Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld's Broadway

2. It Pays to Advertise

—2— It pays to fldvfzrtissz W hen Anna Held and Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. met for the first time in her dressing room that summer of 1896, they had a lot in common. Both were young, attractive, and ambitious. Both were risk-takers and rule-breakers. And both loved show business with every ounce of their beings. We are more familiar with Flo Ziegfeld from his later photos, when he had taken on the appearance of a disgruntled tortoise. But when he first met Anna, he was a bright-eyed, dark-haired young man, thin as a whippet and vibrating with enthusiasm and harebrained schemes for conquering the theatrical world. Anna had never heard of Florenz Ziegfeld, either Sr. or Jr. Few had. Flo had never produced a Broadway show. But he did have the well-known Teddy Marks and Charles Evans to back him up, which kept Anna from showing him the door. And a trip to America was tempting: All big stars went there sooner or later and usually came back with great gobs of cash and some funny insulting stories about the backward savages of the United States. Anna was already booked for the winter of 1896—97 at the Folies-Bergere, but that didn't slow Ziegfeld down; he offered to pay off director Edouard Marchand. Such a show of self-confidence impressed Anna. Then Ziegfeld got down to business: He would offer her fifteen hundred dollars a week for a three-month engagement in A Parlor Match. That was a higher salary than Anna could earn in Europe, and she was caught up in the excitement of seeing America and spending several months with this interesting young Mr. Ziegfeld. Besides, she needed the money badly: Maximo Carrera had not slowed 24 ANNA HELD down his gambling, even with his allowance cut back. He was badly in debt, and bailiffs had taken everything they could from him. Now they came knocking at Anna s door: As his wife, she was legally responsible for his debts. She ended up using her savings and marriage settlement to pay off Carreras gambling losses and was again staring poverty in the face. Ziegfelds fifteen hundred dollars a week was too good to turn down. Edouard Marchand agreed to accept four thousand dollars to let Anna out of her Folies-Bergere contract, and Ziegfeld deposited an additional four thousand dollars in Annas bank to cover some of what she had given to her husbands creditors (it was later rumored that the money came from Ziegfelds friend, railroad tycoon Diamond Jim Brady). As quickly as he'd arrived, Ziegfeld vanished in a cloud of flowers, promises, and bank checks. Anna half-wondered if the whole thing hadn't been a dream, it was so sudden. Ziegfeld arrived back in New York on August 6, and began laying the groundwork for Annas debut. He hired newspapermen (always anxious for a little extra spending money) to plant stories in the press about her. Startling red-and-white posters reading "GOTO HELD!" appeared on ash cans and the walls of construction sites around the city. Annas picture appeared in the pink pages of the racy Police Gazette; this was the 1890s equivalent of being a Playboy centerfold. By early September the New York Dispatch noted that "Miss Helds photographs are already becoming conspicuous in the Broadway shop windows." There was no shortage of actresses ready to compete with Anna Held. In those premovie days, stage performers were idolized; their postcards sold briskly, fan clubs multiplied, crowds waited for them at the stage door, and newspapers covered their every move. The unknown foreigner had to meet New York's stars head-on, and there were some impressive acts in the 1890s. In addition to popular dramatic stars like Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Julia Marlowe, Maxine Elliott, andViola Allen, plenty of light comedy and musical actresses competed for the same section of the public that Anna targeted. Breathtaking Maude Adams was about to burst into stardom in James Barrie s The Little Minister. Roly-poly blondes May Irwin and Marie Cahill were already well established by the mid-1890s, as was ugly-duckling British import Marie Tempest. Raucous redhead FayTempleton had been a favorite since her debut as a child star in the 1870s. The imposing Canadian-born comic Marie Dressier had her first hit in 1896, starring as The Lady Slavey. And waiting in the wings were promising, hardworking youngsters like Blanche Ring,Trixie Friganza, and...