The Last of 'The Red Hot Mamas'

That Abuza kid was always hanging around the theater stage door when the famous Yiddish Russian actor Jacob Adler and his company came to play in Hartford. In her hand she held the menu from her parent's kosher restaurant, 'Follow me,' she would say, 'and I will take you to where you can get the best meal in town for the least money.' The show people were appreciative, the food was delicious and the entertainment provided by the fat young Sophie Abuza singing Harry Von Tilzer's smash hits of the day was outstanding. They gave her generous tips and pleaded in vain to get her parents to allow her to join one of the companies, but Sophie's mother was adamant, 'Don't have anything to do with traveling men with show people. There are too many drifters and grafters among them. They have no real homes, no sense of responsibility. That kind don't care what they do on the road'. Her mother thought them no better than the wandering gypsies in Russia. It was an interesting start to a brilliant sixty year career on the stage.

Sophie's seventeen year old mother had gone into labor whilst traveling in one of those big, canvas-covered wagons carrying poor immigrants bound for America as it was going along a rutted track leading from Russia across Poland to the Baltic. The young mother with her two year old son Philip had left the wagon and found shelter in a nearby farmhouse where she gave birth to the future Sophie Tucker. Her husband Kalish was already in America having escaped service in the Tsar's army. Whilst en route he had met up with an Italian fellow called Charlie Abuza who subsequently fell ill and died. Kalish was quick to recognize the advantage of switching identities and arrived in America with Italian papers speaking only Yiddish and Russian. Eight years later the young family, now with four children, settled in Hartford, Connecticut and opened a kosher restaurant and rooming house.

Sophie grew up watching her mother working in the kitchen for hours on end, cooking, cleaning, washing up, peeling vegetables, serving the customers, running the home, looking after the family. An endless drudgery which held no excitement or appeal for Sophie. Her father spent his free time with his mates playing cards and gambling in the rooms upstairs, a pastime which Sophie was to inherit. Sophie saw no glamor, no sex appeal and certainly no oomph in dishwashing. She took part in local amateur shows and found to her delight that despite being overweight she could raise a laugh from the audience. Her dream remained to go into show business. However, her parents had other plans for her; on leaving school she would find a good Jewish husband, raise children and help her husband in his career. That would mean spending most of her time at the cooking stove and in the kitchen, certainly not Sophie's idea of fun; she wanted to get away from all that. She met Louis Tuck, a good looking neighbor with a talent for dancing who drove a beer wagon, and together they had fun. Finally they eloped and married. On returning home, the scene must have been electrifying, “Louis and I get to the stoop. I can see Mama's face and Papa's. Are they mad? Here it is two hours after the time I should be home to help in the kitchen. Mama starts to give me what's on her mind. Then Louis butts in… “Listen,” he says, “Sophie and I have got something to tell you. We got married this afternoon.” What followed is pretty obvious. The family, on recovering from the shock, insisted on having an orthodox Jewish wedding, the young couple moved away, Sophie gave birth to a baby boy and then Louis discovered that his life had changed drastically and the greater responsibility no longer suited him. Sophie returned home, left baby Bert in the care of her parents, changed her name to Tucker and off she went to New York in search of fame and fortune.

Sophie's career took off in 1906 when she appeared in Chris Brown's Amateur Nights at the 125th Street Theater, New York. 'What do you do?' she was asked. 'Sing,' she replied, and the response came, 'This one's so big and ugly the crowd in front will razz her. Better get some cork and black her up. She'll kill them!' Blacked up, a shove pushed her onto the stage – a roar of laughter greeted her. Success was within her grasp at last. She began appearing as a black-face coon shouter on small-time circuits at 15 – 25 dollars a week. From this modest salary she sent money orders back home contributing as generously as possible to the family's income. One day her luggage containing all her makeup went astray and she was forced to go on stage without it 'You all can see I'm a white girl. Well, I'll tell you something more. I'm not Southern. I grew up right here in Boston. I'm a Jewish girl, and I just learned this Southern accent doing a black-face act for two years. And now Mr. Leader, please play my song'. 'That Lovin' Rag' got them started and Sophie never looked back. Shortly afterwards she was employed by Florenz Ziegfield to sing in his famous 'Ziegfield Follies of 1909'. The audience demanded encore after encore. Her outstanding success was too great a challenge for the headliner of the show, Norah Bayes. Sophie was dismissed and she went on her way accompanied by Norah's colored dresser, Mollie.

Edison Recording Company in 1911 paid one thousand dollars for ten recordings of Sophie's songs including the famous 'Some of These Days' by Shelton Brooks. It subsequently became her theme song, the title of her 1949 autobiography and was played in 1966 when three thousand mourners attended her funeral at the Wethersfield Jewish Cemetery, Connecticut. By the outbreak of World War 1 Sophie was already a famous headliner throughout America. She was one of the first liberated, outspoken feminists of the century. Her risky, bawdy, sentimental, nostalgic songs found an enthusiastic audience among the vaudeville going public. 'Look at me. Laugh at me' said the big, blond, busty, bouncing, unbeautiful blockbuster. Her aggressive sexual innuendos won over the crowds. She challenged gender norms, dressed in opulent come-hither fabulous gowns, wore her golden hair piled high and draped herself with fine furs and diamonds. 'I only sing about what people are thinking about!' she chortled, then crooned, 'Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, but oh, How a Fat Girl can Love!' Such was her style and she was right, the audience loved it. Success accompanied her throughout her life.

'Life Begins at Forty', 'After You've Gone', 'Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong', 'You've Got to make it Legal, Mr. Siegal', 'Some Day He'll Come Along', 'I Ain't Got Nobody', 'If your Kisses can't hold the Man you Love !' are some of the songs made famous by Sophie. The best of vaudeville shows were given at the Palace Theater in New York. There in 1914 in front of the cream of show biz performers, Sophie sang 'I'm the Last of the Red Hot Mamas', a song which was identified with her for the rest of her life.

Her career spanned the demise of the Vaudeville Theater, the start of the Hollywood films, supper clubs, Broadway shows, television, appearances in France, England (including two Royal Command performances), South Africa and so on. She kept abreast of the changing times and adapted herself to them. She was at her best with a live audience when she could exchange suggestive, humorous comments with them. She was by nature an extremely generous person netting over four million dollars from charity performances for servicemen during W.W.1. She supported her family from the day she earned money making it possible for them to leave the restaurant and move to a large home. In 1945 she established the 'Sophie Tucker Foundation' and contributed towards the Jewish Theatrical Guild, the Negro Actors' Guild, the Will Rogers Memorial Hospital, the Motion Picture Relief Fund, the Catholic Actors' Guild, synagogues and hospitals, all too numerous to name. She established the 'Sophie Tucker' Chair at Brandeis University. In 1956 she made her first trip to Israel and dedicated the Sophie Tucker youth center at Beit Shemesh, sponsored another youth center at Kibbutz Be'iri, a Sophie Tucker forest near Beit Shemesh and supported Israel Bonds. Her generosity was legendary. She married twice more, both times to younger men, both marriages ended in divorce. After that she said she was not willing to risk having to pay any more alimony.

Sophie's attachment to her family was genuinely affectionate and she would return home whenever possible to spend religious holidays with them. She provided liberally for all of them including their individual needs. Mama had a special place in Sophie's heart and Sophie's response to her mother's requests for donations to her favorite charities was met without hesitation. In 1925 whilst returning to the States following an extremely successful tour in England where she had performed before royalty and dined with the aristocracy at the Kit Kat Club she received news of her mother's death. Sophie was devastated and went into a deep depression, unable to face the public. It was three months before she took to the stage again. In her own words, here is her reaction to her loss, 'Somehow I managed to sing, but it was a mechanical Sophie Tucker, I might have been wound up like a doll. I couldn't smile. I couldn't be funny. I couldn't feel myself. I could only thank the audience and beg forgiveness, hoping I would soon find myself so that I could entertain as I used to. Teddy (Ted Shapiro, her pianist for forty years) led me off the stage. I was one mass of jitters. I got back to the hotel and couldn't leave my bed for weeks. Now I'd lost my self-confidence. I'd had stage fright before but never anything like this.' Fortunately Sophie's pals rallied around her. They opened a new theater called 'Sophie Tucker's Playground' in New York where numerous famous stars of the stage and screen attended the opening night. In 1925 Jack Yellin with Lou Pollack wrote the song with which Sophie is always associated, 'My Yiddishe Mama'. It was a song which all Jewish audiences called for time and time again and which never fails even to this day to draw a tear.

Music critic Hannen Shaffer's review of one of Sophie's shows finished thus; 'She sang about how fat she was, told women how to make love – 'Lonely Wives, You should Worry', she chanted, 'that's what God made Sailors for' – and she sang about her size, and how red hot she could be, and how cruel she was. Nobody believed it, but it brought down the house. Beautifully gowned in white, with her golden hair shining and with her face beaming with sauciness, Sophie held the house for number after number, daring, challenging and yet so attractive. 'Follow the Star' with Sophie is a splendid entertainment.

Sophie is a star to follow.'

Sophie remained performing on centre stage until a few weeks before her death from lung cancer aged 82 years. She was a colorful, wonderful, energetic, loveable personality; hilariously funny with her risqué double-entendre lyrics. Indeed, an irreplaceable entertainer and a pioneer in many aspects of feminism.

Barbara Blum gives wonderful programs about various composers and singers, playing excerpts from their music and giving us fascinating tidbits about their lives. 

 Barbara donates the income from those programs which she presents in her home to Esra projects. 

Sophie Tucker has been an exceptionally popular program and has been requested already 17 times from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Raanana, Herzliya, Hadera, Netanya, Kfar Saba, Rishon LeZion and so on, not only for Esra but also for retirement homes and other groups and requests are still coming in. Sophie must have been an outstanding woman, far in advance of her times.