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Manilla Powers was a star of variety shows, revues, vaudeville, and musical comedies in the 1920s and 1930s. She was born and raised in Janesville, Wisconsin. [1]
Manilla was one of six siblings born to Michael Powers, a harness maker, and his wife, Josephine, a dressmaker. In 1915, Manilla, aged 17, was selected as one of six female students chosen to represent Janesville High School in a triangular girl's debating league. She was class vice-president as a high school sophomore, won a recorder medal as a junior and graduated in 1916. [2]
Her first appearance as an entertainer was in March 1915. During the afternoon program of a meeting of the Janesville, Wisconsin Summer Club of Home Economics, she gave two songs. Powers sang Echoes of Love and Roses After Rain before an audience that was very receptive. She participated in the recital of Marguerite O'Brien [ who? ] in Rockford, Illinois the following November. Powers returned to Janesville from Chicago, Illinois in September 1917. She had studied music for several months under the tutelage of Karlton Hackett. [ citation needed ]
In November 1918 Powers and Alice Thomas performed songs at a bazaar in Janesville. It was organized to raise money for the Fatherless Children of France. In August 1919 Powers came back to her hometown, this time from New York City. She gave the second part of a program at the Janesville Country Club. Her teacher in New York forecast a bright future for Powers. She sang The Lord Is My Light during a service at the Janesville Baptist Church in 1919. [ citation needed ]
Powers was in Artists and Models at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City in November 1927. The program was a revue in two acts with twenty-six scenes. The principals included Ted Lewis and the German comedian Jack Pearl. Powers was among the 100 Winter Garden Girls-100 which Lewis assembled along with his musical clowns. In September 1931 she replaced Alice McKenzie as "Sonia" in The Merry Widow. The production was staged at Erlanger's Theater on Broadway. Erlanger's was built by Warren and Wetmore for the Theatrical Syndicate in 1927. Powers performed in The Red Robe (1928) at the Shubert Theater, New Haven, Connecticut. Joining her in the comedy show were Gloria Foy, Peggy Dolan, and John Goldsworthy.
Powers traveled with a troupe of vaudeville actors to Forest Park (St. Louis) in 1932. They staged a romance of 20th century turkey, The Rose of Stamboul. George Hassell, Barbara Newberry, Harry K. Morton, and Leonard Ceeley were in the cast. Nothing is known of Powers' life after this point, or when and where she died. [2]
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, 1936, 1943, and 1957. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
The Shubert Organization is a theatrical producing organization and a major owner of theatres based in Manhattan, New York City. It was founded by the three Shubert brothers in the late 19th century. They steadily expanded, owning many theaters in New York and across the United States. Since then it has gone through changes of ownership, but it is still a major theater chain.
The Shubert family was responsible for the establishment of the Broadway district, in New York City, as the hub of the theatre industry in the United States. They dominated the legitimate theatre and vaudeville in the first half of the 20th century, promoting entertainment attuned to popular taste.
Abraham Lincoln Erlanger was an American theatrical producer, director, designer, theater owner, and a leading figure of the Theatrical Syndicate.
Marilyn Miller was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, and the combination of these talents endeared her to audiences. On stage, she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. Her enormous popularity and famed image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, frequent illness, and ultimately her sudden death due to complications of nasal surgery at age 37.
The St. James Theatre, originally Erlanger's Theatre, is a Broadway theater at 246 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1927, it was designed by Warren and Wetmore in a neo-Georgian style and was constructed for A. L. Erlanger. It has 1,709 seats across three levels and is operated by Jujamcyn Theaters. Both the facade and the auditorium interior are New York City landmarks.
The Shubert Theatre is a Broadway theater at 225 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1913, the theater was designed by Henry Beaumont Herts in the Italian Renaissance style and was built for the Shubert brothers. Lee and J. J. Shubert had named the theater in memory of their brother Sam S. Shubert, who died in an accident several years before the theater's opening. It has 1,502 seats across three levels and is operated by The Shubert Organization. The facade and interior are New York City landmarks.
Lou Holtz was an American vaudevillian, comic actor, and theatrical producer.
Janet Adair was an American vaudeville, ragtime, musical revue and musical comedy performer in the early twentieth century, who also appeared in five movies.
Gloria Foy was an American dancer, singer, vaudeville performer, and star of musical revues. Her family were theatrical people. Her father was Harry Foy, but she was no relation to the more famous Eddie Foy.
Peggy Dolan was an American dancer and actress in theater and vaudeville in the 1920s.
The 44th Street Theatre was a Broadway theater at 216 West 44th Street in the Theater District of Manhattan in New York City from 1912 to 1945. It was originally named Weber and Fields' Music Hall when it opened in November 1912 as a resident venue for the comedy duo Weber and Fields, but was renamed to the 44th Street Theatre in December 1913 after their tenure at the theatre ended. It should not be confused with the Weber and Fields' Broadway Music Hall, often referred to as simply Weber and Fields' Music Hall and also known as Weber's Music Hall or Weber's Theatre, which was used by both Weber and Fields or just Weber from 1896 through 1912.
Frank Aloysius Robert Tinney was an American blackface comedian and actor.
F. Ray Comstock was an American theatrical producer and theater operator. He pioneered the intimate musical comedy, staging several successful comedies at his Princess Theatre in Manhattan. He also produced spectacular musicals, variety shows and serious plays by authors such as Henrik Ibsen and Maxim Gorky.
Jesse C. Huffman (1869–1935) was an American theatrical director. Between 1906 and 1932 he directed or staged over 200 shows, mostly for the Shubert Brothers. Many of them were musical revues, musicals or operettas. He is known for The Passing Show series of revues that he staged from 1914 to 1924 at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway, daring alternatives to the Ziegfeld Follies.
Vera Michelena was an American actress, contralto prima donna and dancer who appeared in light opera, musical comedy, vaudeville and silent film. She was perhaps best remembered for her starring roles in the musicals The Princess Chic, Flo Flo and The Waltz Dream, her rendition of the vampire dance in the musical Take It from Me and as a Ziegfeld Follies performer.
Klaw and Erlanger was an entertainment management and production partnership of Marc Klaw and Abraham Lincoln Erlanger based in New York City from 1888 through 1919. While running their own considerable and multi-faceted theatrical businesses on Broadway, they were key figures in the Theatrical Syndicate, the lucrative booking monopoly for first-class legitimate theaters nationwide.
Anatole Friedland, also spelled as Anatol Friedland and Anato Friedland, was a composer, songwriter, vaudeville performer, and Broadway producer during the 1900s. He is most-known for composing songs with lyricist L. Wolfe Gilbert. Their most popular songs include, "My Sweet Adair" (1915), "Are You From Heaven?" (1917), and "My Own Iona" (1916).
Hilda Perleno was an American blues and jazz singer, known for her Broadway appearances in the 1920s and 1930s.
Blanche L. Merrill was a songwriter specializing in tailoring her characterizations to specific performers. She is best known for the songs she wrote for Fanny Brice.