Queen
of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanguay. By Andrew L. Erdman. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-8014-4970-9.
Perhaps the name
Eva Tanguay (1878-1947) rings no bells now, but a century ago familiarity with
the “Cyclonic Comedienne” would have conferred considerable cultural capital. She
was the most famous vaudeville star of the early 20th century and,
as Andrew Erdman notes in his fascinating portrait of Tanguay, an ambitious and
tempestuous tour de force who was
“cyclonic” on many levels. Tanguay was an immediate influence upon Sophie
Tucker and Mae West, though in their heydays neither was as renowned as Tanguay.
(West’s public persona was modeled on Tanguay’s in much the same way that young
Bob Dylan channeled Woody Guthrie.) Erdman also connects Tanguay to Madonna and
Lady Gaga in that she was the template for an exuberant female performer who
dictated her own terms and built an image centered on sexual innuendo and
strategically exposed flesh.
As the late
historian Warren Sussman (1927-85) observed, the early 20th century
saw a cultural shift in which one’s character mattered less than one’s
personality. This was the very foundation of a celebrity culture that’s often
anchored more in likability (or notoriety) than socially significant
achievement. Celebrity is also more malleable, and Tanguay was one of the first
to understand that it is an invention and, if one seeks to stay in the public
eye, a series of reinventions. Erdman presents Tanguay as an unlikely candidate
for celebrity. She was born in the English-speaking Eastern Townships of Québec,
but moved to Holyoke, Massachusetts, when she was six. The family struggled
when paterfamilias Joseph, a doctor, died when Eva was just eight. His death indirectly
led to her stage career; Eva entered a Holyoke amateur contest to compete for
its one-dollar first prize. She won wearing a dress fashioned from an umbrella,
the first of many outlandish costumes for which Tanguay was noted. From that
point on, Tanguay was also considered a Holyoke native daughter, and the city
reveled in her successes and periodic homecoming performances.
Erdman presents
Eva as a girl whose ambition vastly outstripped her talent. By most accounts,
Tanguay was hardly the best singer, dancer, or comedienne on the circuit, nor
was she beautiful—“striking” would be a better descriptor. After 1902, though,
she became a full-fledged star, after paying her dues as a soubrette and
chorine. She first gained renown as the “Sambo Girl” when she donned burnt cork
and sang “coon songs” that came to vaudeville via minstrel shows. In 1909,
though, she first sang the number that brought her ever-lasting fame, the
mildly saucy “I Don’t Care,” which happened to debut at a time in which the
“New Woman” was busy dismantling residual Victorianism. Among the many delights
of Erdman’s book is his attention to cultural history and his understanding
that the first two decades of the 20th century saw numerous borders
blur. By then, minstrelsy, vaudeville, burlesque, musical theater, and Broadway
were often hard to distinguish. Erdman also knows where the walls remained.
Tanguay embodied
many of promises and limitations within an era in which the New Woman was still
decades removed from Second Wave feminism. Fame came at a cost. Although Tanguay
neither smoked nor drank, made enormous sums of money, and dictated terms to
impresarios ranging from B. F. Keith to Florenz Ziegfeld, it was still a man’s
world. Like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown,
Tanguay probably passed off an illegitimate daughter as her sister—the child
the product of the first in a series of bad relationships. Male businessmen
tolerated Taguay when she filled theaters, but when her looks faded and movies
began to supplant vaudeville, she found few willing to put up prima donna
attitudes she had honed during her several decades of stardom. In her final
days, Tanguay often relied upon the largess of one-time rivals Tucker and West.
Timing, in history and on the stage, is everything—Tanguay never made the
transition to movies and her star eclipsed just as the Great Depression hit.
Queen of Vaudeville is a wonderful read
that takes us inside vaudeville at its height and into its decline. This
entertaining biography is at once a work of popular culture, gender dynamics, and
social history. Erdman’s book would work well with upper-level undergraduates who
can connect the dots between Eva Tanguay and Lady Gaga. --Rob Weir
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