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Vivienne Segal: From Classical to Pre-Code

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Today is the birthday of Vivienne Segal (1897-1992). Originally from Philadelphia she was classically trained in voice and made her debut in Carmen in 1915. The following year she went straight to Broadway in The Blue Paradise and was to remain a fixture there through the early 1950s. She is best known to posterity for playing Vera in two productions of Pal Joey; other shows included A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur Court, The Three Musketeers and a revival of The Chocolate Soldier. Occasionally she would take take prestige vaudeville dates like when she played the Palace in 1922 and scored big; she also performed in revues like Miss 1917 and several editions of the Ziegfeld Follies. In the early 30s, she appeared in several pre-code Hollywood musicals like Viennese Nights (1930), but didn’t make much of a splash. By the late 30s, she was back in New York doing what she did best.

To find out about  the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

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For more on silent and slapstick comedy please check out my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

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Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.

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