JOHN RAITT - ORIGINAL ART SIGNED CO-SIGNED BY: SOPHIE TUCKER - HFSID 298388

JOHN RAITT and SOPHIE TUCKER
Original portrait of Tucker, drawn by John Raitt, signed by both!
Original Art signed: "Excellent/Job/Sincerely/Sophie/Tucker", 5½x8½. Pencil drawing also signed by the artist "J. Raitt".  After immigrating from Russia as an infant, Sophie Tucker (1884-1966), born Sonia Kalish to a Jewish family in Russia, began singing in her father's kosher restaurant in Hartford, Connecticut. Moving to New York, she established herself as a popular star of vaudeville and Broadway, appearing with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1909. In 1911, she recorded "Some of These Days", which became her signature song and the title of her 1945 autobiography. Other songs made famous by Tucker included "Red-Hot Mama" (in 1928, the Palace Theater in New York billed her as "The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas", a slogan that became synonymous with the bawdy singer-entertainer). Another song, "My Yiddische Mama", became all the more popular among European Jewry after it was banned by Hitler. Tucker, who made her film debut in Honky Talk (1929), made numerous film appearances in the 1950s and 1960s, and her TV appearances include several visits to the Ed Sullivan Show. Although Tucker tried all modes of entertainment, she preferred live cabaret audiences. While in college in the 1930s, JOHN RAITT began drawing portraits of famous people. He sent his artwork to each subject with a request that it be autographed and returned to him. Two horizontal folds. Tape affixed at corners. Otherwise, fine condition.