Anna Held

Helene Anna Held (19 March 1872 – 12 August 1918), known professionally as Anna Held, was a Broadway stage performer and singer born in Warsaw, Poland. She started her career with stints in theatres in Paris and London, and is most often associated with theatre producer and impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband.

Born in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, Held was the daughter of a German-Jewish glove maker, Shimmle (aka Maurice) Held, and his French-Jewish wife, Yvonne Pierre.

Sources of her year of birth range from 1865–73, but 1872 has been accepted in general. In 1881, anti-Semitic pogroms forced the family to flee to Paris, France. When her father's glovemaking business failed, he found work as a janitor, while her mother operated a kosher restaurant. Held began working in the garment industry, then found work as a singer in Jewish theatres in Paris and, later, after her father's death, London, where her roles included the title role in a production by Jacob Adler of Abraham Goldfaden's Shulamith; she was also in Goldfaden's ill-fated Paris troupe, whose cashier stole their money before they ever played publicly.

As a young woman in France, Held converted to Roman Catholicism.

Early years

Portrait of Anna Held around 1908, by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger

Anna Held and her daughter

Her vivacious and animated personality proved popular, and her career as a stage performer began to gain momentum. She was soon known for her risqué songs, flirtatious nature and willingness to show her legs on stage. Around this time, she became the wife of a much-older Uruguayan playboy, Maximo Carrera, with whom she had a daughter, Lianne (1895–1988), shortly after their 1894 marriage, and who became an actress and producer, sometimes billed as Anna Held Jr.

Touring through Europe, Held was appearing in London in 1896 when she met Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld asked her to return to New York City with him and she agreed. He set about creating a wave of public interest in her, by feeding stories about her to the American press, such as her having had ribs surgically removed. By the time Held and Ziegfeld arrived in New York, she was already the subject of intense public speculation. When she finally performed (in a revival of A Parlor Match), the critics were dismissive of her, but the public liked her.

Broadway success

Held, in an 1890s publicity photo

Anna Held, by Aimé Dupont

David Monod of Wilfrid Laurier University has suggested that Held succeeded more on image than talent, the illusion she presented topost-Victorian era audiences who were beginning to explore new social freedoms. From 1897, Held enjoyed several successes on Broadway, including A Parisian Model (1906–1907). These, apart from bolstering Ziegfeld's fortune, made her a millionaire in her own right. Ziegfeld's talent for creating publicity stunts ensured that Held's name remained well known.

Held influenced the format for what would eventually become the famous Ziegfeld Follies in 1907, and she helped Ziegfeld establish the most lucrative phase of his career. Held could not perform in the first Follies as she had become pregnant by Ziegfeld in late 1908. Held's daughter Lianne later claimed in her unpublished memoirs that Ziegfeld forced Held to have an abortion because he did not want her pregnancy interfering with Miss Innocence, a show in which she would star in 1908–1909. The claim was repeated in a purported autobiography by Held entitled Anna Held and Flo Ziegfeld. Richard and Paulette Ziegfeld, authors of The Ziegfeld Touch, concluded that Held never wrote her memoirs, and Lianne was the real author of the alleged autobiography. Eve Golden, Held's biographer, wrote that Lianne's abortion claim was likely a lie designed to demonize Ziegfeld, whom Lianne loathed.

In 1909, Ziegfeld began an affair with the actress Lillian Lorraine; Held remained hopeful that his fascination would pass, and he would return to her, but instead he turned his attentions to another actress Billie Burke, whom he would marry in 1914.

Film

New York entertainment entrepreneur Oliver Morosco cast Held in the lead for Madame la Presidente in 1916. According to an interview she gave to Hector Ames for Motion Picture Classic, she was paid $25,000 for her performance.

After Miss Innocence, Held left Broadway. She spent the years of World War I working in vaudeville and touring France, performing for French soldiers and raising money for the war effort. She was considered a war heroine for her contributions, and was highly regarded for the courage she displayed in traveling to the front lines, to be where she could do the most good.

Held's grave in Gate of Heaven Cemetery

Held's footstone

The year 1917 was one of constant touring for Held; she toured the United States in a production of Follow Me until ill health caused her to close the show in January 1918. She then checked into the Hotel Savoy in New York City where her health continued to decline. Held had been battling multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, for a year. News coverage began reporting that it had been caused by her practice of excessive lacing of her corsets to give her a tiny waist.

According to the Washington Times, Held had been in and out of consciousness for about a week. On August 12, 1918, her doctor had pronounced her dead, and the media was alerted. Approximately two hours later, Held revived, and the media notified she was still alive, only to have Held finally die shortly thereafter.

A Catholic convert, Held's funeral was held at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on August 14.Florenz Ziegfeld did not attend as he had a phobia about death and never attended funerals. Held is interred at Cemetery of the Gate of Heaven in Hawthorne, New York.

Luise Rainer received an Academy Award for her portrayal of Held in The Great Ziegfeld (1936).

• The film The Great Ziegfeld (1936) tells a sanitized version of the story of the Ziegfeld-Held relationship. Luise Rainer won an Academy Award for her performance as Held. Ziegfeld and Burke were played by William Powell and Myrna Loy.
• In 1978 Columbia Pictures released a made-for-television film, Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women. first telecast on NBC. Held was portrayed by Barbara Parkins.
• The American poet Carl Sandburg wrote a memorial poem for Anna Held after Held's death, An Electric Sign goes Dark, in the collection Smoke and Steel.
• In 1976, Held's daughter, Lianne Carrera (died 1988), opened a museum of her mother's personal and stage items in San Jacinto, California. Lianne herself as of 1933 was married, living in Pennsylvania with a four-year-old daughter also called Lianne, and running an Inn.