Sophie Tucker

All Music Guide:

Declaring "I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas" in one of her best-known songs, Sophie Tucker created a brassy, bawdy persona that made her a smashing success on the vaudeville circuit and the musical stage. Tucker was born Sonia Kalish on January 13, 1884, as her Jewish parents were fleeing Russia for Poland and, by the time Sophie was three, the United States; the family took the last name Abuza as a cover during their flight. After a spell in Boston, her parents opened a restaurant in Hartford, Connecticut, where young Sophie met many a vaudeville entertainer and picked up spare change singing for them and other customers. Sophie married a man named Louis Tuck at age 16 and had a son, Albert, a year later, at which point Tuck left her. Changing her married name to Tucker to produce her stage name, Sophie moved to New York to pursue a singing career, initially performing at small cafés and beer halls. Tucker eventually got an agent, who helped her break into vaudeville in 1906. At the behest of her handlers, she usually worked in blackface early in her career, under the logic that since she was rather generously built and plain of face, her audiences might not otherwise take to her.

In 1909, Tucker landed a job with the Ziegfeld Follies; she was a headlining act by 1911, and when she finally dropped the blackface act in favor of gaudy costumes and began adding traditional Yiddish songs to her repertoire of risqué comic songs, sentimental ballads, and ragtime numbers, she allayed all unfounded fears about her appearance and became more popular than ever. 1911 also saw the first recording of one of Tucker's signature songs, "Some of These Days." During World War I, Tucker adopted jazz stylings and toured with a small group called the Five Kings of Syncopation; she also played from 1914-1917 with second husband Frank Westphal, a pianist, but their marriage dissolved over his jealousy of her popularity.

In 1919, Tucker landed her first Broadway role in Shubert Gaieties; two years later, she hired as musical director pianist Ted Shapiro, who would accompany her for the next 40 years, writing a great deal of her bawdier material as well. She made her first of many trips to London in 1922, starring in the revue Round in 50. Tucker scored hits in the 1920s with songs like a re-recording of "Some of These Days," "I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas," and "My Yiddishe Momme," the latter two co-written by Jack Yellen, a regular contributor whom Tucker paid a regular salary plus commissions. As motion pictures began to rob vaudeville of its audience, Tucker tried to make the leap herself; she made her film debut in Honky Tonk in 1929, but the next year went to London to star in the musical comedy Follow a Star. For the next few years, she alternated London stage appearances with occasional films like Gay Love (1936), Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), and Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937). Tucker also appeared in several more Broadway shows, including Leave It to Me (1938), Gay Paree, and High Kickers (1941).

Tucker's fame gradually diminished over the years; aside from occasional motion picture and television appearances, she spent most of her time performing in nightclubs, preferring the more intimate atmosphere and audience interaction. Her repertoire in later years often included half-spoken philosophical songs, which helped hide her vocal decline somewhat. Tucker devoted much of her income to various charities and frequently performed at benefit concerts. Sophie Tucker died on February 9, 1966, three years after becoming the subject of the biographical musical Sophie.

Wikipedia:

Sophie Tucker (January 13, 1886 – February 9, 1966) was a Russian/Ukrainian-born American singer and actress. Known for her stentorian delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century. She was widely known by the nickname "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas."

Personal

Tucker was born Sonya Kalish (Russian Соня Калиш) to a Jewish family in Tulchyn, Ukraine. Her family emigrated to the United States when she was an infant, and settled in Hartford, Connecticut. The family changed its name to Abuza, and her parents opened a restaurant.

She started singing for tips in her family's restaurant. In 1903, at the age of 17, she was briefly married to Louis Tuck, from which she decided to change her name to Tucker. She bore a son with Tuck, named Bert. (She would marry twice more in her life, but neither marriage lasted more than five years.)

Career

Tucker played piano and sang burlesque and vaudeville tunes, at first in blackface. She later said that this was at the insistence of theatre managers, who said she was "too fat and ugly" to be accepted by an audience in any other context. She even sang songs that acknowledged her weight, such as "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love".

She made a name for herself in a style that was known at the time as a "Coon Shouter", performing African American influenced songs. Not content with performing in the simple minstrel traditions, Tucker hired some of the best African American singers of the time to give her lessons, and hired African American composers to write songs for her act.

Tucker made her first appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1909, but did not last long there because Florenz Ziegfeld's other female stars soon refused to share the spotlight with the popular Tucker.

William Morris, the founder of the William Morris Agency booked Tucker fresh off her Follies debut at his new American Music Hall. At a 1909 appearance, the luggage containing Tucker's makeup kit was stolen shortly before the show, and she hastily went on stage without her customary blackface. Tucker was a bigger hit without her makeup than with it, and, at the advice of Morris, she never wore blackface again. She did, however, continue to draw much of her material from African American writers as well as African American culture, singing in a ragtime- and blues-influenced style, becoming known for a time as "The Mary Garden of Ragtime", a reference to a famous operatic soprano of the era.

Recordings

Tucker made several classic popular recordings. They included "Some of These Days", which first came out in 1911 on Edison Records and then again in 1926. The tune, written and composed by Shelton Brooks, was a huge hit, and became Tucker's career-long theme song and the title of her 1945 autobiography.

In 1921, Tucker hired pianist and songwriter Ted Shapiro as her accompanist and musical director, a position he would keep throughout her career. Besides writing a number of songs for Tucker, Shapiro became part of her stage act, playing piano on stage while she sang, and exchanging banter and wisecracks with her in between numbers. Tucker remained a popular singer through the 1920s, and hired stars such as Mamie Smith and Ethel Waters to give her lessons.

In 1925, Jack Yellen wrote one of her most famous songs, "My Yiddishe Momme". The song was performed in large American cities where there were sizable Jewish audiences. Tucker explained, "Even though I loved the song and it was a sensational hit every time I sang it, I was always careful to use it only when I knew the majority of the house would understand Yiddish. However, you didn't have to be a Jew to be moved by 'My Yiddish Momme.' 'Mother' in any language means the same thing." She also made the first of her many movie appearances in the 1929 sound picture Honky Tonk. During the 1930s, Tucker brought elements of nostalgia for the early years of 20th century into her show. She was billed as "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas," as her hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, unusual for female performers of the era.

Such was Tucker's notoriety and cultural influence that, as late as 1963, three years before her death, Paul McCartney jokingly introduced the song "Till There Was You" (from The Music Man) at The Beatles' Royal Command Performance at The Prince of Wales Theatre in London on 4 November by saying the song "had also been recorded by our favourite American group, Sophie Tucker". in reference to Tucker's notorious girth (Tucker never recorded the song). McCartney also used the same quip, this time for an American audience, to introduce The Beatles' performance of 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' as the finale of their set for The Ed Sullivan Show at The Deauville Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida on 16 February 1964. As there was a lot less audience reaction to the line in Miami Beach, John Lennon provided the laughs.

Films

She made numerous popular film appearances, including Broadway Melody of 1938 as the mother of Judy Garland's character. In that film, Tucker sings a song during the big finale; even though she is playing a character and not herself, several neon lights displaying her real name light up in the background of the stage in tribute. In 2007, she was featured in the film Making Trouble, a tribute to female Jewish comedians, produced by the Jewish Women’s Archive.

Radio

In 1938-1939, she had her own radio program, Sophie Tucker and Her Show, broadcasting for 15 minutes on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. She made numerous guest appearances on such programs as The Andrews Sisters, The Radio Hall of Fame, and Ben Bernie, The Old Maestro.

Television

In the 1950s and early 1960s, she made television appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, What's My Line, Person to Person, and The Tonight Show.

She continued performing in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, until shortly before her death from lung cancer in 1966, at the age of 80. She was interred at Emanuel Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Theatre

Filmography

Unionizing

In 1938, Tucker helped unionize the American Federation of Actors and was elected its president. In 1939, she was serving as its president when it was dissolved by the American Federation of Labor due to financial irregularities. Its successor was the American Guild of Variety Artists.

Influence

Tucker's comic and singing styles are credited with influencing later female entertainers, including Mae West, Rusty Warren, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Ethel Merman, "Mama" Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas, and most notably Bette Midler who has included "Soph" as one of her many stage characters (and whose daughter Sophie is reputedly named after Tucker). She also influenced Miami-based radio and television host-cum-singer Peppy Fields, sister of noted pianist Irving Fields, who was called the Sophie Tucker of Miami by Variety and Billboard magazines. Her second album was to be named "The First Of The New Red Hot Mamas" but she refused to do so as long as Tucker was alive. Probably the greatest influence on Sophie's later song delivery was Clarice Vance (1870–1961). They appeared many times on the same vaudeville bill. Sophie made her first recordings in 1910, and Clarice made her final records in 1909. Clarice had perfected and was known for her subtle narrative talk-singing style that Sophie later used to her advantage when her vocal range became increasingly limited. At the time that Clarice Vance was using the narrative style it was unique to her among women entertainers.

Tucker was also briefly mentioned in the lyrics of the song "Roxie" from the musical Chicago, and was cited as the main influence for the character of Matron "Mama" Morton.

A popular music revue developed by Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota, FL, entitled Sophie Tucker: The Last of the Red Hot Mamas, celebrates Tucker's brassy and bawdy behavior, songs, and persona. Developed in-house by Artistic Director Richard Hopkins in 2000, it has enjoyed several productions across the country including theatres from New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, and Toronto. Kathy Halenda, who originated the role of Sophie Tucker in the production, returns to FST for a limited engagement of "The Last for the Red Hot Mamas" in March 2012.

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