Ruth Etting

Tribute to a Great Performer

I always think of Ruth Etting in the same breath as Annette Hanshaw. Well you can't think in a breath can you? I mean the same thought. Or next-door thoughts. Well, you know what I mean.

Somehow Ruth Etting seems to me like a brunette counterpart to Annette Hanshaw.

Now when I mentioned Blonde Supremacy in my page about Annette Hanshaw, one of my esteemed readers pointed out that Annette Hanshaw actually has dark hair.

But you see, I was talking about spiritual blondeness. Not the vulgar accidents of nature or the dye-bottle (as the case may be). I am sure you can see what I mean by the kinematic on that page. And if you want to see some spiritual brunettery in action, just watch this one:

Like Annette Hanshaw, Ruth Etting delivers the lyrics of 1920s music and later of 1930s music, with the passion and finesse of a classical actress as well as a charming musical sensibility.

And her life was the stuff of movies. In fact they made a movie of it in the 1950s with Miss Doris Day as Ruth Etting and James Cagney as "Moe the Gimp" Snyder.

But (allowing for a bit of licence) it was all true. Miss Etting was a dancer who hired out her Terpsichorean talents at, in the words of her most famous song, "Ten Cents a Dance".

She caught the interest of gang Boss Moe Snyder and managed to manipulate him into furthering her career, which he did initially by strong-arming night-club owners into starring Miss Etting in their cabarets.

After stalling for a very long time she married Mr. Snyder and her career skyrocketed. She made many records and starred in Broadway musicals. Later she moved to Hollywood with her husband and made several short movies and three full-length feature films.

Ultimately the gangster, out of place in Hollywood and trying to retain his hold over Miss Etting and her career by strong-arm tactics, became an embarrassment. Miss Etting divorced him in 1936 and transferred her affections to a pianist, and "Moe the Gimp", who had never heard the expression "Don't shoot the pianist", shot the pianist.

The pianist lived, and Mr. Snyder was charged with attempted murder and served a year in jail.

Sadly the scandal surrounding all this effectively ended Miss Etting's career. Ten years later with a war in between she tried to make a comeback with her own radio show, but it was not successful.

The moral of the story is "Don't get involved with gangsters". But I guess your mother told you that already. I know mine did.

Miss Etting was one of the loveliest and most distinctive voices of 1920s music. The untimely end of her career is really rather horrid, but she has left us with some truly fine music.

And if you have never seen the Doris Day film do pop and get a copy. It is called "Love Me or Leave Me", and while Miss Doris Day doesn't sound a bit like Miss Etting, she does a wonderful parallel Ruth Etting - from an alternate universe in which Miss Etting is blonde - both spiritually and hairly.

And in which the crystalline edges of Art-Deco music are coated in 1950s sugar and cream.

Ah, life is sweet.

And I am,

Sylli

(Sylvia M. Bell)