SOPHIE TUCKER - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH 1941 - HFSID 309681

SOPHIE TUCKER
10x13 portrait by Maurice Seymour, inscribed to Frederick de Cordova and acquired from his estate.
Photograph inscribed and signed: "Love to Freddy/my gin 'sucker'/from Sophie Tucker/1941". Sepia 10x13. After emigrating 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. From the estate of stage and film director and TV producer Frederick de Cordova (1910-2001), longtime producer of Johnny Carson's show. Unknown stain at bottom right edge. Fine condition.