tucker vaudevillian

F O R E M O T H E R S
S O P H I E
TUCKER:
THE
BY
I
BETTE
JOYCE
M I D L E R
OF
HER
TIME
ANTLER
~ hroughout half a centtiry in show business, Sophie noticed Tucker's talent and tried to convince her parents to let
Tucker (born Sonya Abuza) was a wanderer; she called her join one of the Jewish companies. But neither they nor
herself a "gypsy of the footlights." From cafe supper Tucker, already accumulating experience in amateur shows,
clubs to vaudeville, burlesque, musical revues, nightclubs, and was interested; Tucker recognized that Yiddish theater was
concert stages, she toured the
losing its appeal to the more popuUnited States and Europe. This
lar "American" theater. Yet she was
gypsy of the theater was actually
beginning to think in earnest about
born on the road—her seventeena show business career: "Suppose
Enticed by the
year-old mother gave birth to her
you could earn a living by singing
somewhere on the "long rutted
and making people laugh," she
singer's franic a n d
track" out of Russia across Poland,
asked herself, "wouldn't that be
on her way to the Baltic and then to
better
than spending your life
sultry lyrics, vrhich
America, to join Tucker's father,
drudging in a kitchen?"
who had run away from the Russian
Her mother no doubt wished
seemed to promise a
military sei-vice. Tucker arrived in
better for Tucker than her own life
the United States in 1884 when she
of domestic toil—she even bought
freer w o r l d for both
was three months old.
her a piano with her savings but
After settling in Boston, where
sold it after Tucker, complaining
women and men,
they spent eight years, Tucker's parthat her stubby fingers could not
a generation grevr
ents, Charhe and Jennie Abuza,
play scales and aipeggios, refused
moved to Hartford and opened
to practice—yet her advice was traup listening to
Abuza's Home Restaurant . . . .
ditional. "After you are through
Tucker contributed to the family
school," she told Tucker, "then you
her records,
business by drumming up cusmust look around for a good,
tomers and entertaining them with
steady young man and get married.
often in secret.
her singing. Although Jennie Abuza
. . . Don't have anything to do with
appreciated the tips Tucker brought
traveling men, or with show peoin, she called her daughter
ple. There ai'e too many grifters and
=:M grafters among them. They have no
zovarecha (wild animal) because I F ^
she rushed through her household chores to get out of the real homes; no sense of responsibility." They were like
house. Tucker was already being lured by Hartford's amateur gypsies who used to wander thi-ough Russia, "Thieving and
theaters and vaudeville shows; some of Abuza's customers, making trouble."
like Yiddish stars Jacob Adler and Boris Tomashevsky,
In no time at all, Tuclcer did find a man to many, a handsome
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neighbor, Louis Tuck, a beer-wagon trucker, who made the theater spotted her preparing to go on, he shouted to an assisawkward overweight girl feel like a desirable belle of the ball. tant: "This one's so big and ugly the crowd out front will razz
A week after her high school graduation, they eloped, although her Better get some cork and black her up." Although she
Jennie insisted on an Orthodox wedding when the couple protested, within weeks Tucker was booked on the small-time
returned. Tucker became pregnant almost immediately; when vaudeville circuit; for the next six years, from 1906 to 1912,
her son, Bert, was born, the Tucks moved in with the Abuzas, she was the World-Renowned Coon Shouter, Sophie Tucker,
and she found herself back in the restaurant kitchen, chopping the Ginger Girl, the Refined Coon Singer, and Sophie Tucker,
vegetable and washing dishes.
Manipulator of Coon Melodies. For Tucker, one of the first
Tuck left her when she insisted he work harder to support female entertainers to use blackface, the mask worked as well
the family; Sophie then ran off to New York to try her luck as a as it did for Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson, who were Jewish, and
for Bert Williams, a West Indian.
singer, leaving the baby with her parAudiences accepted her southern
ents. Although in her autobiography
accent ("as thick and smooth as
she doesn't dwell on her emotions at
j ^ 'aiFE BEGINS
molasses," she described it) and her
leaving home, she does describe the
appearance; after a while, she began
condemnation she experienced and her
^ AT FORTY"
to use "high yellow" rather than jet
pangs of guilt. When she returned for
(Sexy Sophie) J^
black. "When I would pull off one
her first visit after two years away, her
of my gloves and show that I was
mother's hair had turned white and her
"In the twenties and the thirties
white there'd be a sort of suiprised
son barely recognized her; he called
gasp, then a howl of laughter" So
Tucker's sister "Mama." Tucker
you're just an amateur,
she began interpolating Yiddish
learned that though her family had forbut after you've reached forty
words, "Just to give the audience a
given her, the neighbors had not. "They
kick," she joked, but perhaps to
said only a bad woman would do such
you become a connoisseur
declare as well who she really was.
a thing. I must be a bad woman- -a
If Tucker resented the blackface,
whore, in the unvarnished language of
Then it isn't grab and get it,
it was because it prevented her from
the Scriptures." Her sister and son were
and a straight line for the door—
appearing as herself, like the prettiridiculed because Tucker "wore paint
er girls; blackface denied her
on her face"; because she had gone on
you're not hasty, you're tasty,
femaleness, not her ethnicity (in
the stage and left her child, she was
if you enjoy things so much more.
fact, with her hearty deep voice,
considered "no good." Tucker vowed
critics used to refer to her as a "male
not to return to Hartford until she had
For instance, a novice gulps his
impersonator"). She had little to say
become a star, and remained away for
about the racial stereotyping
more than five years.
brandy down, he doesn't
endemic in the costumes, gestures,
Her autobiography. Some of These
understand;
and lyrics that were part of her act.
Days, does not dwell on these hurts,
The
style was ubiquitous in vaudefocusing instead on her rise in show
observe a connoisseur, the way he
ville, inherited from the popular
business. At every turn, she stresses
holds it in his h a n d s minstrel shows of the nineteenth
the need for independence, preparacentury, although by the turn of the
tion, and determination. At age sevenhow he strokes the glass, fondles
century newer forms of burlesque
teen, Sophie changed her name to
had begun to replace it. For ethnic
Tucker, which seemed more melodiit, warms it as he should,
entertainers eager to show that they
ous, and began her career by talking
smacks his lips, slowly sips: boy it
were "real" Americans, "coon"
her way into appearances at
singing had guaranteed benefits.
Greenwich
Village
restaurants.
tastes good."
With African Americans the butt of
Wherever she went, she cultivated
their humor, immigrant vaudevilfriendships with producers, stagelians demonstrated that, however
hands, waiters, and customers, which
she knew could be useful to her Before long she was playing "foreign" their own cultures might be viewed, blacks (with
in trendy rathskellers, earning $100 to $150 a week—sub- their supposed emotionalism and crude physicality) were even
stantial sums in 1906, and ones that allowed her to avoid pros- more inferior Yet as some scholars suggest, blackface also
titution, a trap into which many young performers on their embodied a plaintive note expressing the pain of rootlessness
own descended. She assuaged her conscience by wiring much so deeply a part of the immigrant experience.
of her pay to Hartford.
Although blackface molded Tucker's performance style,
As Tucker tells her life story, luck plays as large a role as enhancing the physicality of her performance and introducing
strategy. Her first triumph was as a blackface performer, for her to the modern syncopated style of music that would facilexample, but it was only "by accident" that she donned the itate her later embrace of jazz, she chafed at its restrictions and
disguise. When the manager of the amateur night at a Harlem denial of her femininity. Yet she was afraid to go on stage
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SOPHIE
m HOT m o v
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without it. The opportunity to discard blackface arose when a when vaudeville and burlesque were becoming increasingly
Brooklyn theater manager, pretending that her trunk was lost, subdued as they reached out to a broader family audience.
sent her on without it. Then another "accident" occurred that Tucker managed to elude censorship; her "ughness" was a
would redirect Tucker's career. Dressed one night in a tightly new mask, one that gave her the freedom to transgress. Using
laced black princess gown (like a "boloney in mourning," humor and self-mockery, she sang her "hot" torch songs about
Tucker recalled), with a long train of red chiffon ruflles, she women's sexual passions and romantic agonies: all women,
slipped during her bows and caught her heel in the ruffles of even "big, ugly ones," needed sex and love; it was men's failher dress: "Down 1 went on my fanny like a ton of bricks." The ures in bed and marriage that denied women their due.
applause was deafening; even the cast shrieked with laughter. Inattentive as lovers, unreliable as husbands, the men she sang
about were not very different from the shlemiels and paskudTucker, the comedienne, was born.
Another transition in Tucker's career came when she began nicks her mother used to warn her against. In this way, at least.
to incoiporate "double entendre" songs into her routine. Years Tucker was her mother's daughter
Tucker's routines may have
before, a songwriter had told her
been comic and ribald (some
that because she was "big and
would have said vulgar), yet they
gawky, and entirely lacking in
]^ LAST OF THE RED
reveal her as an early champion of
'allure,'" she could sing sexy mate^ HOT MOMMAS J)
women's liberation. Exposing the
rial that, if used by attractive perinevitable pathos of love and
formers, would seem salacious and
"Cause I'm the last of the red hot mommas,
romance, she insisted upon
offensive. Soon her routine was
I'm gettin'hotter all the time.
women's right to sexual fulfillment
set—first a "lively" rag, then a balSaid I'm the last of the red hot mommas,
and portrayed them as strong,
lad, a comedy song, a novelty
they've all cooled down but me.
indomitable, and independent.
number, and finally the "hot" or
"Make Him Say Please," "You
sexy song, which would leave the
I don't peck, I only neck'em,
Can't
Deep Freeze a Red-Hot
audience "laughing their heads
I'm one momma who loves to reckon—
Mama," "I'm Living Alone and I
off." ("She sings the words we
I can make em sizzle, make 'em fry
Like It," and "I Ain't Takin' Orders
used to write on the sidewalks,"
and fizzle,
From No One" were among the
Eddie Cantor once commented.)
and if you want to know the truth,
songs that brought her message to
Tucker insisted that her songs,
receptive audiences, especially
however off-color, were "all
I can warm the coldness and give the old
after 1916, when she began playing
moral"; they had to do with sex,
ones
evening supper clubs rather than
not vice. But the secret of her sucback their flaming youth.
family-oriented vaudeville, which
cess was that they were all in the
Right now I'm in loving p r i m e eschewed risque lyrics.
first person, poking fun at her own
others don't know what it's all about—
But it was not only as a selfsexual mishaps. As she learned
say, when I kiss men, they feel they've had
styled raunchy blues singer—a
when she slipped on her backside,
"Red-Hot [American] Mama"—
audiences found personal distress
their tonsils taken out.
that Sophie Tucker reached the
funny; they laughed, but with the
'Cause I'm the last of the red hot mommas,
height of stardom. At the start of
knowledge that they too could suf'm getting hotter all the time!"
World War I, with her eye, as
fer from romantic misfortune. By
always, on marketability, she surhinting at her own sexual experimised that the American public
mentation and revealing the details
of her romantic life (after Louis Tuck there were two more might respond especially well to songs with emotional appeal.
For this reason, she introduced the ballad "M-0-T-H-E-R, the
husbands), she liberated her audience's imagination.
So Tucker—the overweight immigrant girl from Word that Means the World To Me" into her act. She did not
Hartford—became the doyenne of the innuendo song, famous introduce her most famous song, "My Yiddishe Mama," into
for her wiggles and shakes and for songs with titles like her repertoire, however, until 1925, a few months after her
"Nobody Loves a Fat Girl But How a Fat Girl Can Love," mother's death.
Jennie Abuza's influence over Tucker had continued even
"That Lovin' Soul Kiss," "Everybody Shimmies Now,"
"Vamp, Vamp, Vamp," and "Who Paid the Rent for Mrs. Rip after Tucker became a star "No matter how set up I was with
Van Winkle When Rip Van Winkle Was Away?" Once she was myself, the minute I set foot in Ma's house I had to fall in line
hauled into court in Portland, Oregon, for obscene gestures— with the rules of an old-fashioned, religious household," she
she had run her fingers suggestively down her body—but the recalled. "I had to stop being the headliner and the boss, and
case was dismissed. Other shows were canceled because "siz- remember I was just a daughter . . ." After Tucker became
famous, her mother's friends made peace with her apostasy in
zling" songs were on the playbill.
Just as she had fashioned eveiy new departure in her leaving home, but they too treated her like a littie girl. "You
career. Tucker used her size and unattractiveness to constmct yell just as loud in the theater as you did in the restaurant," one
a "red-hot" persona that defied cultural expectations. At a time of them told her.
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Tucker's visits never lasted long. Instead, she showered her motherhood motif; in Yiddish the song commented even more
mother with gifts, including a pair of diamond earrings that specifically on the bittersweet experience of assimilation.
Jennie traded on the streetcar for a pair of bigger blue stones
"Yiddishe Mama" was a nostalgic celebration of the ghetto
that turned out to be glass. She brought Jennie to New York to mother's nurturing warmth and love, her generosity and forsee her show, treating her to the best restaurants, although giveness. Its poignancy came from coupling this emotionJennie refused to eat because the food wasn't kosher. One laden tribute with the recognition that the child, however gratetime, the waiter brought twelve sterling-silver teapots for ful to her mother, still had to leave home, to be caught forever
Tucker's party. Jennie thought they wouldn't miss one, and between the pull of loneliness and the necessity of indepenslipped a teapot into her coat pocket. Sophie played a joke by dence. The Yiddish mama, as Tucker sang her, existed in a
asking the manager of the restaurant to call her mother and tell world where pai'ents controlled their children's destiny and
her she would be arrested for theft. Remembering the offered love with discipline; but it was world of the past that
Cossacks, Jennie was terrified.
was vanishing even when Tucker herself was growing up. A
But there was no question that Tucker saw her mother as plaintive, mournful song written in a minor key, it perfectly
a forceful, courageous figure. She starts her autobiography, expressed the predicament of second-generation Jews. Unlike
in fact, by describing her mother's guts, her dreistige. But Al Jolson's buoyant "Mammy" and other tributes to mother
although Tucker's respect for Jennie was deep, it was mixed love by musical comedy performers, it was a song of grief. The
with not a little guilt and perother side of the steely determihaps some resentment. Jennie
nation and breezy humor reflectdied when Tucker was crossing
ed in Tucker's autobiography,
the Atlantic, returning from an
"My Yiddishe Mama" mourned
Because she was
engagement in London where
the family closeness that immi" b i g and gavflcy,
she had become a superstar;
grant children lost as they set off
Tucker was grateful that, as she
on their own paths.
and entirely iacicing in
lay dying, Jennie had asked that
Just as Tucker's "red-hot"
the funeral be delayed until
number, "Some of These Days,"
^allure,' site could sing
Tucker arrived. Tucker realized
served as her theme song in the
that in suspending her Orthodox
United States, "My Yiddishe
sexy material t h a t ,
beliefs (which called for immeMama"—her "Jewish song"—
if used by
diate burial), her "darling yidbecame her signature song in
dishe mama" was demonstratEurope, where it became an
attractive performers,
ing "how much she loved me
anthem for Jews and a target for
and how well she understood
anti-Semitism. After Hitler came
v/ould seem salacious
my love for her." But that she
to power, her recordings of the
could not say goodbye because
song were ordered smashed and
and offensive.''
she was off like the show busitheir sale banned throughout the
ness "gypsies" her mother had
Reich. The song remained a reghated may have left a "stinging
ular part of Tucker's performark." Jennie's will divided her possessions among Tucker's mances through the 1960s, when she was still giving command
brother and sister and a neighbor. But "to my daughter, performances in London and drawing enthusiastic crowds to
Sophie, who gave me everything," she gave "nothing New York's famed nightclub the Latin Quarter. But the more
because she don't need anything." Was this another "slap," a removed the song grew from the realities of immigrant life, the
reminder of Tucker's disobedience as a daughter? Or a more sentimental, old-fashioned, and purely nostalgic it
recognition of Tucker's show business success?
became. Not so with Tucker's "hot" songs. Tucker retained her
Tucker suffered a nervous breakdown after Jennie died and sexual brazenness throughout her long career, enchanting audiwas unable to work for months. On stage at a benefit for the ences with exuberant, bawdy peiformances that ridiculed conJewish Theatrical Guild at the Manhattan Opera House, she ventional gender roles and championed sexual liberation.
stood "paralyzed." Tucker stayed in bed for weeks, her self- Enticed by the singer's frank and sultry lyrics, which seemed
confidence gone. "1 had a feeling I was done for as a per- to promise a freer world for both women and men, a generaformer," she remembered. Not long after that, Lou Pollack tion of young Americans grew up listening to her records, often
and Jack Yellen, her longtime songwriter and accompanist, in secret. The last of the "red-hot mamas," Tucker died in 1966;
wrote "My Yiddishe Mama" for her. She sang it first at the although not a "nice Jewish girl" by the standards of her mothPalace Theater in New York in 1925, and after that everywhere er's generation, she was one of America's earliest and most
there were Jews. She sang it in English and, for Jewish audi- influential "popular culture" feminists.
ences, in Yiddish as well, and its effect was cathartic.
Combining "Victorian sentiment with Tin Pan Alley," as one The above essay is excerpted with permission from The Journey
observer noted, the appeal of the song was universal. Home: Jewish Women and the American Century, written by Joyce
Mainstream American audiences appreciated its sentimental Antler and published by The Free Press, 1997.
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