Fanny Brice

Biography

Fania Borach (October 29, 1891 – May 29, 1951), known professionally as Fanny Brice or Fannie Brice, was an American comedian, illustrated song model, singer, and 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. Her life story was loosely adapted into the stage musical Funny Girl. Brice was portrayed by Barbra Streisand in both the original Broadway production of the musical and its 1968 film adaptation.

== Early life ==

Fania Borach was born in Manhattan, New York City, United States, the third child of Rose (née Stern; 1867–1941), a Jewish Hungarian woman who immigrated to the U.S. at age 10, and Jewish Alsatian immigrant Charles Borach. The Borachs were saloon owners and had four children: Phillip, born in 1887; Carrie, born in 1889; Fania, born in 1891; and Louis, born in 1893. Under the name Lew Brice, her younger brother also became an entertainer and was the first husband of actress Mae Clarke.

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 "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.

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 credits include Fioretta, Sweet and Low, and Billy Rose's Crazy Quilt. Her films include My Man (1928, a lost film), 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. Brice's first regular radio show was probably The Chase and Sanborn Hour, a 30-minute program which ran on Wednesday nights at 8 pm in 1933. From the 1930s until her death in 1951, Fanny made a radio presence as a bratty toddler named Snooks, a role she had 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 Radio in December 1937, performing the Snooks routines as part of the Good News show, then in 1940 on Maxwell House Coffee Time, with the half-hour divided between the Snooks sketches and actor Frank Morgan. 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.