Kathleen Menzie Lesko

Jeanne Devereaux, Prima Ballerina of Vaudeville and Broadway

"She Ran Between the Raindrops"

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

International vaudeville star and Broadway prima ballerina Jeanne Devereaux performed for millions across America and Europe from age eleven until her retirement at forty. A headliner at Radio City Music Hall, she led a large group of performers on one of the first USO Camp Shows tours to Japan. Born Jean Helman, she entered showbiz as a dancing trouper performing in palatial theaters and was one of the last vaudevillians surviving into the 2010s. In her later years living in Pasadena, California, Devereaux indulged her passion for research and writing in the Huntington Library's Rothenberg Reading Room, losing none of her intelligence and wit despite a fading memory. Drawing on personal interviews, theatrical programs, and her diary and letters, this biography illuminates the life and career of one of vaudeville's stars of stage, film, and television.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: McFarland and Company, Inc.
• Seitenzahl: 282
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. April 2017
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 254mm x 178mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 536g
• ISBN-13: 9781476666945
• ISBN-10: 1476666946
• Artikelnr.: 46007342

Autorenporträt

A former faculty member and administrator at Georgetown University, Kathleen Menzie Lesko is a research scholar at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. She served as an administrator for the National Endowment for the Humanities and as chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, DC. She lives in Pasadena.

Inhaltsangabe

Table of Contents Acknowledgments Foreword by Anthony Slide A Note on the Text Prologue Introduction
1
Family Life in St. Louis, Missouri
2
The Making of a Ballerina
3
New York and the Circuits
4
Hollywood, a Fanchon and Marco Tour and Pasadena
5
The Roxy and the Circuits
6
The London Palladium
7
A Royal Command Performance and a European and North African Tour
8
Touring the British Provinces with George Ahoy!
9
International Casino and a Royal Performance in Paris 10
Radio City, Brazil and Lean Times 11
Aunt Lenore's Dream House and Performing at the St. Louis Muny 12
Touring with Earl Carroll's Vanities 13
Radio City and Clifford C. Fisher's Folies Bergère 14
Hollywood and Summer Operettas 15
A USO Camp Shows Tour to Japan 16
Radio City, Summer Operettas and the Milton Berle Television Show 17
Final Year in New York 18
Marriage and Four More Careers Epilogue Afterword by Jeanne Devereaux Perkins Appendix One: Sample of Jeanne's Poetry Appendix Two: Jeanne's World War II Legacy Appendix Three: Jeanne's Research on Grace Nicholson Appendix Four: Sarkis Badalyan's Commemorative Poem Written for Jeanne's Celebration of Life at the Huntington Library, October 2011 Chapter Notes Bibliography Index