Charles Ludlam: Film and Theater History

Photographer Unknown, “Charles Ludham and Ridiculous Theatrical Company”, 1970, Production of “Bluebeard”, Publicity Photo, Gelatin Silver Print

Born at Northport, New York in April of 1943, Charles Ludlam was a prominent American actor, director and playwright known for his significant avant-garde contributions to Off-Broadway theater and his role in the development of gay and lesbian performance art. Ludlam also founded the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, which became renowned for its innovative productions.

One of three children born to Joseph William Ludlam and Marjorie Braun, Charles Ludlam was raised in Greenlawn, a rural hamlet of Huntington, Long Island. Interested in theater from an early age despite his parents’ discouragement, he directed, produced and performed plays during his senior year in high school. Works by such playwrights as Eugene O’Neill, Kan Kikuchi, and John August Strindberg were performed by local students in their “Students Repertory Theatre”, a small loft space in Northport’s Posey School of Dance.

Ludlam studied at New York’s Hofstra College in Hempstead as an openly gay individual and received his Bachelor of Arts in Dramatic Literature in 1964. After settling in New York City’s Greenwich Village area, he joined the Playhouse of the Ridiculous in 1966. This theatrical company, under the direction of John Vaccaro, was founded the year before by actor and director Ronald Tavel. Inspired by Hungarian producer and dramatist Martin Esslin’s book “Theater of the Absurd”, Tavel’s Playhouse of the Ridiculous set aside naturalistic acting and realistic settings, employed a broad acting style and surrealistic stage settings, and introduced bawdy elements of both queer and camp performance to experimental theater.

In 1967 at the age of twenty-four, Charles Ludlam decided to found his own theatrical group, The Ridiculous Theatrical Company, for which he would act as producer, director and playwright until his death. Though sometimes on welfare, Ludham wrote at least one play a year and raised enough money to keep his company alive. Early shows moved from one venue to another, until the company found a permanent home in a former nightclub at One Sheridan Square in late 1967. Ludham’s company soon found an appreciative audience with such productions as “Conquest of the Universe/When Queens Collide” (1968) and “Bluebeard” (1970), an adaptation of Well’s 1896 “The Island of Dr. Moreau”.

Ludlam’s works gradually became more structured plays that imitated a variety of sources from gothic novels and old movies to literary works by Shakespeare and operas by Richard Wagner. Using traditional approaches to comedy, these works were unconventional with humor but also conveyed serious undertones. Ludlam’s plays often contained sarcasm, cross-dressing, double-entendre, and melodramatics. He acted in many of his plays and was noted for his female roles. The only member of the theatrical company who surpassed Ludlam in the number of roles was his fellow Hofstra student and close friend Susan Carlson, also known as Black-Eyed Susan,

Over his career as a playwright, Charles Ludlam wrote twenty-nine theatrical plays for the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. His best known work is the three-act 1984 “The Mystery of Irma Vep”, a satiric blend of theatrical, literary and film genres that included such works as “Penny Dreadful”, “Wuthering Heights” and Hitchcock’s 1940 “Rebecca”. Titled with an anagram of the word ‘vampire’, the play has only two actors of the same sex, who cross-dressing into different costumes, between them play eight roles, The two-hour show has a large number of special effects and props as well as thirty-five costume changes. Opening off-Broadway in Greenwich Village, “The Mystery of Irma Vep” featured Ludlam and Everett Quinton, Ludlam’s lover, in the lead roles; both actors won the 1985 Obie Award for Ensemble Performance.

In film, Ludlam was involved in ten productions from 1971 to 1983. Among these were: his acting role in director James Bidgood’s 1971 experimental erotic art film “Pink Narcissus”; a role in German director and queer activist Rosa von Praunheim’s 1976 New York underground documentary “Underground and Emigrants”; screenplay and directorial work on his silent 1987 short “Museum of Wax”; a role in Jim McBride and Daniel Petrie Jr’s 1986 neo-noir romantic thriller “The Big Easy”; and a role in Andrew Horn’s 1983 tribute to old school Hollywood melodrama, “Doomed Love”.

Highly regarded as an instructor, Charles Ludlam taught or staged productions at New York University, Yale, and Carnegie Mellon University. He was awarded fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Ludlam won six Obie Awards over the course of his career and the 1986 Rosamund Gilder Award for distinguished achievement in theater.

Charles Ludlam was diagnosed with AIDS in March of 1987 and died in May at the age of forty-four from pneumocysttis pneumonia (PCP) at Saint Vincent’s Hospital in New York. His obituary appeared on the front page of the “New York Times” newspaper; an essay on Ludlam’s life and art by American novelist and writer Andrew Holleran appeared in the gay-oriented newspaper “Christopher Street”. Charles Ludlam was interred at Saint Patrick’s Cemetery in Huntington, Suffolk County, New York.

Notes: Everett Quinton, Charles Ludlam’s lover, inherited the Ridiculous Theatrical Company. A January 2023 memorial article by Thomas Keith on the company and its history can be found at the American Theatre website: https://www.americantheatre.org/2023/01/30/everett-quinton-humble-hard-working-never-less-than-fabulous/

An excellent April 2013 article entitled “Your Primer on the Great Charles Ludlam” can be found on WordPress’s “Travalanche” site: https://travsd.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/on-charles-ludlam/

The WarholStars organization’s website has an article written by Gary Comenas on the history of Theater of the Ridiculous and its connections to Ronald Tavel, John Vaccaro and Charles Ludlam at: https://warholstars.org/ridiculous.html

The LiteraryWorld website has an article on Charles Ludlam and the theatrical productions of the Theater of the Ridiculous at: https://literaryworlds.coas.wmich.edu:7000/4034/

An Interview with Charles Ludlam with New York writer and queer theater scholar Don Shewey can be found at Shewey’s website: https://www.donshewey.com/theater_articles/charles_ludlam_CITA.html

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Charles Ludlam”, circa 1970s, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Charles Ludlam, “Stage Blood”, 1974, Evergreen Theatre, Publicity Poster, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Jack Robinson, “Charles Ludlam in Long Robe and Floral Headdress”, December 21 1970, Gelatin Silver Print, Jack Robinson, Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Fourth Insert Image: Charles Ludlam, “Big Hotel- A Farce”, 1968, Vintage Poster, Tambellini’s Gate Theater, Designer Jack Smith, 36 x 21 cm, Private Collection.jpg

Bottom Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Charles Ludlam”, circa 1970-1980, Gelatin Silver Print

Tony Azito: Film History

Photographer Unknown, “Tony Azito”, 1978, Publicity Photo Card, The AIDS Memorial, New York City

Born Antonio Zito in New York City on the eighteenth of July in 1948, Tony Azito was an American dancer and actor in both film and theater. After attending an audition in 1968 with friends at the Juilliard School, New York City’s performing arts conservatory, he was granted a full scholarship and became one of the first acting students to study under its director John Houseman. Influenced by the work of dancer and choreographer Anna Sokolow, Azito began to study modern dance, an unusual art form for a person of his height- six feet, three inches (190 cm).

Azito left the Juilliard School without finishing his degree, partly as a result of an argument with director Houseman, and performed with Anna Sokolow’s Theatre/Dance Ensemble for two years under the name Antonio Azito. He returned to drama in the 1970s and worked in off-Broadway productions, including several at the East Village’s La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club headed by director Wilford Leach. In 1971, Azito performed in John Dillon and Eric Bentley’s “The Red, White and Black”, a collaborative effort between La MaMa and the Columbia University School of the Arts.

In 1973, Tony Azito appeared in two productions, one of which was Wilford Leach and John Braswell’s production of the 1872 Gothic vampire novella “Camilla”. After appearing in the 1974 production of Nancy Fales’s “Ark”, he performed with the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Company in Leach’s 1974 “C.O.R.F.A. X. (Don’t Ask)” that toured Europe throughout remainder of the year. Azito’s debut on Broadway was as Samuel, a dancing role created especially for him, in avant-garde playwright Richard Foreman’s revival of “The Threepenny Opera” for the 1976 New York Shakespeare Festival. Azito continued his theater work with a role in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s 1977 three-act musical “Happy End” at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre and Chelsea Theatre Center.

Azito’s next and best known role was the Sergeant of Police in theatrical producer Joseph Papp’s 1981-1982 modernized version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” staged at New York City’s Uris and Minskoff Theatres. Azito’s performance earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and a Drama Desk Award in the same category. This Broadway version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s play ran for seven hundred and eighty-seven performances and won both a Tony Award for Best Revival and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical.

Tony Azito appeared once more with the New York Shakespeare festival, this time as Feste, the fool in the house of Countess Olivia, in William Leach’s 1986 production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”. He continued working in theater with performances at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum at the city’s Music Center, and with the American National Theater Company at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center. Azito’s final Broadway role was Mr. Nick Cricker in William Leach’s 1988 musical “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”.

Walking back from a theater performance of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”, Azito was struck by a New York City taxi that left the scene. Both his legs were badly broken and it took several years until he could walk again. Azito’ss return to the stage was in the 1990 summer stock revival of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s musical “She Loves Me” in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He later appeared in Edgar Gorey’s two-act revue “Amphigorey: A Musicale” staged in Boston as well as several productions of playwright Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties”.

For his first film role, Tony Azito was given the lead in Howard Goldberg’s 1975 gangster fantasy “Apple Pie”, now considered a musical cult classic. In 1980, he appeared in Mark Reichert’s neo-noir crime mystery “Union City”. Azito’s most memorable film role was a recreation of his Broadway role in Wilford Leach’s 1983 comedic film version of “The Pirates of Penzance”. He appeared in several more films including George Bowers’s 1985 comedy “Private Resort”, Norman Jewison’s 1987 romantic comedy “Moonstruck” and Howard Brookner’s 1989 “Bloodhounds of Broadway”. After a cameo as party dancer Digit Addams in the 1991 “The Addams Family”, Azito’s final film appearance was as the Librarian in the 1993 H.P. Lovecraft horror anthology “’Necronomicon: Book of the Dead”.

During his stay in the hospital after the hit and run taxi accident, Azito was diagnosed with cancer and had tested positive for HIV. He made the decision to fight the cancer with chemotherapy; however, it weakened his immune system to such an extent that his HIV infection became full-blown AIDS. Azito continued his performances in regional theater and appeared in several films before his retirement in 1994. Tony Azito died at the age of forty-six from AIDS on the twenty-sixth of May in 1995 at Manhattan’s Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Center. He was survived by his partner Frederick Bertolt Fritz Richter.

Notes: John Towsen’s “All Fall Down: The Craft & Art of Physical Comedy” has a short posting on Tony Azito that contains film clips from a live stage performance at New York’s Delacorte Theater as well as a scene from the 1984 ”Chattanooga Choo-Choo” : http://physicalcomedy.blogspot.com/2011/07/happy-birthday-tony-azito.html

A trailer for the 1975 cult class “Apple Pie” which showcases Tony Azito’s unique dancing style can be seen at the IMDB site: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi1287302169/?ref_=tt_vi_i_1

A musical number with Tony Azito from Wilford Leach’s 1983 film version of “The Pirates of Penzance” can be found at the Free Social Encyclopedia for the World: https://alchetron.com/Tony-Azito

There is a memorial Facebook page for Tony Azito that contains many images, anecdotes, film trailers and Azito’s 1972 “Sing Jumbalaya Sing” song published through Epic Records: https://www.facebook.com/p/Tony-Azito-100063528963851/

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Tony Azito, New York City”, The AIDS Memorial, NYC

Second Insert Image: Al Hirschfeld, “Tony Azito (Study for The Pirates of Penzance)”, Ink on Paper, 27.9 x 21.6 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Tony Azito as Sergeant of Police”, Joseph Papp’s “The Pirates of Penzance”, 1981-1982, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Tony Azito”, Date Unknown, Color Print

George Platt Lynes: “José Martinez”

George Platt Lynes, “José ‘Pete’ Martinez”, 1937, Photo Shoot at Lynes’s Studio, Vintage Silver Prints, Private Collections

Born in Mexico in March of 1913, José Antonio Martinez-Berlanga was a ballet dancer who in the early 1940s danced with both the American Ballet Caravan and the Ballet Society, precursor ensembles of the New York City Ballet.

José Martinez at a very young age moved with his family to Houston, Texas. After graduating high school, he relocated to New York City where he studied at the School of American Ballet founded in 1934 by Lincoln Kirstein, Edward Warburg and George Balanchine. Martinez eventually gained a full scholarship and, upon graduation, was invited to join The Ballet Caravan, a touring company founded by Lincoln Kirstein to provide off-season employment to American ballet dancers. Martinez gradually became involved with the group’s creative process and provided ideas and librettos for ballets.

Martinez eventually began an intimate relationship with Lincoln Kirstein; they lived together in a Greenwich Village townhouse at St. Luke’s Place. After Kirstein married graphic artist Fidelma Cadmus, the younger sister of artist Paul Cadmus, Fidelma moved into the apartment for the first year of the marriage. This triangular romantic relationship was similar to that of their friends, Paul Cadmus, Jared French and his wife Margaret Hoening.

José Martinez performed with the Ballet Caravan in the 1941 “Pastorela”, a one-act ballet choreographed by Lew Christensen and dancer José Fernandez, that toured Latin America with great reviews. The work included music by Paul Bowles and traditional songs orchestrated by Blas Galindo with words by Rafael Alvarez. Martinez tried in 1942 to enlist in the Army but was denied. He moved to Haverford, Pennsylvania and began work at a Jewish refugee hostel where writer Christopher Isherwood, whom he had met through Kirstein in 1939, was already employed. From Isherwood’s diaries, it is known that their relationship, except for one sexual encounter in August of 1942, was platonic.

José Martinez and Christopher Isherwood traveled together several times to New York City to visit the Fidelma and Lincoln Kirstein. They both left Haverford in September of 1942 and went their separate ways. Their friendship, however, continued and they met several times in California and New York after the war years. Called up for service during the Second World War, Martinez was trained at Norfolk, Virginia, and served in the United State Army in northern France until 1945.

As a member of the Ballet Society, Martinez toured the United States with visits in both large and smaller cities. The Society’s repertoire was very different from those trained by Sergei Diaghilev, who founded the Ballets Russes. Martinez danced in the original cast of George Balanchine’s “Four Temperaments” in which he performed the first Theme with Beatrice Tompkins in the 1946 performance tour. He also originated and danced the role of the minister in dancer and choreographer William Dollar’s 1947 “Highland Fling”.

In late 1947, José Martinez suffered a knee injury which forced an end to his performances. Hesitant about the next part of his life, he drifted for a year before beginning life as a dance teacher in Norfolk, Virginia. Over the next two decades, Martinez founded dance studios in Ohio and California where he continued to teach ballet until his retirement in the mid-1960s. José Martinez-Berlanga died at the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California on the twenty-fourth of June in 1997 at the age of eight-four.

Notes: Paul Cadmus, Jared French and his wife Margaret Hoening would spend the summers from the late 1930s to the early 1950s on Fire Island where they painted and took photographs. This collaborative artistic endeavor became known as the PaJaMa collective, taken from the first two letters of their names. Artist George Tooker would later join the collective during the period of 1944 to 1949 when he was in a relationship with Paul Cadmus.

Many friends would often visit the group on Fire Island, among whom were ballet impresario Lincoln Kirstein, artist Bernard Perlin and photographer George Platt Lynes. Lynes became acquainted with José Martinez through this group of friends and would also photograph him. Although Martinez appeared in many of the pre-war photographs, Lynes’s studio portraits of Martinez wearing the straw hat are the best known.

The Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society has an article entitled “The Fire Island Muses of George Platt Lynes & the PaJaMa Collective” by Brian Ferrari on its site located at: https://www.pineshistory.org/the-archives/fire-island-muses

Top Insert Image: William Caskey, “José Martinez”, circa 1935-1955, Vintage Print

Second and Bottom Image: Photographers Unknown, “José Martinez”, circa 1935-1955, Vintage Prints, Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society

Jimmy Daniels

Carl Van Vechten, “Jimmy Daniels”, July 11th 1940, Gelatin Silver Print, Library of Congress

Born in Laredo, Texas in November of 1907, James Lesley Daniels was an actor, cabaret singer and nightclub host during the Harlem Renaissance that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. He spent his early years in Little Rock, Arkansas, before moving to New York City in the 1920s. Daniels studied at Bird’s Business College in the Bronx and became acquainted with many members of the Harlem Renaissance, particularly jazz and blues singer Alberta Hunter, whom he assisted in her elder years.

After graduating, Jimmy Daniels returned to Little Rock where he became the secretarial assistant to Aldridge E. Bush, the founder and president of Little Rock’s Century Life Insurance Company. Desiring a career in acting, he returned to New York in 1928. Through noted stage actress Katherine Cornell’s stage manager, Daniels was able to get a part in Cornell’s 1930 Broadway hit “Dishonored Lady”. Following this role, Daniels performed in the 1931 ”Savage Rhythm” at Broadway’s Elysee Theater and in productions staged by the Chamberlain-Brown Stock Company in Mount Vernon, New York.

Leaving Broadway theater, Daniels found his first professional singing position at Hot Cha, a Harlem nightclub on 7th Avenue where Billie Holiday often performed. He quickly achieved recognition and soon became part of the European music scene. By the summer of 1933, Daniels was performing in Monaco at Monte Carlo’s Summer Sporting Club. At the end of 1933 and into 1934, he accompanied British jazz pianist Reginald Foresythe at the Ciro’s nightclub in London.

Jimmy Daniels, upon his return to New York, became the premier entertainer at Marian Cooley’s Sunday night suppers at Le Ruban Bleu, a Parisian-styled nightclub on 56th and Fifth Avenue. In 1935, he sponsored, for three seasons, a series of parties at the Bronze Studio Catering Hall on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. During these parties, Daniels met Herbert Jacoby who convinced him to perform in his Paris nightclub, Reuban Bleu, in 1936 and 1937. Daniels later performed at Jacoby’s newly opened New York City nightclub and, in 1938, sang for a second time at the Parisian club

Established as a singer in both New York and Europe, Daniels opened the Jimmy Daniels’ Nightclub in 1939 at 114 West 116th Street in Harlem. An instant hit, the nightclub attracted a long list of both black and white, gay and straight, notables, including European royals and aristocrats. Among the clientele were British society photographer Olivia Wyndham; actors Burgess Meredith and Diana Barrymore; British art patron Harold Jackman; photographer Carl Van Vechten; sculptor Richmond Barthé; poet Claude McKay; and heavyweight champion Joe Louis. Daniels owned and operated the nightclub until 1942 when he entered military service for World War II.

Returning to New York, Jimmy Daniels became the host in 1950 at the chic supper club Bon Soir on West 8th Street. Known as a place where everyone was welcome regardless of race or sexual orientation, Bon Soir was a balance of elegant, intimate, risqué and respectable ambiance. As host, singer and emcee, Daniels was a popular figure at Bon Soir for ten years. The club hosted a variety of rising entertainment stars, including Phyllis Diller, Kaye Ballard and Barbara Streisand; the Bon Soir was Streisand’s first New York engagement. Bon Soir actually lost business when Daniels left in 1960 after his ten year stay.

Beginning in 1960, Daniels hosted a series of “supper soirees” at Lower Manhattan’s L’Etang Supper Club. Real estate owner Jimmy Merry hired Daniels at this time to manage the Tiffany Room, now the Ice Palace, in Cherry Grove, Fire Island. He also performed briefly at the Blue Whale Bar in Fire Island Pines. Daniels continued to perform at various New York City parties, festivals and clubs until his death. After suffering a stroke, James Lesley “Jimmy” Daniels died at the age of seventy-six in June of 1984 just a few days after performing at the Kool Jazz Festival’s “Evening of the Music of Harold Arlen” at Carnegie Hall.

Notes: In 1934, Jimmy Daniels met prominent architect Philip Johnson and began a relationship, his first serious one, that lasted from 1934 to 1936. He later met filmmaker Kenneth Macpherson who at that time was married to English heiress and novelist Annie Winifred Ellerman, known by her pen name Bryher. She commissioned sculptor Richmond Barthé, a regular patron of the Jimmy Daniels’ Nightclub, to create a marble bust of Daniels. In the 1950s, Daniels shared a home with award-winning fashion designer Rex Madsen.

The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project has an 2023 article written by project manager Amanda Davis on the Jimmy Daniels’ Nightclub. The article is located at: https://www.nyclgbtsites.org/site/jimmie-daniels/

On the “Medium” story site, writer Michael Henry Adams has an article on the lives of historic, gay African-American artists and performers, a section of which discusses Jimmy Daniels. The article also covers the intolerance shown to LBGTQ people despite the apparent advancement in legislation. Michael Adams’s article is located at: https://medium.com/@michaelhenryadams/raising-the-questions-who-is-gay-who-cares-why-it-still-matters-4166a5442ec8

Top Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Jimmy Daniels”, 1933, Color Print, Van Vechten Trust

Second Insert Image: George Platt Lynes, “James Leslie Daniels”, 1937, Duotone Photo Engraving, 22.9 x 27.9 cm, Private Collection

Third Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Jimmy Daniels with Bust by Richmond Barthé”, December 21st 1938, Gelatin Silver Print, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

Bottom Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Jimmy Daniels”, circa 1933, Color Print, Van Vechten Trust

Frances Faye: Music History

Photographer Unknown, “Frances Faye, circa 1940s, Vintage Studio Portrait, Collection of Tyler Alpern

Born in Brooklyn, New York in November of 1912, Frances Faye was an American cabaret and show-tune singer, recording artist, and pianist. She entertained audiences at sold-out shows in major nightclubs throughout the world over a career that spanned forty-five years.

Born Frances Cohen to a working-class family in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Frances Faye attended Girls’ High School on Nostrand Avenue and planned to become a teacher. However at the age of fifteen, she was asked to fill in for a piano player who was scheduled for a banquet. A theatrical agent, who had attended the banquet, was impressed with Faye’s performance and signed her to a contract. Despite her parent’s entreaties, Faye was playing two months later in a Chicago nightclub at a salary of two hundred dollars a week.

Originally an accompanist on piano, Faye became a solo act while working in a popular nightclub in Detroit. She continued her professional career in New York City at the Club Richman, located near Carnegie Hall. Faye quickly developed a following of loyal fans at the Prohibition-era speakeasy Club Calais where she was booked solid for most of 1931. While still in her teens, Faye went from playing in New York City speakeasies to such venues as Harlem’s Cotton Club and La Martinique on West 57th Street. La Martinique launched the careers of many singers of the era and was the location for premiere parties among which was Walt Disney’s 1941 party for the Broadway premiere of “Dumbo”.

As her popularity grew, Frances Faye began working forty-eight weeks in one year’s time. She incorporated all the popular songs of the era into her performances including “Singing in the Rain” and “Love for Sale”. Faye played the Showplace in Lynbrook, Long Island in 1929 and entertained the passengers onboard the transatlantic S.S. Belgenland of the Red Star Line in 1931. She shared billing with Bing Crosby in January of 1932 at New York City’s Paramount Theater. In 1933, Faye was performing at Chicago’s Chez Paree, known for its glamorous atmosphere, elaborate dance numbers and top entertainers.

By the middle of the 1930s, Faye was established as a New York entertainer. She sold out venues and captured the audiences with her song delivery and strong piano playing. Typically doing three shows an evening, Faye became known, according to newspaper and radio commentator Walter Winchell, as “The Syncopating Cyclone-Originator of Zaz-Zu-Zaz”. Her contracts kept being extended and her salary kept rising. In 1938 Faye played at Billy Rose’s Casa Manana, a large outdoor amphitheater and restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, known for its fountains and large revolving stage. Booked into London’s Paradise Club for a fortnight, Faye performed for over three months due to the demand.

In 1936, Bing Crosby, who had a long-term contract with Decca Records, brought Frances Faye to the company’s recording studio for her first record, a single containing “No Regrets” and “You’re Not the Kind of a Boy”. After she finished a performance in Chicago, she traveled to California to make an appearance in the Paramount 1937 comedy-romance “Double or Nothing”. Faye plays, with her usual energetic style, the musical number “After You” and scats in duets with Martha Raye and Bing Crosby. She stayed a few months in Los Angeles and performed nightly at its Famous Door nightclub. During one of her free times, Faye heard Bruz Fletcher sing his ballad “Drunk with Love” at the Sunset Strip’s Club Bali. This song would become one of her signature works.

During the 1940s, Faye transformed both herself and her style. After losing weight, she bought a new wardrobe and appeared in public dressed more elegantly. Latin rhythms, which characterized her later work, began appearing in her songs. The frenzied piano style of Faye’s work in the 1930s was replaced with a rich rhythmic accompaniment of guitar, bass and drums. Her 1946 album “Frances Faye” for International was more lyrical than her earlier works. Among the songs in this album was her first rendition of gay singer Bruz Fletcher’s “Drunk with Love”. Over her career, Faye included this song in her performances and on three separate albums.

In the late 1940s, Frances Faye was still playing to big crowds but had already begun performing on the new medium of network television. She rarely toured at this time and preferred only shows in Las Vegas, Florida, and her home state of California. Faye found a new source of income as a recording artist. She recorded for ten years with Capitol Records and then moved to Bethlehem Records, a major 1950s jazz label founded by Gus Wildi, For the four albums she recorded at Bethlehem, Faye worked with such musicians as Herbie Mann, Frank Rosolino, and Maynard Ferguson, as well as with conductor and arranger Russ Garcia. Some of the musicians were willing to record without credit due to contractual problems.

Faye’s shows became a fixture at the Sunset Strip’s Interlude and later at the downstairs nightclub Crescendo where she would be booked for months in a row. Many celebrities came to see her performances including Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Frank Sinatra, among others. While playing at the Hotel Riviera to capacity crowds, Faye tripped over a bath mat in her hotel room and broke her hip. For a period of eight years, she was in pain, had to endure three major operations and could not work for long periods of time. Faye used both crutches and cane to continue her performances. Due to the extent of her injury, she would appear already seated at her piano as the curtains parted. After a hip surgery alleviated her pain, Faye continued performing on tour into the early 1980s.

In 1978, Frances Faye appeared in her second film, “Pretty Baby” directed by Louis Malle; she played the role of an elderly cocaine-sniffing madam and retired from entertainment in the early 1980s. After a series of strokes, Frances Faye died at the age of seventy-nine in November of 1991 in the home she shared with her long-term partner Teri Shepherd.

Notes: Frances Faye had two brief marriages in the 1940s. The first was with Abe Frosch in January of 1942; the second was former football star Sam Farkas in October of 1944. At a nightclub in the late 1950s, Faye met the much younger, twenty-two year old woman named Teri Shepherd who became her life-long companion. Faye was very frank about her sexual orientation even as the press and her album covers referred to Shepherd as Faye’s secretary.

The majority of the information in this article was found in painter and educator Tyler Alpern’s extensive biography on Frances Faye, “Frances Faye: Let Me Hear It Now”. The article, the most complete of any of the sources I found on the internet, contains many anecdotes by friends and musicians who knew her. If you are interested in Faye’s accomplishments and life, this is the article to read. It is located at http://tyleralpern.com/Faye.html

I also recommend watching photographer Bruce Weber’s 2001 film journal “Chop Suey”. Narrated by Weber, this highly-pesonal, eclectic film looks back at Weber’s career, his subjects and the subtext of his work. Among the many archival film sections of the film are segments of Frances Faye performing aa well as segments in which Teri Shepherd discusses her life with Faye. The film is available on many venues including Tubi (free), Amazon Prime, and Apple TV

Top Insert Image: Maurice Seymour Studio, “Frances Faye”, Publicity Photo, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Frances Faye, “Relaxin’ with Frances Faye”, 1956, 33 i/3 Vinyl, Bethlehem Records

Third Insert Image: Theodore Reed, “Double or Nothing”, (Frances Faye and Martha Raye), 1937, Film Clip Photo, Cinematographer Karl Struss, Paramount Pictures

Fourth Insert Image: Frances Faye, “No Reservations”, 1955, 33 1/3 Vinyl, Mono, Capitol Records

Bottom Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Frances Faye”, circa 1950s, Studio Portrait, Gelatin Silver Print