- Follow A Star
Book by Douglas Furber and Dion Titheradge. Lyrics by Douglas
Furber and Frank Yellen
Music by Vivian Ellis
Original London cast: Sophie Tucker, Jack Hulbert, Betty Ann
Davies. Musical director: Sydney Banes
SONGS: Follow A Star; I Never Can Think Of The Words;
If Your Kisses Can't Hold The Man You Love (Then Your Tears Won't
Bring Him Back); The First Week-End In June; Don't Wear Your
Heart On Your Sleeve
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- 'The Last of the Red-Hot Mamas', the great Sophie Tucker,
made her debut in a British musical at the Winter Garden Theatre
in September 1930 when she starred in Follow a Star; it stayed
for 118 performances. After listening to the score that Vivian
Ellis had already written, Miss Tucker announce 'Tomorrow we'll
see about my songs.' Ellis liked her from that moment, thinking
'What that old buzzard is after is something that will tear the
hearts out of her fans.' He then collaborated with Tucker's personal
lyricist, Frank Yellen, to create his star's songs (played on
stage by Tucker's regular pianist Ted Shapiro) remembering she
had explained that her voice had only one octave. Among the gems,
Yellen came up with the immortally titled 'If Your Kisses Can't
Hold The Man You Love Then Your Tears Won't Bring Him Back',
a number sung by Tucker to brilliant effect. Ellis and Yellen
also fashioned the attractive title song (with its magnificent
coda) and the gently suggestive 'I Never Can Think Of The Words'.
After so refreshing a set of songs, the rest of the score, based
(not surprisingly) on the adventures of a cabaret singer, may
have been a little tame, but Jack Hulbert and Betty Ann Davies
have a spanking good duet in 'The First Week-End In June'. Despite
its charm, it is in the numbers for Tucker that Ellis surprises;
he seemed instantly to understand Tucker as an artist and a person.
'The public,' he wrote many years later, 'sees the warm-hearted
Yiddisher Momma, sermonizing and dripping sentiment … I
saw the tough old dish-washer who had fought her way out of the
sink, inch by inch, and who was determined to stay where she
had arrived by her own unaided exertions.'
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