Letter From America: Sophie Tucker
...In an age when largeness is frowned upon, if not openly, then tacitly, and slim and lithe are often requirements to attract affection, there is much to be gained for liking people less for how they look, and more for what they are...
Ronnie Bray, in a proposed series paying tribute to folk of ample size who have crossed his line of vision, pays tribute to the entertainer Sophie Tucker.
The mention of heavyweight champions by those of my vintage would normally bring to mind names such as Joe Baxi, Bruce Woodcock, Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Floyd Patterson, Cassius Clay, AKA Mohammed Ali, to name but a few of the boxing noteworthy that we have egged on or watched in hopes of seeing them beaten by someone we like better. But the heavyweight champions I recall were neither boxers nor men, but women, who not only qualify as heavyweights, but also as champions.
I have a short list, and that means that some you might consider merit mention, will not be. To each his own, as someone said, and these champions are those who in one way or another touched my life with their lives and talents.
In an age when largeness is frowned upon, if not openly, then tacitly, and slim and lithe are often requirements to attract affection, there is much to be gained for liking people less for how they look, and more for what they are.
The first Heavyweight Champion to cross my line of vision was billed as "The Last Of the Red Hot Mommas!" She was Sophie Tucker, born 1884 as Sonia Kalish in Russia, from where she was taken to the USA by her parents while still a baby in arms.
Her singing career began when she sang for tips from customers in her parents’ restaurant in Hartford, Connecticut, but her heart was set on loftier venues. At the age of 19, she was briefly married to Louis Tuck, from which she decided to change her name to "Sophie Tucker."
Sophie played the piano and sang in blackface. This was, she said, demanded by theatre managers who told her she was "too fat and ugly" to be appreciated otherwise, and so she willingly complied, because it was either that, or no singing! She sang many songs that declared her prominent heaviness, including "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love."
Miss Tucker made her name with a singing style known as ‘Coon Shouting,’ renditions of songs influenced by African American. Not content with performing in the simple minstrel traditions, she engaged some of the best African-American vocalists of the time to teach her their style of singing, and employed African-American composers to write her songs.
Tucker made her first appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies in 1909, but didn't last long because Flo Ziegfeld's other female celebrities declined to share the stage with the increasingly popular Tucker.
William Morris of the William Morris Agency booked Tucker at his New American Music Hall. At a 1909 appearance, her luggage including her blackface makeup was pilfered shortly before she was due on stage, so she went on without her usual blackface, and was a bigger hit without it than she was with it. On Morris’ advice, she never wore blackface again, although she continued to draw a great deal of her material from African-American writers as well as African-American culture, that she translated into her own ragtime-and-blues-influenced technique, that resulted in her being known as "The Ragtime Mary Garden," a reference to a famous operatic soprano of the times.
Tucker made several popular recordings, including, "Some of These Days," in 1911. Written by Shelton Brooks, the song was an immediate hit and became Tucker's theme song, and, later, the title of her autobiography.
In 1921, Tucker hired pianist and lyricist Ted Shapiro as her accompanist and musical director, a position he maintained throughout her career. Besides writing songs for Tucker, Shapiro became part of her routine, playing piano on stage while she sang, and trading badinage and humorous comments with her between numbers.
In 1925, Jack Yellen wrote one of her most famous songs, "My Yiddish 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 made the first of her many movie appearances in the 1929 talking picture ‘Honky Tonk.’ Then, in the 1930s, Tucker brought elements of nostalgia for the early years of 20th century to her shows, when she was billed as ‘The Last of the Red Hot Mamas,’ a reference to her hearty sexual appetite, that was also a subject of many of her songs.
She made numerous popular film appearances, including ‘Broadway Melody of 1938,’ in which she sang a song during the finale. Remarkably, even though she was playing a character in the musical and not herself, her real name in neon lights lit up on stage in a heartwarming tribute to her.
Vaudeville historians Charles and Louise Samuels wrote that she "had the biggest, brassiest voice of all. The beat in her voice made your heart pound with it, and in syncopated time." She continued her career in America and Britain until she succumbed to lung cancer in 1966 at the grand old age of 82.
On stage she was a mammoth presence, whether singing or acting. Her rich deep voice was inspirational, and when she sang of love, you knew she knew what she was singing about.
Sophie Tucker was the first heavyweight champion with whom I became familiar, and I thrill yet whenever I hear her. Perhaps it was her disadvantages that inspired her to climb, using them as ladder rungs to reach the height to which the young Russian émigré aspired, and that she reached and enjoyed for the rest of her life. As Winston Churchill might have said, "Some voice, some champion!"
Copyright © 2008 – Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Ronnie's Stories:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html
http://bonzer.virage.net/?s=bray
http://www.openwriting.com/archives/a_shout_from_the_attic
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