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Behi
the Make-Up -K
fascinating Portrait of the Jewish, face of 'Broadway
irrelevant chatter after you read Skolsky’s Portraits.
Skolsky gives you a feeling which no other writer
manages to convey. He makes you feel that the sub
jects of his biographical sketches are your intimate
friends who confessed to you their most innermost
thoughts, their most personal habits and the very tempo
of their existence. As one commentator puts it: “A
thumbnail Boswell. Most
biographers tell three Per
cent of what People want
to know. Skolsky makes it
100 per cent." If you wish
to know all about the Jew
ish celebrities of Broadway
in compact and fascinating
fashion—read Sidney Skol-
sky’s portrait of the Jew
ish Face of Broadway.
George Gershwin
IVas fired because an actor
complained he couldn't play
Piano."
Irving Berlin
“Thinks he is a good stud Poker
player."
may compose
or a bathrobe—
Samuel Lionel Rothafel (Roxy)
"Has four secretaries. Yet does most
of his work himself."
Can’t Get Them and When
You’ve Got Them You
Don’t Want Them,” he
sold to Harry von Tilzer
for five dollars.
Hates cards. His favorite
game is backgammon.
Occasionally he shoots
craps. He once
worked as relief pi
anist at Fox’s City
Theatre. Was fired
because an actor com
plained that he didn’t
know how to play the
piano.
His first piano
teacher, whose mem
ory he cherishes, was
Charles Hambitzer.
His present teacher,
Mine. Boulanger is in Paris. The first
time he went to Paris to study he came
back with a trunkful of shirts and ties.
On his last trip he returned with a
$10,000 organ.
The first long piece he ever wrote was
not ‘‘The Rhapsody in Blue.” But one
called “135th Street.” It was performed
by Paul Whiteman in the Scandals of
1921 for one performance only. It was
taken out because it was too sad.
He is very particular about his clothes which
are made to order. Even when he made only
$25 a week he spent $22 for a pair of shoes.
Writes whenever the mood seizes him. He may
have just returned home after a party and still
attired in his evening clothes he will sit down at
the piano. Or he
wearing pajamas
or even nude.
He is physically very strong.
Especially his arms which arc
powerful. He is a swell wrestler.
His brother Ira writes the lyrics
for his songs. Before, Irving
Caesar and Buddy De Sylva had
the honor.
“The Rhapsody in Blue" was
played for the first time, February
12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall. It
took him three months to write it. It took him
eight months to write “An American in Paris.'
His first real popular song hit was “Swanee.'
This was written for the revue that opened the
Capitol Theatre.
Is bashful about playing the piano at parties.
He has to be coaxed.
Once he starts, how
ever, you can’t stop
him. He says: "Aou
see the trouble is, when
I don’t play I don t
have a good time.
In the volume called
Great Composers .As
Children he is the onlv
living composer listed.
One evening the
family was discussing
the new Einstein paper.
George expressed hi>
surprise at the compact
ness of the scientific
vocabulary. He said.
“Imagine working
twenty years and put
ting your results into
three pages.
said Papa Gershwin,
“it was probably very
small print.”
Whenever his sister Frances has an auditi- n i° r
a job he goes along and plays the piano for Dr.
When rehearsing a new song he spends '° ur>
singing his songs to the chorus.
Victor Herbert once offered to teach him o
tration but died. He studied at Columb
two months. Then quit. (Please turn to pa±
23)
Eddie Cantor
"He hates bad
wine, bad women
and bad songs."
a Turkish bath place and was a bookie. Morris
also entertains by imitating a trumpet.
George took his first piano lesson when he was
thirteen. His boyhood idols were Jerome Kern
and Irving Berlin.
The thing he values most is an autographed
photograph of King George of England. It bears
this inscription: “From George to George.”
He wrote his first song when he was fourteen.
It was a nameless tango. His second composition
(now he had learned to title them) was “Since I
Found You.” It was never published. His first
published songs, “When You Want Them You
Fannie Brice
"Never feels better than when she
is expecting a baby."
No man knows Broadway better and more intimately
than Sidney Skolsky, the brilliant columnist of the NEW
YORK NEWS, whose tintypes of Broadway personali
ties are of more than passing interest. In his miniature-
portraits Skolsky not only gives you the composite
human face of Broadway but most skilful close-ups of
the Heroes of Mazda Lane. We have selected for
this cross section of Jewish Broadway GEORGE
GERSHWIN, SAMUEL LIONEL ROTHAFEL, IRV
ING BERLIN, FANNIE BRICE, and EDDIE CAN
TOR.
These names have become household words through
out the country. They are part and parcel of con
temporary America. Whatever you read about
GEORGE GERSHWIN, SAMUEL LIONEL ROTH
AFEL, IRVING BERLIN, FANNIE BRICE and EDDIE
CANTOR in the past in the innumerable articles that
have been written about them—will appear to you
George Gershwin
A MAN of note was born in Brooklyn, Sep
tember 26, 1898, and came to this country
at the age of six weeks. Has two brothers,
Ira and Arthur, one sister, Frances.
As a youngster he was the champion
roller skater of his neighborhood.
Smokes a cigar out of the side of
his mouth and wears a high hat grace
fully. He didn’t start to smoke until
he was twenty.
His father, Morris, because of his
unconscious humor, is the life of all
the Gershwin parties. Morris has
been a designer of fancy uppers for
women’s shoes, owned several cigar
stores, owned a billiard parlor, owned
By Sidney Skolsky
[4]
* THE SOUTHERN ISRAF"X&