Feeling 18 without all the burdens. That’s the assessment of her life by one of the older women featured in “Advanced Style.”
No matter your sense of style, no doubt you will love these New York women who dream and live out those dreams.
Whether you are feeling creaky or don’t recognize yourself when you look in the mirror because you feel so young, give yourself a treat with this documentary. Maybe you’ll want to sign up for the blog for that ocassional pick-me-up!
Sophie Tucker was the original Red Hot Mama and every hot moment is explored in the delightful new documentary Outrageous Sophie Tucker. It’s new out in theaters in New York, and I saw it at the JCC. So keep an eye out.
There are all the typical celebrity talking heads and accolades, but also surprising insights that came from a four-year study of her exhaustive scrap books. She married three times and also had many female friends, implied as lovers. As a Red Hot Mama, she sang about the sexual pleasures of being fat with all the innuendos the era could stand.
I was genuinely shocked to learn that she started as a ‘coon singer’ in black face, because that’s the only way she could get on stage. She predated Bessie Smith and several other amazing black women singers from the 1920s who revolutionized the blues, singing in a jazz and (Jewish) blues style they must have known and emulated.
A star that made stars, she starred in the first film after The Jazz Singer, featuring Al Jolson, but she called it a “stinkeroo.” Her second, Broadway Melody of 1938, launched Judy Garland with her generous helping hand. She was friends with both Al Capone and J. Edgar Hoover, finding the human in everyone.
The documentary will make you smile, hard, toe-tap to her wonderful voice singing the American songbook, and admire a woman who made it alone when no woman could. She established the American celebrity culture with her insightful marketing and pushed for racial equality and union rights. Plus who doesn’t love a proud, big woman? Here’s a sense of the film:
Definitely keep an eye out for the new documentary “Rosenwald,” opening soon around the country. Another love project by Aviva Kempner, who made the documentary “Yoo Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” and another on Hank Greenberg, this film on Julius Rosenwald is deeply touching and profoundly inspiring.
JR believed ‘give while you live’, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that by doing so, he changed the culture and future of the U.S. He promised his young wife that he would save $5000, spend $5000, and give $5000. That was just the beginning.
Son of an immigrant peddler, he manufactured men’s clothing in Chicago, making his first fortune in men’s suits. Richard Sears was intrigued, ran an ad for JR’s line, and was swamped by over 1000 orders. Rather than pay his bill, he made JR a partner. Rosenwald’s business acumen perfectly balanced Sears’ marketing brilliance.
Then the real philanthropy began. First, JR funded YMCAs for African Americans. Young men who moved for a job needed a place to live, and Jim Crow eliminated their options. In Chicago, JR put up 1/3 of the money ($25,000) to build a Y, as long as the black community raised the rest.
Twenty-seven Y’s popped up around the country following this model. Booker T. Washington then showed JR how critical education was to changing the life of American blacks. JR had no trouble associating the KKK with the pogroms in Russia. He was outspoken in criticism of white America, and then he acted. Build schools for black children.
Again using the 1/3-2/3 funding split, this time, 1/3 came from the states’ board of education. Separate but equal. Washington rejected JR’s offer of using Sears Prefab buildings for the schools. Pride would come with community sweat equity.
JR was touched by the photos of the schools and the students
Lots of fish fries and collections of pennies, combined with the states’ and JR’s funds, led to an astonishing 5357 new schools across the South. Reportedly, one in three African American children attended a Rosenwald School. Some were burned by whites, but were rebuilt, often more than once, until the dominant community accepted the schools, and its concomitant risk of shared power that education promises. The whole process was a study in community resilience.
Several commented on how nice their Rosenwald Schools were
You would be astounded by all the cultural icons that attended a Rosenwald School, not limited to Maya Angelou, John Lewis, and James Baldwin, to name a shortlist few.
JR also funded the Tuskegee Institute and its later Airmen, who returned from the war with confidence and a sense of self that led to the Civil Rights Movement. Rosenwald’s Fund kickstarted the emerging careers of young artists like Aaron Douglas and Augusta Savage, dancers such as Katherine Dunham, and writers including James Baldwin, Rita Dove, and Langston Hughes, along with singer phenom Marion Anderson.
Jacob Lawrence, Great Migration Series
Jacob Lawrence created his Great Migration series under a Rosenwald Fellowship. Gordon Parks got his start, before his FSA funding. And Woody Guthrie got a fellowship to travel through the South.
JR funded museums, housing communities, Jewish charities, and more, before passing away in 1931. The Fund depleted in 1948, after gifting over $70 million (consider the era!). Give while you live.
Influenced by his Rabbi, the powerful social activist Emil Hirsch, and the visionary Washington, JR personified tikkun olam–repairing the world with all his heart, proudly not becoming a man of his times.
Here’s a sneak peek of the film:
You may remember Herb and Dorothy Vogel, who on their postal worker and Brooklyn librarian salaries amassed a contemporary art collection of over 4000 works, all kept in their one bedroom New York apartment.
To share their art legacy, they gave about 2500 works to the National Gallery (their rationale: they worked for the government, earning the money to buy art, and then returned the art to the people at this free museum). Then they gave 50 works to one museum in each of the 50 states. Their ’50×50′ program. Remarkable.
But what did they do? They continued collecting.
The Herb & Dorothy documentary is an utter joy, so life-affirming and moving, no matter what you think about the art they collected.
The Delaware Art Museum was one of the recipient’s of 50 works, while I was a docent there. A camera crew came by, to film part of their follow-up documentary. Looks like they’re going to excerpt from one of my Vogel tours for the new film. Meantime to see more about that documentary, check out these clips.
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Herb died not too long ago, to all our great sadness. My heart wept at seeing him shrunken in a wheelchair at the Delaware Art Museum, so terribly frail, still wanting to be a part, as Dorothy took the lead. That’s not how we’ll remember him though, thanks to these wonderful films.