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The Will Rogers Follies was Tune’s most opulent show, far different from the sleek, stylized minimalism of his recent musicals, with a score by Cy Coleman (music) and Betty Comden and Adolph Green (lyrics), and a book by Peter Stone, by this time a frequent Tune collaborator. The story of Will Rogers, the beloved, Oklahoma-born star of radio, vaudeville, and films, and one of the most popular headliners of the Ziegfeld Follies, was told as a series of routines played out on the stage of the Follies. This look back at a bygone theatrical era played to Tune’s strengths, and his staging recalled show business antecedents from the stage and screen updated with present-day flourishes. Tune’s staging feats were even more impressive because they were performed on a grand staircase that covered the entire expanse of the stage. The Will Rogers Follies opened during a moment of resurgent patriotism in the wake of the success of Operation Desert Storm. Following a decade in which British hits like Cats, Les Misérables, and The Phantom of the Opera dominated the Broadway musical, an air of jingoism and a determination to reclaim Broadway for American musicals hovered over the success of The Will Rogers Follies in 1991.

Cobb moved to Hollywood at the invitation of Will Rogers and Hal Roach. With Cobb’s work in the film business, his writing tapered off. His involvement in the filming of Judge Priest, starring Will Rogers, renewed Cobb’s belief in himself and his career. The film received excellent newspaper coverage when it was released in the fall of 1934, owing to Rogers’s celebrity. The rest of the chapter focuses on Cobb’s work and family life in Hollywood until his wealth and health began to decline.

Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s last outing on a new Broadway show came in 1991, when they provided lyrics for The Will Rogers Follies. With a book by Peter Stone, music by Cy Coleman, and direction and choreography by Tommy Tune, the show earned them yet another Tony Award, and the original cast recording garnered a Grammy for them as well. After this they settled into semi-retirement, enjoying additional accolades, such as a Kennedy Center Honor. They didn’t stop working entirely though. They revised older works, most notably A Doll’s Life, and maintained active lives as performers until their deaths in 2002 and 2006, respectively.

Curtiz directedI’ll See You in My Dreams (1951), starring Doris Day and the newcomer Danny Thomas. The picture was his last box-office hit at Warner Bros.His long-cherished project,The Will Rogers Story, starring the commentator-actor’s son, was a handsome picture but a commercial failure. A remake of The Jazz Singer(1952) with Danny Thomas turned out even worse, though he cast the singer Peggy Lee in the film.Curtiz was becoming increasingly angry with Warners for refusing to hire his brother David as an assistant director and stonewalling his inquiries concerning the profit percentages on his films. After Curtiz directed John Wayne in Trouble Along the Way(1953), the studio claimed that all Curtiz’s films but onehad lost money.It then attempted to cheat him out of those minuscule profits by legally parsing his contract.The author also notes two sets of differing financial figures that Warner Bros. maintained on Curtiz’s films.After Warner informed him that he would have to accept a salary reduction and rejected his profit claims, Curtiz threatened a lawsuit. The suit was dropped and Jack Warner eventually paid him off to settle the matter. Curtiz finished his last Warner movie,The Boy from Oklahoma(1954),and moved on to Paramount Pictures.

This chapter covers Ziegfeld’s disintegrating physical and mental states and his desperate attempts to revive his career. Ziegfeld’s next endeavor is a zany Bert Lahr musical comedy called Hot-Cha! He has to turn to gangsters for financial backing, including the notorious Waxy Gordon, and the show receives only mediocre reviews. Next, Ziegfeld decides to stage a revival of Show Boat but loses money on the project, despite a positive critical reception. Ziegfeld then agrees to host a radio program that will broadcast songs and skits from the Follies. Burke, meanwhile, agrees to star in a film for David O. Selznick, and Ziegfeld joins his family in Hollywood, even though he is gravely ill with pneumonia. Once in California, he is admitted to a hospital and dies shortly thereafter. Burke receives a phone call at the studio but does not arrive at the hospital in time to say a final good-bye. Burke and Patricia stay with Will Rogers and his wife until they find a small bungalow to live in. Burke, devastated and left alone to manage Ziegfeld’s massive debts, suffers terribly. Will Rogers remarks that Ziegfeld was not just a man but a symbol of a glorious bygone era.

The epilogue reiterates the book’s primary argument that Ziegfeld was not the ruthless, womanizing, one-dimensional producer many historians have made him out to be. It reflects on his flaws but focuses more on the unexpectedly tender side of his personality, as shown through his treatment of his daughter, his stars, and his wives. Also discussed is his impact on the image of women in the twentieth century and how his visions changed the popular view of beauty. The innovations Ziegfeld brought to musical theater are reviewed (e.g., integrating song with plot; elevating chorus girls into legitimate actresses; employing a sole songwriter or songwriting team to compose an entire score; and incorporating aspects of different types of musicals, such as the French revue, vaudeville, European operetta, and American book musical, to produce unique shows). The book ends with a statement by Will Rogers asserting that Ziegfeld created a special type of magic that could never be killed.

Critics complain that Ziegfeld has begun to imitate himself in his shows, and this chapter tells how he pulls the Follies out of their rut. He joins the rooftop entertainment craze by transforming the New Amsterdam roof into a top-notch venue for an offshoot of the Follies, the Midnight Frolic. Ziegfeld employs Viennese designer and architect Joseph Urban to design the rooftop, beginning a long association; he hires Lucile Duff Gordon to design the costumes. Ziegfeld enlivens the Follies when he hires cowboy philosopher Will Rogers to perform his lariat act. The first bump in the Ziegfelds’ marriage occurs when Burke learns of Ziegfeld’s infatuation with a new showgirl, Olive Thomas. But Burke becomes his sole focus when he learns he is about to be a father. Ziegfeld plans his next two shows—the Ziegfeld Follies of 1916 and his first non-Follies musical since his union with Held, The Century Girl—to be celebrations of his child.

This chapter studies how Todd Downing, Will Rogers, and many of the authors from the 1920s to the 1960s model and document the diplomacy in American Indian literature and politics in their writing. These authors represented American Indians in tribal nation, intertribal, pan-Indian, U.S., and settler-colonial and indigenous transnational political arenas, and cultivated good relations among individual indigenous people, tribal nations, intertribal and pan-Indian organizations, and the United States. The chapter specifically considers Todd Downing’s The Mexican Earth (1940), which anticipates late twentieth and early twenty-first-century coalitions between indigenous people in the United States and Mexico.

This chapter gives a wide-ranging view of Ziegfeld as both a beloved boss and a traitorous one. The close-knit family of Ziegfeld stars, including Eddie Cantor, Fanny Brice, Will Rogers, W. C. Fields, and Bert Williams, is torn apart by the Actors Equity strike of 1919. Ziegfeld’s stars remain loyal to him until they learn that he has joined the Producing Managers Association. When his stars leave, despite his good treatment of them, Ziegfeld is personally affronted. The strike ends, but Ziegfeld’s life continues to be chaotic. Olive Thomas and another showgirl with whom he allegedly had an affair commit suicide. People begin to wonder if there is a Ziegfeld curse. Burke remains loyal to her husband, but she questions his loyalty as his attentions to Marilyn Miller grow more conspicuous. He makes preparations for a show written specifically for Miller that ultimately serves as a hymn to the youth and beauty that Ziegfeld feared was disappearing in the Jazz Age.

This chapter recounts Capra’s stint as a Hollywood gag man between 1924 and 1927. Capra started with the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, and also worked for the Hollywood Photoplay Company on two college-humor shorts in its Puppy Love series starring Gordon White. He later moved to Mack Sennett Studios, which he describes a his graduate school, the “Custard College” from which he would emerge as an expert in the creation of visual humor.

After her husband’s death, Billie Burke reinvents herself in Hollywood. With the moral support of Will Rogers and the professional support of Sam Goldwyn, she becomes a sought-after character actress. Burke agrees to coproduce a new edition of the Follies with Ziegfeld’s former competitors, the Shuberts. The Follies of 1934 boasts former Ziegfeld star Fanny Brice as its primary attraction, as well as a number of up-and-coming talents, including Vincente Minnelli as scenic designer, Bob Hope, Eve Arden, and Buddy Ebsen. Several more Follies followed, the final one in 1957. The chapter includes updates on Ziegfeld’s favorite stars, Will Rogers and Marilyn Miller, and ends with a discussion of MGM’s preliminary plans to produce a biopic on Ziegfeld.

Ziegfeld enters into a partnership with Sam Goldwyn to create a film version of Whoopee with Eddie Cantor as the star. Ziegfeld enjoys certain aspects of filmmaking, especially director Busby Berkeley’s innovative style. Ziegfeld returns to New York with plans for a new show, Smiles, starring Marilyn Miller and Fred and Adele Astaire. The show should have been a hit, but Depression-era audiences find its old-fashioned Cinderella story line uninspired. At the dawn of the 1930s, the revue experiences a resurgence in popularity, with producers like Earl Carroll leading the trend. Ziegfeld decides to produce a new Follies, using nostalgia as its theme. Although the 1931 edition is a moderate success, it is clear Ziegfeld no longer reigns on Broadway. He becomes depressed when he and Burke are separated while she tours with a new play. Ziegfeld’s eccentricities become bizarre during this period; his phobias include red roses, dead flowers, and elephant figurines with their trunks pointing down. The chapter concludes with telegrams between Ziegfeld and Burke discussing Patricia’s care. At this point in Ziegfeld’s life, all he wants is for his family to be together again.