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Very good documentary on the real Russell and her history
This 20-minute short video was made to go with the 2007 DVD release of the 1940 film, "Lillian Russell." The focus here isn't on the making of the movie or the cast, but on the real person, as the title suggests. It includes some snippets from the biopic with interview comments from four people who give the background and facts about Russell's life. They include Miles Kreuger, President of the Institute of the American Musical; Lisa Orgolini, an actress; Armond Fields, author of "Lillian Russell: A Biography of 'America's Beauty;'" and Rebecca Plant, professor of history at the University of California, San Diego.
Kreuger says Russell "was a star before public relation's people could take a twirp off the street and turn that person into a star. She earned it. She had the talent and the beauty and the grace." Orgolini says that as an actress, "she really broke through a lot of barriers in all aspects of her life."
Plant says, "She didn't feel particularly hampered by gender restrictions," and that "she felt she was a person who was very much in control of her life, and from all the evidence she really was." Orgolini adds, "She didn't need anybody to fight for her. She knew very well how to fight for herself."
Lillian was born Helen Leonard in December of 1861, the fourth of five girls. As the movie shows, her mother, Cynthia, was very active and a leader in the women's suffrage movement. But it was she who thought Helen could become a great opera star. The movie about her has this all wrong. Fields says, "Cynthia took Helen and her younger sister, Susan, and left home."
Kreuger says that Tony Pastor "was famed in New York for discovering performers... and among the many people that he discovered, of course, was Lillian Russell. She became Lillian Russell at Tony Pastor's, and overnight was a sensation." Fields says, "It was Tony that got her to seriously consider the training of her voice and her stage presence."
But there was a falling out between Lillian and her mother. Fields says, "Cynthia was enraged by the immoral behavior of her daughter. Lillian never denied any of those things." So, what developed between them was a love-hate relationship.
Lillian married four times - the first when she was 18, the last when she was 51, and Fields says, "Her career was always first. She had stage-door Johnnies at her beck and call from the time she started at Tony Pastor's, and throughout her whole career."
Her first marriage was to Harry Braham, a performer, by whom she was pregnant in 1879 when she was 18. Her mother wouldn't speak to her or Harry, but she would to their child. Soon after giving birth, Lillian went back to work. Harry came home one day, and the nanny had accidentally stuck the baby with a diaper pin. Orgolini says, "he tried in vain to save the baby." They called the doctor but the baby died. Orgolini says, "Harry was inconsolable for weeks and could not function. Two days after the baby died, Lilian went back to work."
Fields says, "Lillian was driven to be a performer, and nothing was going to prevent her from doing that, not even the death of her child." She then met Edward Solomon and she went to London with him to work with Gilbert and Sullivan, which Orgolini says, "was a great dream of hers." She had a lot of relationships with theater managers "blow up," and that happened also with Gilbert and Sullivan. Orgolini says, "She was tough on them."
Fields says, "Solomon and Lillian did not get married in England. They lived together and she had a child, Dorothy." She eventually divorced Braham and married Solomon. Fields says, that relationship lasted until 1894 although they separated six months after their marriage. And, Orgolini says that Solomon was a bigamist, marrying Russell without having first divorced his first wife. Then, her third marriage was to Giovanni Perugini, the stage name of Jack Chatterton, but it lasted only four years.
The commenters talked about Russell's long friendship with the two wealthy men, Diamond Jim Brady and Jesse Lewisohn. Brady was known as the Knight of First-nighters. "He would appear at every first-nighter and every dramatic show on the New York stage," Fields says. He says that Lillian and Brady "loved to eat and have eating contests." But, he says, "Lillian and Jesse had fallen in love and they had an affair that lasted almost this whole time." Later in life Lillian said that Jesse was the real love of her life. Her last marriage was to Alexander Moore.
By then, Orgolini says, "Lillian had done everything, I think, that she wanted to do as a performer, and her voice was beginning to wane, and her interests were beginning to be more outside the theater." So she began to devote a lot of time to that marriage, and they traveled a lot together. And, after her mother died and other actresses began to join the suffrage movement, Russell got active in it. She was active in entertaining the troops during WW I. She stumped for President Harding and he asked her to go to Europe to study the immigration problem. She did and recommended a five-year moratorium on immigrants from Europe. In 1924 Congress passed such a law.
Russell was known for a number of things and Orgolini says she "was a woman of tremendous appetite, both in her personal life with men, with food, with jewelry, with fashion. But she also had tremendous appetite on stage. She had a voracious imagination and interest in all kinds of parts and all facets of performance, from music, to acting, to vaudeville, to opera, to drama, to all of it. She took it all on."
Kreuger says Russell "was a star before public relation's people could take a twirp off the street and turn that person into a star. She earned it. She had the talent and the beauty and the grace." Orgolini says that as an actress, "she really broke through a lot of barriers in all aspects of her life."
Plant says, "She didn't feel particularly hampered by gender restrictions," and that "she felt she was a person who was very much in control of her life, and from all the evidence she really was." Orgolini adds, "She didn't need anybody to fight for her. She knew very well how to fight for herself."
Lillian was born Helen Leonard in December of 1861, the fourth of five girls. As the movie shows, her mother, Cynthia, was very active and a leader in the women's suffrage movement. But it was she who thought Helen could become a great opera star. The movie about her has this all wrong. Fields says, "Cynthia took Helen and her younger sister, Susan, and left home."
Kreuger says that Tony Pastor "was famed in New York for discovering performers... and among the many people that he discovered, of course, was Lillian Russell. She became Lillian Russell at Tony Pastor's, and overnight was a sensation." Fields says, "It was Tony that got her to seriously consider the training of her voice and her stage presence."
But there was a falling out between Lillian and her mother. Fields says, "Cynthia was enraged by the immoral behavior of her daughter. Lillian never denied any of those things." So, what developed between them was a love-hate relationship.
Lillian married four times - the first when she was 18, the last when she was 51, and Fields says, "Her career was always first. She had stage-door Johnnies at her beck and call from the time she started at Tony Pastor's, and throughout her whole career."
Her first marriage was to Harry Braham, a performer, by whom she was pregnant in 1879 when she was 18. Her mother wouldn't speak to her or Harry, but she would to their child. Soon after giving birth, Lillian went back to work. Harry came home one day, and the nanny had accidentally stuck the baby with a diaper pin. Orgolini says, "he tried in vain to save the baby." They called the doctor but the baby died. Orgolini says, "Harry was inconsolable for weeks and could not function. Two days after the baby died, Lilian went back to work."
Fields says, "Lillian was driven to be a performer, and nothing was going to prevent her from doing that, not even the death of her child." She then met Edward Solomon and she went to London with him to work with Gilbert and Sullivan, which Orgolini says, "was a great dream of hers." She had a lot of relationships with theater managers "blow up," and that happened also with Gilbert and Sullivan. Orgolini says, "She was tough on them."
Fields says, "Solomon and Lillian did not get married in England. They lived together and she had a child, Dorothy." She eventually divorced Braham and married Solomon. Fields says, that relationship lasted until 1894 although they separated six months after their marriage. And, Orgolini says that Solomon was a bigamist, marrying Russell without having first divorced his first wife. Then, her third marriage was to Giovanni Perugini, the stage name of Jack Chatterton, but it lasted only four years.
The commenters talked about Russell's long friendship with the two wealthy men, Diamond Jim Brady and Jesse Lewisohn. Brady was known as the Knight of First-nighters. "He would appear at every first-nighter and every dramatic show on the New York stage," Fields says. He says that Lillian and Brady "loved to eat and have eating contests." But, he says, "Lillian and Jesse had fallen in love and they had an affair that lasted almost this whole time." Later in life Lillian said that Jesse was the real love of her life. Her last marriage was to Alexander Moore.
By then, Orgolini says, "Lillian had done everything, I think, that she wanted to do as a performer, and her voice was beginning to wane, and her interests were beginning to be more outside the theater." So she began to devote a lot of time to that marriage, and they traveled a lot together. And, after her mother died and other actresses began to join the suffrage movement, Russell got active in it. She was active in entertaining the troops during WW I. She stumped for President Harding and he asked her to go to Europe to study the immigration problem. She did and recommended a five-year moratorium on immigrants from Europe. In 1924 Congress passed such a law.
Russell was known for a number of things and Orgolini says she "was a woman of tremendous appetite, both in her personal life with men, with food, with jewelry, with fashion. But she also had tremendous appetite on stage. She had a voracious imagination and interest in all kinds of parts and all facets of performance, from music, to acting, to vaudeville, to opera, to drama, to all of it. She took it all on."
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- SimonJack
- Jul 10, 2022
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