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A broad interpretation
Kathy Halenda brings her tribute to entertainer Sophie Tucker back to the Florida Studio Theatre.
By ROBERT HICKS
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 4, 2002
Sophie Tucker was the first great broad. Just ask Kathy Halenda, who plays the entertainer in Jack Fournier's one-woman show, Sophie Tucker: American Legend, at Florida Studio Theatre.
"Sophie Tucker was the forerunner for Madonna, Bette Midler and Miss Piggy. She was the first broad. Back then, she was considered quite risque. But her real appeal was in her sexual double entendre, her innuendo," Halenda said.
Naughty? Yes, in a fun-loving way with a wink or two, but never graphic or obscene. One memorable moment in the show comes when Halenda dons a grass skirt and coconut-shell bra, and taps the shells with two wooden spoons during Tucker's song Hula Lou. She then invites two men from the audience to wear the costume, do the hula and sing along with her.
(This is a return engagement of the popular show, in which Halenda starred during the theater's 2000 spring season.)
Nearly a century ago, Tucker started her professional career working at CafeMonopole in New York City, where she later performed in burlesque, vaudeville and cabaret. But she gained fame singing her lifelong theme song, Some of These Days, for the Ziegfeld Follies.
Artistic director Richard Hopkins and Halenda "wanted to explore what she was like when she was younger and her voice was strong," Halenda said. "We thought she might have had some Carol Burnett in her, some real goofball qualities, because she played burlesque and vaudeville."
Venice playwright Jack Fournier was brought in to make the idea into a play. Halenda added her take on Tucker to bring Tucker's stage persona and inner self to life.
"I'm not an impersonator," Halenda said. "It was really fun to get a flavor of her and still be me."
After her years with the Ziegfeld Follies, Tucker became known as the Queen of Jazz, touring with her band, the Five Kings of Syncopation, during World War I.
She replaced dancer Guilda Gray in the Broadway show Shubert Gaieties in 1919 and two years later hired pianist Ted Shapiro, who wrote much of her risque material and became her accompanist and musical director for the rest of her career.
Musical director and pianist Michael Sebastian plays Shapiro in the show.
Tucker performed in the London revue Round in 50, based on Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, in 1922. Two years later, she was back on Broadway as a major star in Earl Carrol Vanities.
Many of Tucker's hits from the 1920s, including I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas, Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong and My Yiddishe Momme, are performed by Halenda in the first act.
By the second act, the audience becomes better acquainted with a more intimate side of Tucker, learning about her flirtations and her three marriages. She loses her mother and leaves her son with her sister so she can pursue her career. The act features some of her obscure songs, such as Living Alone and I Like It and Life Begins at Forty.
"There's a playfulness, and yet there's also a really bittersweet vulnerability to Sophie in the second act," Halenda said.
Tucker made her movie debut in a 1929 talkie, Honky Tonk. She appeared in several more films, including Gay Love and Follow the Boys.
In the '50s and '60s her career faded, but she still worked clubs and television, even appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. As she aged, her voice declined, and she was reduced to half-spoken philosophical songs and monologues. Her last appearances came at New York's Latin Quarter and London's Talk of the Town. A 1963 Broadway musical, Sophie, celebrated her life.
Tucker was 82 when she died on Feb. 9, 1966, in New York City.
"I think Sophie Tucker was an incredible woman," Halenda said. "She was a proud woman and incredibly brave. "I think what makes broads so appealing and what makes Sophie Tucker so appealing is that core of vulnerability beneath a facade of strength."
PREVIEW
Sophie Tucker: American Legend, Tuesday-July 21 at Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 N Palm Ave., Sarasota. 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 6 and 9 p.m. Sat., 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sun. $18-$22. (941) 366-9000.
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