OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Luscious Lillian Roth!

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Greetings, hootchies, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday, today with added oomph! and hotch-cha! Oh, and a visit to your local AA meeting and local sanitarium. What does that mean? You'll definitely want to know, so make sure to sashay over the Manor's newest nightery, "Midnight Salami" where DJ Li'l Scratch will be playing some very snazzy tunes by a gal who went through it - and how! - and triumphantly lived to tell. And now, behold the lady who put the "yum" in "dayum!"


Yes, it's Lillian Roth, the wowza actress and singing star who hit it big in the early 1930s in several Hollywood movies, like the delirious "Madam Sin." She began her road to success years earlier on Broadway, in concert halls, and in the Ziegfeld Follies, like their 1928 "Midnight Frolics" show, which she performed in as a not-so-demure 18 year-old:


Then it all came crashing down. Big time. There was the sudden death of her fiance, alcohol addiction, along with her nefarious parents and husbands who flat-out stole her entire fortune and left her penniless. By the late 1930s, she wasn't just washed up, she was said to be "delirious," "mad," and found herself shuttled, sometimes involuntarily, in and out of mental institutions for over a decade. But slowly, steadily, incredibly, she rose from the ashes.

In one of the most spectacular comebacks in showbiz history, she shocked the nation in 1954 with her gritty and groundbreaking autobiography "I'll Cry Tomorrow," which was promptly made into a (somewhat sanitized) hit movie with Susan Hayward. She was also the very first celebrity to openly admit to attending Alcoholics Anonymous.

In a flash, she was back on top, her name above the title in the Broadway musical "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" with Barbra Streisand, then the Kander & Ebb musical "70 Girls, 70." She also knocked 'em dead with her hugely popular nightclub act at NYC's Reno Sweeney. Lillian sang with undiluted power. Hers was not a "pretty" voice, but it was deeply felt and tough-as-nails. She was, and remains, the survivor's survivor.

Below, get practically the entire history of musical theatre performance styles from the first half of the 20th century - starting with the sell-it-to-the-rafters mode from the early 1900s, to the knock-em-dead technique in early TV from the mid-1950s. She was, and remains, a smashing entertainer.



You can listen to more Lillian RIGHT HERE and HERE, TOO!

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Getty Images; Shutterstock

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