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_4— poor Isitttg; Rich Girl I ts a truism among actors: Comedians want to try tragedy, dramatic actors want to make people laugh, and everyone "really wants to direct/* Anna was no exception. She'd scored a huge success over the past few years in comedy roles but couldn't quite forget that her earliest successes with Jacob Adler had been in heavily tragic operettas. Something within her wanted to "show them" that she, like Bernhardt and Duse, could wring hearts. "Not always do I want to be Anna Held/" she said in 1903. "I wish to please the people, of course, but I have the ambition to make them cry, perhaps. There, I have said it. I sometimes want to experience what so many have told me—to work hard and see the people turn and writhe; make them feel things they cannot see and sometimes do not know." Ziegfeld disagreed. N o t that he didn't think Anna could be a fine dramatic actress, but why tamper with success? For once he was trying to be financially sensible. People would pay good money to see Anna Held roll her eyes, show her legs, and sing humorously naughty songs. But would they pay to see Anna suffer nobly, die piteously, or sacrifice herself for love and honor? Finally Anna and Ziegfeld came to what they thought was a happy compromise . French playwright Jean Richepin had just enjoyed a great success in Paris with a play about Mile Mars, a favorite actress of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was a huge Anna Held-like production, with elaborate costumes, beautiful sets, and spaces for varied songs to be inserted. But it also gave Anna the chance to play heavily dramatic scenes as well as to reemphasize her affinity for all things French. When the Ziegfelds landed in France, they handed Grace Van Studdiford POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL 73 and the gaggle of chorus girls off to George Marion and went to work. They holed themselves up with M. and Mme Richepin and Joseph Herbert, whose job it was to translate Mile Mars (retitled Mam} selle Napoleon) into English—not just regular English, but "Broadway English/' While continuing to work, the fivesome also piled into Ziegfelds new steam-car and took an eight-hundredmile road trip through France, Switzerland, and the Alps. Back in Paris Anna and her little troupe of models spent weeks being fitted for the MamseUe Napoleon costumes, which were their first essay into period clothing. The high-waisted Empire gowns weren't flattering to Anna, so—historical accuracy be damned—the dresses were retrofitted to her famous hourglass figure. That summer also provided Anna with a lifelong companion and helper, an Italian woman named Beatrice Brianchi. Anna hired her as a maid, but within a short time Beatrice proved herself to be an able social secretary, dresser, travel agent, press liaison, and just about anything else Anna needed. Beatrice became the sister Anna never had and the daughter she never really got to know; she stayed with Anna till the very end. The company arrived back in New York in mid-August, and Ziegfeld set about casting and rehearsing his two shows (The Red Feather opened in November 1903, running through early 1904). Mam} selle Napoleon was a huge, unwieldy, and expensive experiment: three acts (with four decorative "tableaux"), forty-four speaking parts, and one hundred chorus members. Act I took place at the Comedie-Francaise in 1803, which Ziegfeld was determined to recreate exactly. Act 2 took place on a moonlit island on a lake in front of Napoleons residence, and act 3 contained not one but two costume balls, at the Cafe de la Paix and the Opera. The whole production was reported to have cost Ziegfeld one hundred thousand dollars to stage by opening night. Anna s usual comedy cohorts, Charles Bigelow and Eva Davenport, weren't cast in this show. Frank Rushworth portrayed Mile Mars's fiance, Noel Gilot, a ne'er-do-well Imperial Guard, and Arthur Laurence was Napoleon, who condemns Gilot to the firing squad. Anna, as the Comedie-Francaise star, manages to save her fiance's life by telling Napoleon a heartwarming fable (the one about the injured lion and the helpful mouse) and singing a few Anna Held tunes by Gustav Luders ("The a la Mode Girl," "The Art of Simulation," "The Language of Love," and a few others). There were a total of twenty musical numbers in the show...

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