Magdalena “Mitzi” Hajos was born in Budapest, Hungary in April, 1889, and first went onstage as a child performer in her native country. Arriving in the U.S. in 1909 she sang and danced in vaudeville and nightclubs for two years, before making an enormous splash in the Shubert show La Belle Paree with Al Jolson, portraying “Fifi Montmarre”. A long succession of musicals, revues and operettas followed, through the end of the 1920s. In 1914, she returned to vaudeville when she performed at the Palace Theatre. Among her notable later credits: she was the original Gay Wellington in the first Broadway production of You Can’t Take It With You (1938).
To learn more about 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.
(Travalanche) 