Fanny Brice : the original funny girl /

When baby boomers hear the name Fanny Brice, they picture Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, while earlier generations may recall Brice's radio character "Baby Snooks," but few, if any, are familiar with the facts about Fanny Brice, whose life was as theatrical off stage as on. Goldman, author of Jolson: The Legend Comes to Life [BKL S 1 88], combines solid research with a straight-ahead style, offering lucid insights into Fanny's personality, troubled marriages, and unforgettable performances. A balladeer, comedian, and actress who took the entertainment world by storm, Fanny grew up in New York streetwise, stagestruck, and ambitious. More like her cool-headed, hardworking mother than she liked to admit, she adored her handsome, incompetent father who, unfortunately, influenced her taste in men. Landing her first stage role while still in her teens, Fanny became a star in her twenties. Goldman vividly describes Fanny's chutzpah, magnetic voice, "gift for fun," and uncanny rapport with the audience, thoroughly documents her career, and examines her private life, including her difficult marriage to the notorious swindler Nick Arnstein, with candor and respect. ~--Donna Seaman

Born Fania Borach, Brice (1891-1951) grew up in relative comfort in New York and New Jersey, played vaudeville and quickly became a star in Ziegfeld Follies revues, but may be remembered best as radio's Baby Snooks, a wisecracking kid. As a person Brice was probably even more appealing than the woman portrayed by Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl and Funny Lady . She was a natural ham and singer, although she had to work at dancing. She lived and dressed elegantly, was straightforward and gregarious. Goldman ( Jolson ) offers a workmanlike but uninspired account of Brice's life, listing in detail her professional appearances and including only a little of the material that made her famous--mostly the early songs. In the end the book fails to provide a strong sense of the earthy Brice, preferring instead to transfer today's psychobabble onto the past, as when Goldman writes, ``The necessity of seeing herself as her own role model built Brice's confidence and forced her to make her life with outside friends.''p.23 Moreover, his insights aren't particularly insightful. ``People often bond because of things they share.'' Photos not seen by PW . (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Well-written life of the great comedienne, today known best as the original of Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl and Funny Woman; by the author of 1988's well-received Jolson. Goldman, an intense researcher, caps his present bio with a big stageography-filmography-discography-bibliography. Brice (1891- 1951) has had only one previous biography, 1952's The Fabulous Fanny by Norman Katkov, which was adapted from her own unpublished memoirs and had little to say about her career. Aside from Streisand's misleading musical film-bios, she is semi-forgotten and remembered largely for her radio shows as Baby Snooks. But in many ways, her life holds tremendous fascination, and the present work hasn't a dull moment. Brice, born Borach on New York's Lower East Side, showed early comic talents, began earning $30 a week as a kid by winning amateur contests all over Brooklyn and Manhattan and playing in light stage-shows. She grew professionally in vaudeville and burlesque, moving from chorus girl to singer-dancer, was a knockout at Yiddish dialect or throwaway lines of Brooklynese (which Streisand captured perfectly). Then, at only 19, she landed in Ziegfeld's Follies for 1910 and thereafter was featured in every edition but two until 1923. As a singer she could thrill audiences, much like Al Jolson or the later Judy Garland, while her genius for comedy, as in her mock ballet ``The Dying Duck,'' melted them into salty puddles of hysteria. Her fame grew exponentially when her first husband, con man Nick Arnstein, was jailed and later became a world-famous fugitive. His selfishness finally killed the marriage, and Fanny later married impresario Billy Rose, another failed union. Her great hit, a closed-eyes rendition of ``My Man,'' was not the show-stopper of Funny Girl: audiences at the real thing were too wiped out for a huge response. A celebrity bio the way they should be written.