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On with the show! : the first century of show business in America / Robert C. Toll.

By: Toll, Robert C.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1976Description: 361 p. : ill. ; 29 cm.ISBN: 019502057X .Subject(s): Performing arts -- United States -- HistoryDDC classification: 792.01
Contents:
The roots of American show business -- P. T. Barnum: father of American show business -- The greatest show on earth!! -- The minstrel show: show biz in blackface -- A place to be somebody?: Negroes in show business -- Plays for the people -- The evolution of the musical comedy -- The girlie show: from statuary to striptease -- Only skin deep: the impersonators -- The vaudeville show: something for everybody -- Florenz Ziegfeld and his follies.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Cork School of Music Library Lending 792.01 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00165897
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A comprehensive history of live entertainment in America from the beginnings in popular theatre in the 11830's until the Great Depression of the 1930's, relating show business to changing American cultural and social patterns and to equally great changes in public taste.

Bibliography: p. 327-335. Includes index.

The roots of American show business -- P. T. Barnum: father of American show business -- The greatest show on earth!! -- The minstrel show: show biz in blackface -- A place to be somebody?: Negroes in show business -- Plays for the people -- The evolution of the musical comedy -- The girlie show: from statuary to striptease -- Only skin deep: the impersonators -- The vaudeville show: something for everybody -- Florenz Ziegfeld and his follies.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Kirkus Book Review

A grass roots look at the origins of American stage entertainment, in which the common people ""shaped show business in their own image."" P.T. Barnum is seen plain along with Tom Thumb and the first lion tamer, black entertainers (and Ethiopian Delineators, or blackface minstrels), Buffalo Bill, sexual impersonators, Florenz Ziegfeld, the first musical comedies and girlie shows (""from statuary to strip-tease""), all the way up to Fannie Brice, W.C. Fields, and Al Jolson. There was a zap in live entertainment that is now denatured by electronics and film, and Toll expertly bares the nervous charge each performer made his specialty. None was more unique than Julian Eltinge, a very masculine drag artist who not only was praised for his female impersonations (""an ideal girl"", a woman ""the way they ought to be"") but went on to endorse bust developers and become the envy of insecure girls everywhere, providing them with cheap lessons in etiquette, bearing, make-uti, hair-styling and dress. Bert Williams, who sang amusingly sad songs about his fellow blacks (""the funniest man I ever saw and the saddest man I ever knew,"" said W.C. Fields) is the book's most tragic entry: he'd leave Ziegfeld's Follies each evening, his ears ringing with applause, and live a life condemned to second-class citizenship and back doors. Oddly, this is the first survey of its kind, and it's a charmer. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.