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Fanny Brice ~ Baby Snooks & Daddy
vinyl LP front cover
photo: September 25, 1945
photo of record cover by Styrous®
Today is the birthday of Fanny Brice who was born Fania Borach in 1891, in Manhattan, New York City. She was an American comedienne, illustrated song model that was was a popular form of entertainment in the early 20th century in the United States, singer, theater and film actress who made many stage, radio, and film appearances. She is known as the creator and star of the top-rated radio comedy series The Baby Snooks Show.
vinyl LP front cover detail
photo: September 25, 1945
photo: film still
detail photo of record cover by Styrous®
This album does not have music, it consists of eight radio episodes of Baby Snooks & Daddy performed and recorded live before a studio audience from 1948 to 1950.
Fanny Brice ~ Baby Snooks & Daddy
vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos of record cover by Styrous® Brice's first radio show was the Philco Hour in February 1930. From the 1930s until her death in 1951, she made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks, a role she premiered in a Follies skit co-written by playwright Moss Hart. Baby Snooks premiered in The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air in February 1936 on CBS, with Alan Reed playing Lancelot Higgins, her beleaguered "Daddy". Brice moved to NBC in December 1937, performing the Snooks routines as part of the Good News show, then back to CBS on Maxwell House Coffee Time, with the half-hour divided between the Snooks sketches and actor Frank Morgan.
Fanny Brice ~ Baby Snooks & Daddy
vinyl LP back cover
photo: film still
photo of record cover by Styrous® Brice was so meticulous about the program and the title character that
she was known to perform in costume as a toddler girl even though seen
only by the radio studio audience. She was 45 years old when the
character began her long radio life.
photographer unknown
Fanny Brice ~ Baby Snooks & Daddy
vinyl LP back cover details
detail photos of record cover by Styrous®
She told biographer Norman Katkov:
"Snooks is just the kid I used to be. She's my kind of youngster, the type I like. She has imagination. She's eager. She's alive. With all her deviltry, she is still a good kid, never vicious or mean. I love Snooks, and when I play her I do it as seriously as if she were real. I am Snooks. For 20 minutes or so, Fanny Brice ceases to exist."
On screen, Brice portrayed Baby Snooks in the 1938 film Everybody Sing in a scene with Judy Garland as Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Though Brice reportedly spoke no Yiddish, she played into the popularity of ethnic comedy by adopting stereotypical mannerisms and the accent. In 1910 she began her association with Florenz Ziegfeld, headlining his Ziegfeld Follies in 1910 and 1911. She was hired again in 1921 and performed in the Follies into the 1930s. In the 1921 Follies, she was featured singing My Man, which became both a big hit and her signature song. She made a popular recording of it for the Victor Talking Machine Company. The second song most associated with Brice is Second Hand Rose, which she also introduced in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921.
Tracklist:
Side 1:
Side 1:
A1 - The Cat-Man's Revenge
A2 - Abnormal Psychology
A3 - The Man Who Came To Dinner
A4 - The Trial
A2 - Abnormal Psychology
A3 - The Man Who Came To Dinner
A4 - The Trial
Side 2:
B1 - The World's Most Patient Father
B2 - At The Doctor's...
B3 - To Bee Or Not To Bee
B4 - Snooks And Tallulah
Fanny Brice, Hanley Stafford – Baby Snooks & Daddy
Label: Radiola – MR-1039
Series: Comedy Series – No. 15
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: USA, Canada & UK
Released: 1974
Genre: Non-Music
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Jewish Women's Archive ~ Fanny Brice's Ziegfeld Follies debut
LA Times ~ Norman Katkov dies at 91
Musicals 101~ Funny Girl Debunked: Fanny Brice Facts
PBS ~ Fanny Brice
Publisher's Weekly ~ Books by Norman Katkov & Reviews
YouTube links:
"I lived the way I wanted to live and
never did what people said I should do."
~ Fanny Brice
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