[Dixielandjazz] Sophie Tucker documentary

[Robert Ringwald]

Sophie Tucker documentary

Early Superstar Sophie Tucker Recalled in New Film Documentary Opening Friday
by Steve Rothaus
Miami Herald, November 3, 2014
Bette Midler rode to international fame telling “Those Wonderful Sophie Tucker Jokes.”
“These stories come from the files of the late and great Miss Sophie Tucker,” Midler
once told a roaring crowd in Cleveland. “Go ahead and applaud the old girl, she’s
dead but she is not forgotten, at least not by me. She could tell you to ‘Kiss my
tuchas and plant a tree for Israel’ at the same time.”
The first female superstar of the 20th century, Tucker became known worldwide for
her bawdy, bombastic entertainment style. She spent many winters in South Florida,
singing, telling stories and generally promoting herself, according to a new film
documentary, The Outrageous Sophie Tucker, which opens Friday in Miami-Dade, Broward
and Palm Beach counties.
“She was larger than life. Of course I was smaller,” says Emmy-winning writer-performer
Bruce Vilanch, who first saw Tucker perform when he was a boy vacationing in Miami
Beach. “She had all that incredible star energy.”
Vilanch, 65, describes a typical Tucker performance:
“She’d make you laugh like crazy. She would belt. She still could blow the roof off
the joint. Then she would do something incredibly schmaltzy, she would turn on a
dime and make the audience weep: My Yiddishe Momme Has Liver Cancer, or something
like that,” he says. “Then as soon as you were done crying, she would turn around
and do some bawdy song.... Everything she said was with the force of a judge making
a sentence. She didn’t speak, she made policy statements.”
Vilanch says he “thought this was fabulous” and recalls telling his pal Midler about
Tucker in the early 1970s, when The Divine Miss M was just starting out as a concert
performer.
“I was sharing all of this with Bette and telling her some of the jokes I vaguely
remembered. Most of them were jokes that other comedians had done of that vintage.
I recast them as Sophie Tucker jokes. Some of them were originals. Bette did them
one night in 1973 at The Palace, as a riff, an ad lib, and it brought the house down,
so it stayed in,” Vilanch recalls.
Sophie Tucker was born in the Ukraine in 1887 and immigrated as a child to the United
States. Hating to work in her family’s Jewish restaurant, Tucker became a stage entertainer
in her teens. Heavy-set, she became known as the “Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” a persona
that took her through vaudeville, nightclubs, radio, recordings, movies and television.
She died of lung cancer at 79 in 1966.
The Outrageous Sophie Tucker, produced by Tucker fanatics Susan and Lloyd Ecker,
features vintage movie and TV clips and new interviews including Vilanch, Michael
Feinstein, Tony Bennett and Barbara Walters, whose father Lou owned the Latin Quarter
nightclubs in New York and Palm Island near Miami Beach.
In the film, Walters recalls a post-performance Tucker book signing at the Latin
Quarter: “Now If you did not buy one of her books, don’t bother coming up and saying
‘I loved you and will you sign my autograph.’ Forget it. You had to buy her book.
I assume that much of the money from the books went to whatever her charity was.
But I wouldn’t swear to it.”
“Mr. Miami Beach” Michael Aller, the city’s longtime tourism-conventions director
and protocol chief, knew Tucker when he was a child performer traveling with entertainer
George Jessel.
“She was a great Jew,” recalls Aller, 74. “I saw her many times put it down her bra,
in her bosom. She’d put $100 here. She did it for Israel. That’s why she and George
did a lot together. Because of Israel, the Israeli bonds.”
Aller describes Tucker’s talent: “It wasn’t really singing. It was talking. She wasn’t
a great anything, but you put it all together and you have the moxie and the chutzpah
of Sophie Tucker.”
Tucker was tough. “Every night there was somebody who’d upset her,” Aller says, recalling
a fan who stood at her autograph-signing table one night to “read the liner notes
of the album or whatever she was selling. She said, ‘Are you going to read it or
buy it? Come on, move on!’”
Aller remembers seeing Tucker perform shortly before her death: “The last thing she
did before she walked out [on stage] was to make sure her hair was perfect. She’d
feel it, the braids. She made sure her hankie was right. Then she walked out and
sang Some of These Days. She was a real trouper. A lady with great pain -- cancer
ridden -- went out and did two shows a night.”
Tucker never performed truly dirty material. It was all innuendo, Aller says, with
song titles like Makin’ Wicky Wacky Down in Waikiki.
The lewd Sophie Tucker jokes featuring her lascivious boyfriend Ernie, were “Bette
Midler’s imagination,” Aller says.
Vilanch says he recently watched an episode of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire -- “a show
that prides itself on its authenticity” -- that depicted Tucker performing in Atlantic
City.
“The camera pans in and there’s a young girl, because it’s 1924, a young kind of
zaftig blonde, she’s onstage and the first thing she says is ‘I will never forget
it. I was talking to my boyfriend Ernie,’” Vilanch says. “This is a joke I wrote
in 1974. This is nothing Sophie Tucker did in Atlantic City in 1924. And as I’m thinking
this, the phone rings and it’s Bette saying, ‘Can we get money from this?’ Because
she owns all that material. Of course she was half-joking. We got a lovely cheese
wheel.”
___________________________________
Tucker Film to Debut in South Florida
by Randall P. Lieberman
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, November 3, 2014
On Nov. 7 in South Florida, Menemsha Films will launch the U.S. theatrical release
of “The Outrageous Sophie Tucker.”
The documentary is about Sophie Tucker, who rose from an immigrant Eastern European
Jewish family to become one of the country’s greatest and most beloved vaudeville
stars in the first half of the 20th century. Tucker was known for her bawdy songs,
hefty size, unwavering energy and powerful voice.
Though Tucker died at the age of 79 in 1966, she continues to be celebrated as a
groundbreaking entertainer and an example of “The American Dream.” Known as the “Last
of the Red Hot Mamas,” Tucker was well-known in Jewish circles for her recording
of “My Yiddish Momme.”
The film is scheduled to screen in 10 theaters in South Florida, including AMC Aventura
24, AMC Coral Ridge in Fort Lauderdale, Cobb Theatres Downtown 16 in Palm Beach Gardens,
Living Room Theaters in Boca Raton, MDC Tower Theater in Miami, Movies of Delray
in Delray Beach, Movies of Lake Worth, Regal Shadowood 16 in Boca Raton, Regal South
Beach 18 in Miami Beach and The Last Picture Show at Tamarac 5.
Soon after the film opens in South Florida, the studio plans to release the film
in major cities throughout the country.
The film’s producers and distributors are counting on having a huge hit in South
Florida to pave the way to national success.
“Our key audience is here,” said Lloyd Ecker, who co-produced the film with his wife,
Susan. “The older Jewish population in South Florida still remembers Sophie from
when they were kids. She also has a big following in the gay community.”
Tucker had deep roots in South Florida. In the 1930’s, she would vacation in Miami
with people like Ed Sullivan and Eddie Cantor. In the 1940’s, she played for months
at places like Ben Marden’s Colony Inn and Lou Walters’ Latin Quarter on Palm Island.
In 1948, she bought her son, Bert, a small hotel in Hollywood called the Robert E.
Lee, which closed a couple of years later.
Said Neil Friedman, of Menemsha Films: “Sophie Tucker fell in love with South Florida.
She vacationed here; performed at the Deauville, Diplomat and Copa City; and was
one of the first major entertainers to promote Miami Beach. It seems only natural
to launch the film where she spent much of her time.”
Film producers Susan and Lloyd Ecker were given unprecedented access to Tucker’s
400 personal scrapbooks; they visited 14 archives and interviewed dozens of friends,
family members and celebrities.
“Sophie was like the Forrest Gump of the first half of the 1900’s,” Susan Ecker said.
“She turned up everywhere.”
After nearly a decade of research, the Eckers finally were able to bring Sophie Tucker’s
rags-to-riches story to the screen. The Eckers will be participating in Q-and-A’s
after showings of the film opening weekend through Nov. 20, as well as autographing
copies of their new book, “I Am Sophie Tucker: A Fictional Memoir.” For more details,
visit
http://www.sophietucker.com
-30

-Bob Ringwald
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