Nora Bayes

Nora Bayes (born Rachel Eleonora "Dora" Goldberg; October 3, 1880 – March 19, 1928) was an American singer and vaudeville performer who was popular internationally between the 1900s and 1920s. She is credited with co-writing the song "Shine On, Harvest Moon" and performed many successful songs during the First World War, including "Over There". She was also noted for her independent views and unconventional private life, becoming an early media celebrity. She made over 160 recordings.

Life and career Early life She was born in 1880 in Chicago, the daughter of Rachel and David Goldberg, a Polish-born saloon keeper. She seems to have been given the traditional family name Rachel at birth but was known as Eleonora, or "Dora" as a nickname. She grew up in a strict Orthodox Jewish household and moved with her parents to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in her teens. In 1899, she married salesman Otto Gressing.

They lived in Joliet, Illinois, and in the hope of starting a stage career, she began performing at talent shows in nearby Chicago. She adopted the stage name Nora Bayes: "Nora" as a shortened form of Eleonora and "Bayes" because, according to one story, a local stage manager said that she would not have a good career with the name Goldberg. He suggested going through the Hebrew alphabet to find a name and recited "Aleph, bays..." when she stopped him and suggested Bayes.

Early career

By late 1900, Helen Cohan, the mother of George M. Cohan, saw Bayes performing vaudeville in Chicago. Bayes joined a touring company, performing in St Louis, Missouri and then California, before she decided to advance her career further and moved with her husband to New York City. She grew in popularity as a comic actress and singer, and in 1902 started performing Harry Von Tilzer's song, "Down Where the Wurzburger Flows", which she performed at the Orpheum Theatre in Brooklyn and which became her first big success.

In 1908, Bayes married fellow performer Jack Norworth, and the couple became media celebrities. They performed together, and were credited with co-writing several songs in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1908, including the hit song "Shine On, Harvest Moon". Bayes was the star performer, commanding a much higher salary than Norworth, and sometimes challenging the authority of theatre managers and promoters. She walked out of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1909 because of a disagreement with Ziegfeld over the billing of a rising new star named Sophie Tucker; Ziegfeld then sued Bayes for breach of contract, which prevented her performing in other theatres for several months. She and Norworth recorded and continued to perform together until their final show, The Sun Dodgers, in 1912. By this time, their personal and professional relationships were both troubled, and they divorced in 1913. In 1913 she wore a green wig as a stunt, which led to a local popularity of colored wigs. One month later, Bayes married Harry Clarke, an actor and dancer; they divorced in 1915. before reuniting briefly with Norworth in the Broadway revue Odds and Ends of 1917. She then launched her own one-woman show, and starred in the musical Ladies First in 1918, in which she appeared with young piano accompanist George Gershwin. Her most successful recordings for Columbia included "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree)?" (1919) and "Make Believe" (1921). In 1920 she had a hit with "Broadway Blues" with words by Arthur Swanstrom and music by Carey Morgan.

Later career She married for a fourth time in 1920, to actor and entertainer Arthur Gordon (sometimes billed as Gordoni). One researcher commented:Bayes refused to obey the social mores that ruled expectations of how women should behave. Her personal life caught the attention of the press: she provided endless headlines for her broken theatre contracts and her five divorces. Her marriages were reported across the globe. On news of her fifth marriage, one Australian newspaper reported her advice to wives: “as soon as one becomes bored, one should secure divorce.” The press hardly knew which was more shocking, her divorces or the fact she had walked out of her contract with Florenz Ziegfeld.

Death and legacy Bayes married again in 1925 to New York businessman Benjamin Lester Friedland, owner of the Affiliated Garages chain of automobile repair shops, the ceremony taking place on board a ship. She continued to perform until 1927. However, by that time she was becoming ill and visibly weakened by stomach cancer, which she had been suffering from for several years. She died at the Jewish Hospital of Brooklyn in 1928, aged 47.

The 1944 movie Shine On, Harvest Moon, starring Ann Sheridan as Bayes, is a highly fictionalized account of her life with Jack Norworth, who was still alive at the time but was not involved in the project.

Partial Discography

Victor:

Has Anybody Seen Kelly? (1910) That Lovin' Rag (1910) You Can't Get Away From It (1914) Over There (1917)

Columbia:

The Man Who Put The Germ in Germany (1918) Prohibition Blues (1920) The Japanese Sandman (1921) To-Morrow (1923) Runnin' Wild (1923)