Fania Borach (October 29, 1891 – May 29, 1951),[
]
Her life story was loosely adapted into the stage musical Funny Girl. Brice was famously portrayed by Barbra Streisand in both the original Broadway theatre production of the musical and its 1968 film adaptation.
Early life
Fania Borach was born in Manhattan, New York City, United States,
In 1908, Brice dropped out of school to work in a burlesque revue, "The Girls from Happy Land Starring Sliding Billy Watson". Two years later, 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 "Mon Homme", 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.
She recorded nearly two dozen record sides for Victor, and also cut several for Columbia Records. She is a posthumous recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for her 1921 recording of "My Man".
Brice's Broadway theatre credits include Fioretta, Sweet and Low, and Billy Rose's Crazy Quilt. Her films include My Man (1928, a lost film),[Richard Barrios, A Song In The Dark, Oxford University Press, 1975.] Be Yourself! (1930), and Everybody Sing (1938) with Judy Garland. Brice, Ann Pennington, and Harriet Hoctor were the only original Ziegfeld performers to portray themselves in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Ziegfeld Follies (1946).
Radio
Brice's first radio show was the Philco Hour in February 1930.[ Radio Digest magazine, June 1933.]
From the 1930s until her death in 1951, Fanny made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks,
By September 1944, Brice's sketch writers Philip Rapp and David Freedman brought in Arthur Stander and Everett Freeman, who developed a half-hour comedy program for CBS radio, Post Toasties Time, later The Baby Snooks Show. Produced by Everett Freeman, it launched in 1944, moving to NBC in 1948. Hanley Stafford played the Daddy and Fannie Brice the main character, Baby Snooks. Other co-stars included Lalive Brownell, Lois Corbet, and Arlene Harris each in turn as her mother, Danny Thomas as Jerry, Charlie Cantor as Uncle Louie, and Ken Christy as Mr. Weemish.
She returned on Tallulah Bankhead's big-budget, large-scale radio variety show The Big Show in November 1950, sharing the bill with Groucho Marx and Jane Powell.
Television appearance
Fanny Brice's only appearance on television was on June 12, 1950, in a performance on CBS-TV's Popsicle Parade of Stars, as Baby Snooks.
Later years
Fanny Brice resided in a house built in 1938 on North Faring Road in Holmby Hills, Los Angeles, designed by the architect John Elgin Woolf (1908-1980).[Morgan Brennan, Luxury Home Rehab: Inside The $65 Million Fanny Brice Estate, Forbes, August 28, 2013] The house was entirely gutted and rebuilt from the foundation up between 2001 and 2008.
Personal life
Brice had a short-lived marriage in her late teens to a barber, Frank White, whom she met in 1910 in Springfield, Massachusetts, when she was touring in College Girl. The marriage lasted three years and she brought suit for divorce in 1913.[
]
Her second husband was professional gambler and con man Nicky Arnstein.[ Eventually Arnstein was sentenced to two years in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth.][ Arnstein was released December 22, 1925 with 72 days time off for good behavior and joined Brice in Chicago where she was performing.]
Brice wed lyricist and stage producer Billy Rose in 1929
Death
Six months after her Big Show appearance, on May 29, 1951, Brice died at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Hollywood from a cerebral hemorrhage at 11:15 am; she was 59.
Legacy
For her contributions to the film and radio industries, Brice was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars. Her motion-pictures star is located at 6415 Hollywood Boulevard, while her radio star is located at 1500 Vine Street.
The Stony Brook campus of the State University of New York (SUNY at Stony Brook) had a Fannie Brice Theatre, a 75-seat venue that was used for a variety of performances, including a 1992 production of the musical Hair, staged readings, and a studio classroom space.
Mexican comedian Maria Elena Saldana was influenced by Brice and created a character similar to Brice's Baby Snooks, La Guereja.
In 1991, the US Postal Service featured Brice on a first-class stamp, the only woman included as part of a "Comedian Commemorative Issue", illustrated by Al Hirschfeld.
In 2006, Brice was featured in the film Making Trouble-Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women, a tribute to Jewish women comedians produced by the Jewish Women's Archive.
"Fanny's", the restaurant in the Academy Museum in Los Angeles is named after Fanny Brice.
Brice portrayals
The 1946 Warner Bros. Animated cartoon Quentin Quail features a character based on Brice's characterization of Baby Snooks.[ Quentin Quail, The Big Cartoon Database. Accessed January 31, 2016.]
Barbra Streisand starred as Brice in the 1964 Broadway theatre musical Funny Girl, which centered on Brice's rise to fame and troubled relationship with Arnstein. In 1969, Streisand won an Academy Award for Best Actress for reprising her role in the film version. The 1975 film sequel, Funny Lady, focused on Brice's turbulent relationship with impresario Billy Rose and was as highly fictionalized as the original film. Streisand also recorded the Brice songs "My Man" and "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy with Somebody Else)"; and "Second Hand Rose", which reached Billboards top 40.[ Billboard Chart Beat 24 April 2017, Barbra Streisand Top 40 Hits "'Second Hand Rose', No. 32, Feb. 5, 1966". Accessed January 1, 2023.]
Funny Girl, and its sequel Funny Lady, took liberties with the events of Brice's life. They make no mention of Brice's first husband and suggest that Arnstein turned to crime because his pride would not allow him to live off Fanny and that he was wanted by the police for selling phony bonds. In reality, however, Arnstein sponged off Brice even before their marriage, and was eventually named as a member of a gang that stole $5 million worth of Wall Street securities. Instead of turning himself in, as in the movie, Arnstein went into hiding. When he finally surrendered, he did not plead guilty as he did in the movie, but fought the charges, taking a toll on his wife's finances.
Beanie Feldstein starred as Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, which opened in April 2022.
Though an actress does not portray Brice, her name is mentioned in three scenes of a movie that was successful at the box office and merited two Academy Award nominations: Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018). The protagonist, Lee Israel, portrayed by Melissa McCarthy, is a biographer who hopes she can get paid to work on a project about Brice's life. Her literary agent Marjorie, portrayed by Jane Curtin, tells her sharply that that is not going to happen. Marjorie shouts at Lee, "Nobody wants a book about Fanny Brice! There is nothing new or sexy about Fanny Brice! I couldn't get you a ten-dollar advance for a book about Fanny Brice."
Kimberly Faye Greenberg originated the role of Fanny Brice in "One Night With Fanny Brice" Off-Broadway at St. Luke's Theatre, NYC (2011).
Other recent portrayals of Fanny Brice were in "Ghostlight" at the New York Musical Theatre Festival at the Signature Theatre, NYC (2011);
See also
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Blanche Merrill
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List of songs written by Blanche Merrill
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Academy of Music/Riviera Theatre
Further reading
External links
