Theater: Funny Girl

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A must-see, it promises to be great entertaining, that will drive out all the hard days labor and will rejuvenate you for the next day. So what are you waiting for. Book your tickets now.

Funny Girl is a musical play based on the life of singer-actress Fanny Brice. It is a mixture of both fiction as well as some facts of life of Fanny. It was produced by Fanny Brice's son in law, Ray Stark. It was quite a tough job for him, because he had to appease Fanny's family as well as her associates. It was nominated for eight Tony Awards, starred Barbra Streisand, Sydney Chaplin, Kay Medford, Danny Meehan and Jean Stapleton.

Actually Fanny Brice's family name was Borach. She changed it to Brice, when she was at the height of her career. Her parents owned a chain of profitable saloons in Newark, New Jersey and lived very comfortably. But the business was run by her mother, while her father instead of working, used to while away his time by playing cards and drinking wine. This continued for many years. But then Fanny's mother Rosie could not take it any more. He got divorced from her husband and went to Brooklyn and took her kids. There she started another business, that of buying and selling of estate. Since she prior knowledge of business and as a result it took off well. They started living in posh apartments as well as townhouses. Meanwhile, Fanny was struggling towards fame.

She made her debut as a solo singer a Frank Keeney's popular Brooklyn vaudeville theater. She then joined a chorus by Broadway legend George M. Cohan. But she was thrown out of the group because she couldn't dance. She was very much disappointed, and when asked why she was dropped out of the group she would reply that it was because of her "skinny legs". When Fanny was only a teenager, she married a small town barber, Frank White who liked to get involved with young actresses. Undoubtedly, the marriage was not successful and they got divorced. Although it was for a brief period, the marriage was consummated and, thus, she lost her sexual innocence, years before, meeting Nick Arnstein. She then developed friendship with Irving Berlin and it was with his help that she reached stardom. He wrote a number of songs, including "Sadie Salome" that helped her break into the big-time. When Ziegfeld sent for Fanny, she was not in Brooklyn burlesque. In fact, she had already made her legit debut in a Shubert Brothers production.

She had an unique way of presenting her show, that made audience loll out in laughter. In 1910, she debuted for Follies and sang the song "Lovely Joe". The relationship between Fanny and Ziegfeld was entirely professional and they respected each other, although there were disputes between them sometimes. She made her Follies debut at The Jardin de Paris, an open air summer theater atop the now-gone New York Theater. It was only in the year 1913 that The Follies move to the New Amsterdam Theater. She met Nick Baltimore while on tour in the Shubert Brother's 1912 revue Whirl of Society. His real name was Julius Arnstein and he had several aliases, to cover his international criminal record. They liked each other so much that Nick followed her along with the Whirl of Society tour, returned to New York with Fanny, and immediately moved in with her and her mother. But Mrs. Borach distrusted him from the first day. Fanny came to know that Nick was still married, but she was so much in love with him that she ignored the fact. In 1919, she got married to him after his divorce and just after two months she gave birth to their daughter Frances. Nick used to shamelessly live on Fanny's earning. They also had a son William who became respected artist and college professor.

Fanny owned a Manhattan townhouse on West 76th Street and a large county place in Huntington, Long Island. Since she was well-paid she never lost anything even because of Arnstein's financial losses. Funny Girl suggests Nick's big mistake was selling phony bonds. In fact, he was part of a gang that stole five million dollars worth of Wall Street securities - a tremendous sum in 1920. Instead of gallantly turning himself in, he stayed in hiding for four months, leaving Fanny to face intense press and police harassment while giving birth to their son William. When Nick finally surrendered to the authorities, he fought the charges on every possible technicality for four expensive years and later a federal court finally threw him into Leavenworth for 14 months, where Fanny used her influence to arrange for special treatment (including meals cooked by the warden's wife!).

Funny Girl is actually a semi-biographical musical story that pays homage to the life of talented comedienne and performer Fanny Brice. It was nominated for eight Tony Awards. But it is worth-mentioning that the film consists of lot of fiction with an occasional fact thrown in it. There are many instances such as, Fanny's long friendship with Irving Berlin is b
ot mentioned in the play. The second instance is that Fanny performed her own material in her own way, but the pregnant bride number depicted in Funny Girl never happened, had it been so, Ziegfeld would have fired her rightaway. Although Fanny and Nick had a son, but it was never mentioned in Funny girl. The film version shows Fanny doing a "Baby Snooks" routine in the Follies on the night Ziegfeld tells her Nick has been arrested. In fact, she did not play Snooks until the 1933 Follies - a year after Ziegfeld's death. Ray Stark goal was to create great entertainment and he succeeded in it.

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