Fanny didding a sweater? They unemployed?
Speaker 1: My relation, all my uncle, not one of them, are
Speaker 1: working one more stitching habby even all kidna side folks.
Speaker 1: This is really a serious matter. As for her romantic life, well,
Speaker 1: if you've seen Funny Girl, you know the name Nick.
Speaker 1: What a beautiful, beautiful name. When she's twenty one, she
Speaker 1: meets Nick Arnstein. Who is he? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I mean he was basically a gambler, a con man,
Speaker 1: a criminal. Was he Omar Shariff good looking? I don't
Speaker 1: know that anybody's in Omar Sharif category, but he was
Speaker 1: good looking. Egyptian actor Omar Shariff played Nick Arnstein in
Speaker 1: the Funny girl movie. Look at pictures of the real
Speaker 1: Nick Arnstein, and I'm pretty sure you'll agree that casting
Speaker 1: Shariff was generous. Regardless, Bannie Bryce fell for the real
Speaker 1: Arnstein hard. She talks about kind of love at first sight.
Speaker 1: He ended up taking her up to his hotel room,
Speaker 1: where she saw his monogram bathro even his toothbrush she
Speaker 1: found elegant, and she just was really swept up by
Speaker 1: this man who appreciated of the finer things in life,
Speaker 1: and I think she really did love him. Never mind
Speaker 1: that Arnstein was married when they met and didn't obtain
Speaker 1: a divorce until Fanny was seven months pregnant with their
Speaker 1: first child. That detail isn't in the musical. They ended
Speaker 1: up having a daughter and son. Arnstein was also pretty
Speaker 1: much constantly engaged in criminal activity, doing time at Sing
Speaker 1: Sing for wire tapping and leaven Worth for bank theft.
Speaker 1: The two were finally married in nineteen nineteen in between
Speaker 1: prison terms. Fanny stood by Nick through most of these
Speaker 1: ups and downs, which led to one of her biggest
Speaker 1: career moments. When she was in the fallies of ninety one,
Speaker 1: it was actually Zigfeld who gave her a number that
Speaker 1: became really wonder her signature songs. The song was My Man,
Speaker 1: the English adaptation of a French song made famous by
Speaker 1: the great Shantouse Westing Gay. She said to down, the
Speaker 1: French version is a much rougher song. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really about a prostitute who's singing about her pimp who
Speaker 1: beats her and you know, abuses her. And the American version,
Speaker 1: of course, was sanitized. Call me love it, mamma. Fanny's
Speaker 1: performance of my Man was unlike anything else she'd ever done,
Speaker 1: raw and without a Yiddish accent. She wore a torn
Speaker 1: dress and leaned forlornly against a lamp post. No cookie
Speaker 1: hand gestures, just stripped down, just singing the song. And look,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she was singing from her own pain. At
Speaker 1: the time Fanny performed the number, Arnstein had been found
Speaker 1: guilty of bond theft and would soon be sentenced. Front
Speaker 1: page news. Oh My Lanny's why My Man became Fanny's
Speaker 1: signature song, and for several more years, Fanny stood by
Speaker 1: her man until she couldn't. I do think that she
Speaker 1: would have stayed with him, probably forever, but he committed
Speaker 1: the cardinal sin. She learned of his infidelity, and she
Speaker 1: was done. She stood by him, she loved him, but
Speaker 1: when he was unfaithful to her, she was done. There
Speaker 1: was no coming back from No, there really wasn't. My
Speaker 1: man was a breakthrough moment for Fanny. It gave her
Speaker 1: hope that audiences could see her as more than just
Speaker 1: a clown, and to that end, she was about to
Speaker 1: make a very big change. I want to how much
Speaker 1: what it costs, because these an't fixed stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: by one of those pick surgeons. Well, I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: an old carpenter doing it. I have a confession to make.
Speaker 1: When I am thinking about Funny Girl, as I often do,
Speaker 1: I sometimes forget that it's not the Barbara Streisand story.
Speaker 1: Does that make me crazy? No, You're absolutely on target.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think it actually is the Barbara Streisand
Speaker 1: story in many ways. In some ways, it's more the
Speaker 1: Barbara Streisand story than it is the Fannie Bryce story.
Speaker 1: This is my friend Eric Near. He's a contributing editor
Speaker 1: to the literary and arts journal The Hudson Review, and
Speaker 1: he knows more about musical theater than I could ever
Speaker 1: hope to know. Will return to the story of the
Speaker 1: real life Fanny later in the episode, But first I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk with Eric about how with Funny Girl
Speaker 1: Barbara streisand came to eclipse the memory of Fanny Bryce.
Speaker 1: The depiction of Fanny ultimately ends up being a little
Speaker 1: closer to Strei's end than it does to the real
Speaker 1: Fanny Bryce. And was that intentional? Well, I don't think. Originally,
Speaker 1: Fannie Bryce had been dead for over a decade when
Speaker 1: a powerful Hollywood producer named Ray Stark set about telling
Speaker 1: her story. Ray Stark happened to be married to Fanny's daughter.
Speaker 1: The idea was to create a show about the story
Speaker 1: of Fannie Bryce and the broad outlines of her life
Speaker 1: working for Ziegfeld and her marriage to Nick Arnstein, which
Speaker 1: was of course very troubled, And they went through a
Speaker 1: lot of sort of potential Fannies, you know. Carol Burnett
Speaker 1: was considered interesting, and Bancroft was attached for why she
Speaker 1: was really hot after just winning an oscar for the
Speaker 1: Miracle Worker? Did she singing the Miracle Worker? Sullivan singing?
Speaker 1: Carol Burnett and Anne Bancroft were already big names, but
Speaker 1: Bunny Girl's composer, a man named Julie Stein, was writing
Speaker 1: the show's score with a lesser known talent. In mind three,
Speaker 1: what you study Rooster is Dustina. At the time, Barbara
Speaker 1: Streisand was just twenty and performing in downtown Manhattan clubs
Speaker 1: like The Village Vanguard and the Bonsar described back then
Speaker 1: as Kookie. Streisand had stolen the show in her first
Speaker 1: Broadway role in two as the secretary Miss Marmelstein and
Speaker 1: I can get her or your wholesale Stane, you think
Speaker 1: at least missing I could die. Julie Stein saw her
Speaker 1: and said, Okay, here's a girl who can really sing,
Speaker 1: who is clearly Jewish and will be convincing playing Fanny Bryce,
Speaker 1: and who is also a comic and has a wonderful
Speaker 1: sense of humor a wonderful sense of stage comedy. It
Speaker 1: was inevitable casting. There was really no one else at
Speaker 1: the time who would have been so perfect for the role.
Speaker 1: With a new, exciting and volcanically talented performer in the role,
Speaker 1: the show's focus started to shift, and so Funny Girl
Speaker 1: started to bend in a way to be really much
Speaker 1: more about Streisand and her talent than it did about
Speaker 1: Annie Bryce. Streisand's take on Fanny Bryce was entirely her
Speaker 1: own as she discussed in this backstage radio interview from
Speaker 1: the opening night of Funny Girl in four, did you
Speaker 1: research the life of Fanny Boys at all? No, I
Speaker 1: didn't want to approach it is an invitation or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, they hired me because whatever organic
Speaker 1: things we had similar, you know, they'll work for themselves.
Speaker 1: I understand that you purposely kept yourself away from looking
Speaker 1: at movies of hers, hearing programs of hers, and so forth.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm approaching it as a character in a
Speaker 1: play who could have been any woman who was torn
Speaker 1: between a career marriage and has problems of her own.
Speaker 1: As for what the two women had in common, well, Streisand,
Speaker 1: like Bryce, wasn't Broadway or certainly Hollywood's definition of beautiful.
Speaker 1: Early on, critics had no compunction writing about her nose,
Speaker 1: speculating on whether she'd ever get it fixed. Variety even
Speaker 1: recommended a quote corrective schnaz Bob Eric says that kind
Speaker 1: of criticism may have only made Streisand more determined to
Speaker 1: make it, a determination that served her well in the
Speaker 1: role of Fanny. What we see and Funny Girl is
Speaker 1: Fanny sort of using that insecurity about her looks and
Speaker 1: about not being taken seriously and channeling that into this
Speaker 1: kind of fierce ambition that is this sort of incredibly
Speaker 1: exciting mix of anger and insecurity that drives her on
Speaker 1: and streisand just really embodies that in an incredible way.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to streisand as a young Fanny singing, I'm
Speaker 1: the greatest star in the movie version of Funny Girl,
Speaker 1: Because the greatest star I am by far in a
Speaker 1: case of art imitating life imitating arts, stay with me here,
Speaker 1: this number becomes as much a declaration by Barbara streisand
Speaker 1: herself as it does by the character she was playing.
Speaker 1: That's a fascinating song because it kind of starts a
Speaker 1: little bit as if she's trying to please. She's kind
Speaker 1: of doing a little sticky stuff and funny voices and
Speaker 1: trying to ingratiate herself. Why they're going to hear of
Speaker 1: a silver flute? Belcher reached to a terrific when I exposed.
Speaker 1: And then something happens kind of midway through that song
Speaker 1: where she kind of steps away from that and just says,
Speaker 1: all right, hold on, listen up, I am the greatest star,
Speaker 1: and I don't have any qualms about saying that yes,
Speaker 1: who's the best year? Yeah, it's a gutsy kind of
Speaker 1: thing to say in the heroine's first big number in
Speaker 1: the show, because it could come off as you know,
Speaker 1: a little egotistical and pushy and a little obnoxious. But
Speaker 1: when it's performed in the way it's performed, certainly by
Speaker 1: strikes out, as we see in the film, there's no
Speaker 1: other response but yes, you're right, which brings us to
Speaker 1: a key difference between the two women they're singing voices.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be unfair to Fanny, she's not
Speaker 1: here to defend herself. But let's do a little compare
Speaker 1: and contrast. Let's listen to Fanny singing my man man
Speaker 1: I oh now, let's listen to Barbara's ng my man
Speaker 1: so is just as fakay when it takes me and wrong.
Speaker 1: Even accounting for differences in audience tastes, there's really no
Speaker 1: comparison that's right. The way that Fanny sings it is
Speaker 1: full of heart and full of warmth and richness and character,
Speaker 1: but it is a style that sounds pretty dated to
Speaker 1: us now, and the way that Straison sings my man
Speaker 1: has not dated at all. In fact, it's as powerful
Speaker 1: as it was when she recorded it, you know, over
Speaker 1: fifty years ago. And the secret to Straysand's power, says Eric,
Speaker 1: has more to do with her treatment of the words
Speaker 1: than music. She's really acting the song. It's as if
Speaker 1: she is making up the song as she goes along.
Speaker 1: Strist And really brings together a lot of different kinds
Speaker 1: of vocalism and then puts this whole gloss of incredible
Speaker 1: sort of sensuality and eroticism over it, which may surprise
Speaker 1: people because we don't think of her as being sort
Speaker 1: of a sexy performer. But when you hear her sing,
Speaker 1: she is cressing every phrase with an incredibly sensual approachest
Speaker 1: of love, soundistan, wist of your love. Only just listen
Speaker 1: to Streisand on a personal favorite of mine, Alan and
Speaker 1: Marilyn Bergman and Michelle Legrands, what are you doing the
Speaker 1: rest of your life? She is able to open her
Speaker 1: voice up at the top of the range in a
Speaker 1: way that lets it really blossom into this kind of
Speaker 1: soaring sounds. What God. And It's just so important I
Speaker 1: think for people to understand that it was knew what
Speaker 1: she was doing, like all great artists, was new because
Speaker 1: she's such a fact of life. I think it's easy
Speaker 1: to take for granted that's absolutely true. And of course
Speaker 1: the sad fact is that she had this incredible success
Speaker 1: with Funny Girl and then never did a Broadway show again. Indeed,
Speaker 1: streisand would go on to conquer Hollywoo what but rather
Speaker 1: than replace Fanny Bryce, Eric believes Barbara's performance and Funny
Speaker 1: Girl is the reason we remember Fanny Bryce's name at all.
Speaker 1: Without Funny Girl, I think she'd be basically a forgotten
Speaker 1: a performer at this time. Funny Girl has kept her
Speaker 1: name alive in ways that the surviving fragments that we
Speaker 1: have of video or audio footage have not. Really who
Speaker 1: can we compare Fanny Bryce to that might give people
Speaker 1: a sense of the kind of performer that she was.
Speaker 1: I think there's definitely a bit of Fanny Bryce and
Speaker 1: Bette Midler ther John. So some lastness, my face is
Speaker 1: Matt barg that's broke that sense of zane nous and
Speaker 1: the broadly funny faces that she makes, combined with a
Speaker 1: warmth and good natured nous. Another heir to Bryce, the
Speaker 1: aforementioned Carol Burnett, who's long running and completely wonderful variety show,
Speaker 1: was big on parody. I love you that that that
Speaker 1: gown is gorgeous, thank you Stan Wind and I just
Speaker 1: couldn't resist it. No question that Carl Burnett was influenced
Speaker 1: by Fanny Brice. You see it in the facial expressions
Speaker 1: that she makes, the willingness to put on any kind
Speaker 1: of outrageous costume, the willingness to look incredibly silly and ridiculous,
Speaker 1: all in the service of humor. To give her her props.
Speaker 1: Fanny did do that thing of being a big star
Speaker 1: comic who kind of in an act of performance jiu Jitsu,
Speaker 1: made you cry with a song like my Man. That's
Speaker 1: part of her appeal is that she's zany and cookie
Speaker 1: and will do anything of her laugh. But always at
Speaker 1: the core there's this sense of a true and real
Speaker 1: and kind and loving person behind everything that she does.
Speaker 1: Final question. Barbara spells her first name b A R
Speaker 1: B R A. When you see younger gay men spell
Speaker 1: her name with three a's, how does it make you feel?
Speaker 1: It makes me feel a little bit how I feel
Speaker 1: when I hear people refer to cast albums as soundtracks. Oouch,
Speaker 1: that hurts. It's like a night It's painful, but you know,
Speaker 1: What drives Barbara even more crazy is when people mispronounced
Speaker 1: her last name. It was a z sound instead of
Speaker 1: an asset, right. And perhaps you've heard the story that
Speaker 1: when Apple launched Siri, Sirie was pronouncing her name Barbara
Speaker 1: streisand Barbara picked up the phone and called Tim Cook
Speaker 1: to ask him to fix the pronunciation of her name
Speaker 1: by Sirie. And I'm sure they did it right away,
Speaker 1: no doubt. When I see that extra a, I mean
Speaker 1: to me, it's tantamount to a hate crime. Mmh. You
Speaker 1: even made me feel sort of beautiful, you know, for
Speaker 1: for a very long time, beautiful. The musical Funny Girl
Speaker 1: ends with Fanny Bryce saying goodbye to her gambler ne'er
Speaker 1: do well husband, Nicky Arnstein for the very last time.
Speaker 1: But that's not where Fanny's story ended. It's around this
Speaker 1: time that Fanny did something that stray Sand famously did
Speaker 1: not do. In she had what was announced as facial sculpture. Yes,
Speaker 1: she had a nose job. She did. That's Fanny Bryce.
Speaker 1: Biographer Barbara Grossman. Again, as much as we talked about
Speaker 1: she knew who she was, and she knew what she wanted,
Speaker 1: and she'd never thought of herself as pretty. She didn't
Speaker 1: fit the established beautiful type, and so she saw having
Speaker 1: a smaller nose is not just making her pretty, but
Speaker 1: allowing her to do the kind of dramatic work that
Speaker 1: she thought she would be better suited for if she
Speaker 1: looked different. A different, less ethnic look, her thinking went,
Speaker 1: might also help her appeal to a wider range of
Speaker 1: audiences around the country. Writer Dorothy Parker acidly equipped that
Speaker 1: Fanny quote cut off her nose to spite her race.
Speaker 1: Now I have to confess I didn't even realize people
Speaker 1: got nose jobs back then. But plastic surgery had advanced
Speaker 1: during World War One as the doctor's developed new methods
Speaker 1: to reconstruct the faces of disfigured soldiers. In the years
Speaker 1: after the war, those methods would be used for cosmetic surgery,
Speaker 1: or what some called facial renovation. When you look at
Speaker 1: pictures of Fanny post nose job, the change doesn't look
Speaker 1: that dramatic. Still, the procedure made national news, mostly because
Speaker 1: Fanny never publicity shy, let reporters see her swathed in
Speaker 1: bandages after the surgery. Fanny referred to her nose job
Speaker 1: as a return to normalcy, a play on Warren Harding's
Speaker 1: presidential campaign slogan. In an interview, Fanny acknowledged it might
Speaker 1: take a couple of seasons for the public to get
Speaker 1: used to my new nose. But I'm ambitious. Like every actress,
Speaker 1: I know I can act, and I want to show
Speaker 1: the public what I can do with a new nose
Speaker 1: in front of her. Fanny was ready for Hollywood, which
Speaker 1: was just entering the sound era with the success of
Speaker 1: Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer. Wait a minute, Wait a
Speaker 1: minute Yet, movie studios were on the hunt for entertainers
Speaker 1: who could talk and sing, and so Warner Brothers signed Fanny.
Speaker 1: Her first film, My Man, featured her singing the now
Speaker 1: famous title tune, plus some new songs. She was even
Speaker 1: marketed as the female Joelson, But audiences didn't respond to
Speaker 1: Fanny in the same way My Man was a flop.
Speaker 1: Did some parts of the country just find her too Jewish? Well?
Speaker 1: Variety seemed to think so, writing bluntly and disturbingly in
Speaker 1: its review of the film, quote, certain localities are apt
Speaker 1: to chill on the stars distinct Hebrew clowning. Now some
Speaker 1: of you may be thinking, wait a minute. The Jazz
Speaker 1: Singer is the story of a canter son who abandons
Speaker 1: the synagogue for show business, only to return in a
Speaker 1: climactic scene to chant yam ki poor prayer while his
Speaker 1: father is on his deathbed. That was pretty Jewish and
Speaker 1: audiences loved it. But that movie may have been more
Speaker 1: of an exception to the rule, not to mention it
Speaker 1: was ultimately a story of assimilation. Fanny's movie career was
Speaker 1: coinciding with what would end up being a disappearance of
Speaker 1: sorts of Jews in the stories being told by the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry. The nativism and anti immigrant sentiment of the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties and thirties was leading to a desemitizing of
Speaker 1: mainstream culture. Studio bosses, many of them Jewish themselves, seemed
Speaker 1: to believe that movies playing to the whole country needed
Speaker 1: to downplay Jewish faces, accents, and themes. Characters and plots
Speaker 1: featuring Jewish people were minimized or ate it entirely. Many
Speaker 1: Jewish film actors would leave the business or try to
Speaker 1: assimilate as best they could. For example, a decade or
Speaker 1: so after Fanny, actress Lauren Bicall born Betty Joan Persky
Speaker 1: would be marketed by studio publicists as being from society. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: Bicall would play Barbara Streisand's mother in the film The
Speaker 1: Mirror Has Two Faces. Mother, I made dinner, Why don't
Speaker 1: you put the coffee on? I raised two daughters, I
Speaker 1: buried a husband. I've made my coffee. Another issue might
Speaker 1: have been Fanny's over the top stage persona. Look, I
Speaker 1: love Broadway, but sometimes the energy is just too much
Speaker 1: for the big screen. There's a reason why ethel Merman
Speaker 1: barely had a movie career. Will you just shut up
Speaker 1: and let me talk? Whatever it was, it wasn't working.
Speaker 1: Fanny would go on to make just six movies, but
Speaker 1: her star would rise again in a print medium. It
Speaker 1: was the nineteen thirties radio's golden age, and Fanny had
Speaker 1: the perfect character. Yes, Dying Fanny with handle s is
Speaker 1: Daddy Baby Snooks was a character Fanny developed for the
Speaker 1: stage back in her early performance days, and this is important.
Speaker 1: The character didn't rely on a Yiddish accent. You can't
Speaker 1: really do Yiddish accent a comedy on the radio because
Speaker 1: it's so physical. It demands the gestures, the manners, and
Speaker 1: the whole stick if you will, And with Hitler's Germany
Speaker 1: posing an increasing threat and anti Semitism rampant on the
Speaker 1: home front. Fanny likely reasoned that her Jewishness was not
Speaker 1: something to emphasize, not if you were trying to appeal
Speaker 1: to a national radio audience. The Baby Snooks show was
Speaker 1: pretty standard sitcom fair episodes would revolve around Stooks causing
Speaker 1: trouble or asking too many questions, and her ever exasperated
Speaker 1: father having to deal with her in Calfornia? Where were
Speaker 1: you born in Denver? Mommy? Mommy was born in New York? Dinner?
Speaker 1: Her catchphrase became the question she would keep asking throughout
Speaker 1: each episode, setting her father over the edge. Why did
Speaker 1: I have to put on my new great daddy because
Speaker 1: my boss is coming for dinner and listen to Snooks.
Speaker 1: You're not to come into the dining room while we're
Speaker 1: having dinner, not even if my boss asked you too. Why? Why?
Speaker 1: I think in a way, Snooks was easy. It was
Speaker 1: bread and butter for her. She didn't have to contort
Speaker 1: her body doing acrobatic leaps, and you know, for somebody
Speaker 1: who was getting older, it was probably less demanding than
Speaker 1: some of her parts, and audiences enjoyed it. Banny and
Speaker 1: Snooks were on the radio for over fourteen years. Future
Speaker 1: I Love Lucy producer Jess Oppenheimer was a writer for
Speaker 1: the Baby Snooks Show and would take some of the
Speaker 1: Snooks traits with him when he went to write for
Speaker 1: My Favorite Husband, the radio predecessor to I Love Lucy.
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer wrote in his memoir that he decided to make
Speaker 1: Balls radio character quote a little bit more childlike and
Speaker 1: impulsive and short, more like Baby Snooks. Traces of Snooks
Speaker 1: carried over to TV when Lucille Ball became Lucy Ricardo.
Speaker 1: Sure I wanted him to forget my birthday, but he
Speaker 1: forgot my birthday. But while Lucy transitioned to the exciting
Speaker 1: new medium of television, Fanny and Baby Snooks would not
Speaker 1: make that leap. She had been offered a Baby Snooks
Speaker 1: show on television, and she said no because she was
Speaker 1: self aware enough to realize that on radio, the audience,
Speaker 1: because they didn't have to look at her, they could
Speaker 1: just hear and her voice, she could sound like the
Speaker 1: Baby Stocks. But on TV it's a cruel I it's
Speaker 1: the camera. Fanny was getting tired, bored by the routine
Speaker 1: of radio work. She wanted to enjoy life in the
Speaker 1: California Sunshine, spend time with her grandkids, and enjoy her
Speaker 1: hobbies like painting and interior decorating. She decorated the homes
Speaker 1: of friends like Catherine Hepburn and Eddie Cantor. For years,
Speaker 1: she was also on her own after another failed marriage.
Speaker 1: Following her divorce from Nick Ornstein, she'd married showman Billy Rose.
Speaker 1: By most accounts, the two were a mismatch and the
Speaker 1: marriage was not a happy one. It also inspired a
Speaker 1: sequel to Funny Girl called Funny Lady that We're not
Speaker 1: going to talk about. The marriage ended after nine years.
Speaker 1: In November newspaper interview, she shared her plans to retire
Speaker 1: from show business the following year. You can tell that
Speaker 1: the Fannie who had hustled and strived for so long
Speaker 1: is gone. The beginning of a career is the most
Speaker 1: exciting anyway. It's fun and wonderful. After you get there,
Speaker 1: it's tough to stay there. That's when you have to fight,
Speaker 1: she says. There's always people to take your place, and
Speaker 1: they're always better. Six months later, in May, Fanny Bryce
Speaker 1: died following a cerebral hemorrhage. Fanny's Rabbi Max Nossbaum, poignantly
Speaker 1: noted Fanny Brice inherited from our tradition not only the
Speaker 1: capability of moving people to laughter and two tears, but
Speaker 1: also she inherited the heart that ennobled her calling don't
Speaker 1: if you want. Thirteen years later, Barbara Streisand would make
Speaker 1: Fanny Bryce a household name again when Funny Girl opened
Speaker 1: on Broadway. I'm a bagel and a plateful of onion rolls.
Speaker 1: If you ask most people today who Fanny Bryce is,
Speaker 1: they probably don't know, or they might conflate her story
Speaker 1: with Barbara Streisand's. But Fanny was a true comedy pioneer
Speaker 1: for women and Jewish entertainers, paving the way for Streisand
Speaker 1: and so many others the whole body else. Wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be great if one day somebody made a movie about
Speaker 1: Fanny Bryce. I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary. May
Speaker 1: I ask you to please rate and review our podcast.
Speaker 1: You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and
Speaker 1: you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. Here all
Speaker 1: new episodes of mobituaries every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts,
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Speaker 1: It includes plenty of stories not in the podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode of Mobituaries was produced by Zoe Marcus. Our team
Speaker 1: of producers also includes Aaron Shrank, Wilcome, Martina Scacero, Ja Curnis,
Speaker 1: and me Morocca. It was edited by Moral Walls and
Speaker 1: engineered by Josh Hahn, with fact checking by Naomi Barr.
Speaker 1: Our production company is Neon Hum Media. Our archival produce
Speaker 1: sir is Jamie Benson. Our theme music is written by
Speaker 1: Daniel Hart. Indispensable support from Craig Swaggler, Dustin Gervais, Alan Pang,
Speaker 1: Reggie Basio and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Greenberg and Alberto Robina the Indisputable. Aaron Shrink
Speaker 1: is our senior producer. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Steve
Speaker 1: Raises and Morocca. The series is created by Yours Truly
Speaker 1: and as always undying gratitude to Rand Morrison and John
Speaker 1: carp for helping breathe life into Mobituaries.