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Guerrilla
Girls on Tour each take the name of a dead woman artist
so that the focus remains on fighting discrimination
and racism. Being anonymous allows their own personalities
as performing artists to become secondary as it serves
to keep the spirit of the dead and their work alive.
They wear masks whenever they perform in public to conceal
their true identities and choose those that most closely
resemble their actual appearance. |
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Gracie Allen (1895-1964): the funny half
of the Burns and Allen Comedy Team. Born in San
Francisco into an Irish Catholic show business
family, she began performing vaudeville in 1909
with her sister. She teamed up with George Burns
in 1922 and married him in 1926. When they figured
out Gracie was the laugh-getter and George was
the straight man they became one of the most famous
comedy teams of their time.
They had both popular radio and television shows.
In 1940 Gracie was so popular she ran for President
as the candidate for the Surprise Party. Gracie
encouraged American's to take pride in their national
debt as
"it's the biggest in the world". |
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Her
platform included putting congress on commission,
whenever the country prospered congress would
get ten percent. Grace had a weak heart and was
self conscious off stage, as a child she burned
one arm, and she never wore sort sleeve. But in
true Gracie style, she turned this into a fashion
statement rather then a hindrance. Gracie never
really admitted her age,
even her husband professed not to know exactly
when she was born. In 1964, after a long
battle, her heart gave out. Gracie Allen proved
women can be funny.
"When I was born I was so surprised I didn't
talk for a year and a half." - |
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Josephine Baker (1906-1975): was born Freda
Josephine McDonald on June 3rd 1906 in St. Louis,
Missouri. In 1919 Josephine began touring the
US with the Jones Family Band and The Dixie Steppers.
On stage, Baker was a huge success. Donning her
comedic skills, she rolled her eyes and intentionally
acted clumsy, exciting audiences.
Josephine experienced a fair amount of success
as a dancer at The Plantation Club in New York.
Nevertheless, it wasn't until she left the states
to try her luck in Paris, performing in La Revue
Negre, a compilation of several dance pieces,
that her career took an astonishing turn. She
mesmerized audiences with her dance partner Joe
Alex in the exotic, erotic Danse Sauvage, wearing
nothing but a feather skirt. |
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Josephine
Baker was an instantaneous hit! After La Revue
Negre closed, she was immediately swept away to
star in La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergere
Theater. It was in this renowned piece where Josephine
wore her infamous banana skirt.
In 1936, Baker returned to the States for the
premiere of her first American film, Ziegfield
Follies. Unlike Europe, the US did not receive
her with such warmth. Heartbroken, Josephine Baker
returned to Europe.
Throughout World War Two, Josephine was an essential
benefactor to France. Not only did she perform
for the troops, but she was also a correspondent
for the French Resistance, smuggling secret messages
written in invisible ink on her music sheets.
On April 8, 1975 Josephine Baker starred at the
Bobino Theater in Paris as their premiere act.
Her reviews were some of her best ever. Unexpectedly,
on April 12th, only days after her astonishing
performance, she slipped into a coma and died
from a cerebral hemorrhage. Thousands of crowds
poured into Paris streets to watch her funeral
procession. The French government honored her
with a 21-gun salute, making Josephine Baker the
first American woman buried with French military
honors.
"I improvised, crazed by the music...Even
my teeth and eyes burned with fever. Each time
I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I
regained earth it seemed to be mine alone"
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Aphra
Behn (1640-89): was the first professional
female English author. After the death of her
husband she became an English spy in the Dutch
Wars (1665-67), adopting the pseudonym Astrea,
under which she later published much of her verse.
By 1670 her first play had been performed, and
by 1677 she gained her much desired fame with
the eminently successful production of The Rover.
All her plays are noted for their broad, bawdy
humor.
Aphra Behn was famous for her life-style as well
as her works; her denial of woman's subservience
to man and her high-living, bohemian existence
has led critics to describe her as the George
Sand of the Restoration and a forerunner of the
feminist movement. |
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ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret."
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Lili Boulanger (1893-1918): was born in
France. Lili and her older sister Nadia were the
daughters of a French opera composer and a Russian
singer. She began taking lessons in various aspects
of music from Fauré, Caussade, Vidal, and
Nadia Boulanger. Dogged by ill health for most
of her life, she nevertheless composed prolifically.
Boulanger seemed to realise that her life would
be very short, and her music is almost always
gripped by a grey, grave quality.
She compressed a three-year conservatory course
into a year and a half of daily lessons in theory
and counterpoint and in January of 1912 was admitted
to the Paris Conservatoire. |
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In
1913 Lili became the first woman to win the Prix
de Rome with her cantata Faust et Hélène.
Lili Boulanger died at the age of twenty-four,
a victim of Crohn's Disease. At the time of her
death
she was working on an opera based on Maeterlinck's
La princesse Maleine .
"A great work is made out of a combination
of obedience and liberty." - |
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Fanny Brice (1891-1951):
Born on the Lower East Side of New York in 1891,
the third of four children of immigrant saloon-owners,
Fania Borach decided early in life to become a
performer. Historian Barbara Grossman notes that
in an era in which entertainment was typically
based on ethnic stereotypes -the drunken Irishman,
the ignorant Pole, the Yiddish-accented greenhorn
- Brice's "Semitic looks" slotted her
into Jewish roles. Despite her efforts to succeed
as a serious actress and singer, Brice - who spoke
no Yiddish - rose to stardom performing comedy
with a Yiddish accent. |
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Brice
starred in the Ziegfield Follies in the 1920s
and 1930s and became known for her beautiful voice
and limber grace, which she always used in the
service of humor. When she tried dramatic Broadway
roles, her plays were unsuccessful. In 1923, as
biographer Grossman puts it, Brice "tired
of being a sight gag" and had her nose surgically
straightened. Still, acceptance eluded her when
she tried her hand at "American" drama.
After a failed marriage to Broadway impresario
Billy Rose and starring roles in Hollywood film,
Brice found a niche -broadcast radio - that made
her comfortable. In 1938, she launched her own
weekly radio show.
A wonderful mimic and impersonator with a great
ear for dialect, Brice chose instead to limit
herself to one character, Baby Snooks, a precocious,
bratty toddler - who had no accent. Her enormously
successful run on radio lasted until her death
in 1951, just as television was beginning to capture
the radio audience.
"But whatever my man is, I am his - forever."
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Louise Brooks (1906 -1985):
Between 1925 and 1938 Louise appeared in 24 films.
During the late 1920's, the one-time Denishawn
dancer and Ziegfeld girl inspired both the long
running comic strip "Dixie Dugan," as
well as the stage play "Show Girl."
Brooks' career in Hollywood is overshadowed by
what is certainly her best-known role, as "Lulu"
in the classic German film, Pandora's Box (1929).
Her keen intelligence, rebellious nature and self-destructive
streak all contributed to her exile from Hollywood.
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After
years of obscurity and near poverty, a new Louise
Brooks began to emerge - that of author. Throughout
the 50's, 60's and '70's, her thoughtful essays
appeared in magazines like Sight and Sound, and
Focus on Film. In 1982, a bestselling and widely
reviewed collection of her work appeared under
the title Lulu in Hollywood.
"What is art but a close clinging to a bit
of life that you have looked into most deeply?"
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