Gold digger is a term for a person, typically a woman, who engages in a type of transactional relationship for money rather than love. [1] If it turns into marriage, it is a type of marriage of convenience.
Gold digger is a term for a person, typically a woman, who engages in a type of transactional relationship for money rather than love. [1] If it turns into marriage, it is a type of marriage of convenience.
The term "gold digger" is a slang term that has its roots among chorus girls and sex workers in the early 20th century. In print, the term can be found in Rex Beach's 1911 book, The Ne'er-Do-Well, and in the 1915 memoir My Battles with Vice by Virginia Brooks. [2] The Oxford Dictionary[ clarification needed ] and Random House's Dictionary of Historical Slang state the term is distinct for women because they were much more likely to need to marry a wealthy man in order to achieve or maintain a level of socioeconomic status. [2] [3]
The term rose in usage after the popularity of Avery Hopwood's play The Gold Diggers in 1919. Hopwood first heard the term in a conversation with Ziegfeld performer Kay Laurell. [4]
As an indication on how new the slang term was, Broadway producers urged him to change the title because they feared that the audience would think that the play was about mining and the Gold Rush. [5]
There exist several cases where female public figures have been perceived as exemplars of the gold digger stereotype by the public. The best-known gold digger of the early 20th century was Peggy Hopkins Joyce. Joyce was a former show girl who married and divorced millionaires. She was characterized as a gold digger during her divorce battle with Stanley Joyce during the early 1920s. Some have argued that she was the real-life inspiration for Lorelei Lee, the protagonist in Anita Loos’ 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes [6] which holds gold digging as a central theme. Additionally, some have contended that the term "gold digger" was coined to describe her. [7] Former Olympian Eleanor Holm was dubbed the "swimming gold digger" for her divorce contest with Broadway impresario Billy Rose during the 1950s. [8] The press and public described model and actress, Anna Nicole Smith, as a gold digger for marrying multi-millionaire octogenarian J. Howard Marshall II. There was even a book published as a Little Blue Book (Little Blue Book No. 1392, Confessions of a Gold Digger, by Betty Van Deventer, 1929).
The recurring image of the gold digger in Western popular media throughout the 1920s and 1930s developed into an important symbol of a moral panic surrounding frivolous lawsuits. Sharon Thompson's research has demonstrated how public perception of the prevalence of gold digging has created disadvantages for female spouses without their own source of income in the negotiation of alimony cases and prenuptial agreements. [3] The gold digger stereotype triggered public discussions about heartbalm legislation during the 1930s, particularly breach of promise cases. Public outrage surrounding the image of frivolous lawsuits and unfair alimony payouts related to the gold digger archetype contributed to a nationwide push throughout the middle and late 1930s to outlaw heart balm legislation in the United States. [9] [10] [11]
The gold digger emerged as a dominant trope in American popular culture beginning in the 1920s. Stephen Sharot stated that the gold digger supplanted the popularity of the vamp in 1920s cinema. [12] : 143–144
By the 1930s, the term "gold digger" had reached the United Kingdom through a British remake of The Gold Diggers. While the film received negative critical reception, several sequels with the same title have been produced. [3]
In the 1930s, the gold digger trope was used in a number of popular American films, most notably Gold Diggers of 1933 , Gold Diggers of 1935 , Baby Face , Red-Headed Woman , Dinner at Eight , and Havana Widows . Film historian Roger Dooley notes that the gold digger is one of the most common of the “stock company of stereotypes that continually reappear in the films of the 1930s.” [13] Gold diggers in 1930s cinema were often portrayed in positive, sometimes heroic, ways. [14] [15] The character has featured in many films since the 1930s such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), both starring Marilyn Monroe, or as a villainous foil, as in both versions of Disney's film The Parent Trap .
The gold digger image or trope appears in several popular songs, including "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" (1938), "Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend" (1949), "Santa Baby" (1953), "She Got the Goldmine (I Got The Shaft)" (1982), and "Material Girl" (1984). Rap music's use of the "gold digger script" is one of a few prevalent sexual scripts that is directed at young African-American women. [16] For example Kanye West's "Gold Digger" and EPMD's "Gold Digger" both reference a woman marrying for perceived wealth. West's "Gold Digger" brought attention to the Gold Digger trope into Pop Culture, especially because of the music video that followed.
James Avery Hopwood was an American playwright of the Jazz Age. He had four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 American musical drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Hunt Stromberg. It stars William Powell as the theatrical impresario Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld Jr., Luise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke.
A trophy wife is a wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband. The term is often used in a derogatory or disparaging way, implying that the wife in question has little personal merit besides her physical attractiveness, requires substantial expense for maintaining her appearance, is often unintelligent or unsophisticated, does very little of substance beyond remaining attractive, and is in some ways synonymous with the term gold digger. A trophy wife is typically relatively young and attractive, and may be a second, third or later wife of an older, wealthier man. A trophy husband is the male equivalent.
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical revue productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 to 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke was an American actress who was famous on Broadway and radio, and in silent and sound films. She is best known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musical The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Florenz Edward Ziegfeld Jr. was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat. He was known as the "glorifier of the American girl". Ziegfeld is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
A shotgun wedding is a wedding which is arranged in order to avoid embarrassment due to premarital sex which can possibly lead to an unintended pregnancy. The phrase is a primarily American colloquialism, termed as such based on a stereotypical scenario in which the father of the pregnant bride-to-be threatens the reluctant groom with a shotgun in order to ensure that he follows through with the wedding.
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely-related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles.
Gold Digger, Gold Diggers or The Gold Diggers may refer to:
Lilyan Tashman was an American actress. Tashman was best known for her supporting roles as tongue-in-cheek villainesses or playing the vindictive "other woman". She made 66 films over the course of her Hollywood career, and although she never obtained superstar status, her cinematic performances are described as "sharp, clever and have aged little over the decades."
Gold Diggers of 1933 is a pre-Code Warner Bros. musical film directed by Mervyn LeRoy with songs by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics), staged and choreographed by Busby Berkeley. It stars Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell, and features Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks and Ginger Rogers.
Peggy Hopkins Joyce was an American actress, artist's model, and dancer. In addition to her performing career, Joyce was known for her flamboyant life, with numerous engagements, four marriages to wealthy men, subsequent divorces, a series of affairs, a collection of diamonds and furs, and a generally lavish lifestyle.
Ziegfeld Girls were the chorus girls and showgirls from Florenz Ziegfeld's theatrical Broadway revue spectaculars known as the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), in New York City, which were based on the Folies Bergère of Paris.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Intimate Diary of a Professional Lady (1925) is a comic novel written by American author Anita Loos. The story follows the dalliances of a young blonde gold-digger named Lorelei Lee "in the bathtub-gin era of American history." Published the same year as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Carl Van Vechten's Firecrackers, the work is one of several famous 1925 American novels which focus upon the insouciant hedonism of the Jazz Age.
Sally Long was an American dancer and actress.
David Stamper was an American songwriter of the Tin Pan Alley and vaudeville eras, a contributor to twenty-one editions of the Ziegfeld Follies, writer for the Fox Film Corporation, and composer of more than one thousand songs, in spite of never learning to read or write traditional music notation. He may have written "Shine On Harvest Moon", a claim supported by vaudeville performer and writer Eddie Cantor. He was also a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers or ASCAP.
Allyn S. King was an American stage and film actress and singer who began her career in vaudeville, and later as a Ziegfeld Follies performer.
Mary Hay Caldwell was an American dancer, musical comedy and silent screen actress, playwright, and former Ziegfeld girl.
The Skyrocket is a 1926 American silent romantic drama film directed by Marshall Neilan and starring Peggy Hopkins Joyce. The film was based on the 1925 novel of the same name by Adela Rogers St. Johns and scripted by Benjamin Glazer.
The Gold Diggers is a play written by Avery Hopwood. It popularized the use of the term "gold digger" to refer to women who seek wealthy partners, as opposed to the earlier usage referring to gold miners. Producer David Belasco staged it on Broadway in 1919, with Ina Claire in the lead role. It was a hit, running for two consecutive seasons before going on tour.
...endorsed New York's new anti-heart-balm law...