Elvira Amazar Explained
| Elvira Amazar |
| Birth Date: | 1890s |
| Birth Place: | Serbia |
| Death Place: | New York City |
Elvira Amazar (1890s – February 7, 1971), also known as Vera Amazar or Elaine Amazar, was a Serbian-born Russian-American soprano singer and actress. She was also the subject of the first photograph described as "cheesecake", in 1917.
Early life
Elvira Amazar was born in Serbia. Her father was a mining engineer. She was orphaned as a small girl, when both parents died during a strike. Relatives in Poland took her in, and she was educated in Germany and Moscow. She studied music in Paris and Milan.[1] Among her teachers were Félia Litvinne and Umberto Masetti.[2]
Career
Amazar began her singing career at the Marinskiy Theater in St. Petersburg (Petrograd), Russia, in Il Pagliacci by Leoncavallo [3] and found further success in Monte Carlo and Milan. She moved to the United States during World War I, a member of the Boston National Opera Company[4] and a client of the Bel Canto Music Bureau.[5] She sued her lover, baritone Georges Baklanoff, for an assault while they were on a Pacific Coast tour in 1917.[6] They later reached a settlement.[7] Amazar appeared in three silent films, The Volcano (1919), As a Man Thinks (1919),[8] and L'Aviateur Masqué (1922). She had a cabaret act in Paris in 1920.[9]
In 1917 she appeared in Ziegfeld's Follies of 1917.[10] In 1925, Amazar was in the cast of another revue, Sinners of 1925, in New York.[11] In 1927 and 1928, she was in the cast of Blossom Time, an operetta based loosely on the life of composer Franz Schubert.[12] [13]
"Cheesecake"
Amazar was known for wearing short skirts and high heels,[14] and is often mentioned in connection with the term "cheesecake". As the story goes,[15] in 1915, Amazar raised her skirt to show some of her bare leg for a photograph.[16] The photographer was George Miller. Miller's editor liked the image enough to declare it "better than cheesecake," and the word "cheesecake" became a term for photographs of attractive young women baring some skin.[17]
Personal life
Elvira Amazar was involved with a married colleague, George Baklanoff, for several years.[18] (His wife and children lived in Russia.) Her claims that he deceived her into traveling with him[19] led to their arrests in Chicago, under the Mann Act, in 1920.[20] [21] The couple left for Paris soon after they were charged;[22] Baklanoff was allowed to re-enter the United States in 1921,[23] and the deportation orders were dropped by 1922.[24] She became a citizen of the United States in 1929.[25]
She had a daughter, Tatiana Amazar (1911-1979), born in Russia, who became a cookbook author and food editor.[26] Elvira Amazar died in New York City in 1971, in her seventies.[27]
External links
Notes and References
- https://books.google.com/books?id=wew6AQAAMAAJ&dq=Minna%20Jovelli&pg=RA12-PA26 "Elvira Amazar, Lyric Soprano"
- https://books.google.com/books?id=Gk80AQAAMAAJ&dq=Elvira+Amazar&pg=RA19-PA21 "Elvira Amazar to Appear in Concert Here This Season"
- Fedoroff family archive
- "Russian Operas to be Sung Here" (September 14, 1916): 5. via ProQuest
- https://books.google.com/books?id=wew6AQAAMAAJ&q=Amazar&pg=RA18-PA38 "Elvira Amazar Engagements; Bel Canto Bureau Items"
- https://books.google.com/books?id=Gk80AQAAMAAJ&dq=Elvira+Amazar&pg=RA1-PR50 "Russian Soprano Sues Baritone for $25,000, Alleging Assault"
- https://books.google.com/books?id=Gk80AQAAMAAJ&dq=Elvira+Amazar&pg=RA1-PA15 "Elvira Amazar Withdraws Suit Against George Baklanoff"
- Alan Gevinson, Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960 (University of California Press 1999): 55.
- Simon Morrison, Lina and Serge: The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev (HMH 2013): 57-60.
- "The 'Follies of 1917' Are Coming to Town" New York Times (June 10, 1917): 79. via ProQuest
- "Theatrical Notes" New York Times (February 16, 1925): 24. via ProQuest
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19693100/blossom_time_1928/ "Majestic Theatre"
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19694416/amazar_1927/ "Fitting Exponent of Vixenish Prima Donna Promised in 'Blossom Time'"
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19694128/amazar_1915/ "Wear 'em 9 Inches Above Ground, Girls!"
- Vic Timoner, "Harbor Lights" Brooklyn Daily Eagle (January 13, 1954): 21. via Newspapers.com
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19689501/amazar_1915/ "Women Here Do Not Know Makeup Art"
- Tracey Owens Patton, Sally M. Schedlock, Gender, Whiteness, and Power in Rodeo: Breaking Away from the Ties of Sexism and Racism (Lexington Books 2012): 99.
- https://books.google.com/books?id=y-w6AQAAMAAJ&dq=Elvira+Amazar&pg=RA2-PA8 "The Baklanoff-Amazar Affair"
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19689255/amazar_1920/ "Music's Charms Fail"
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19684003/elvira_amazar_1920/ "Ha! Artistic Temperament and Cruel Laws Clash Again"
- "Mlle. Amazar Arrested" New York Times (January 8, 1920): 22. via ProQuest
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19689428/amazar_1920/ "Off for Paris, but not Together"
- "Baklanoff May Re-Enter" New York Times (October 6, 1921): 28. via ProQuest
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19689979/amazar_1922/ "Deportation of Baklanoff Is Dropped by U. S."
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19694586/amazar_1929/ "Actress is Now American Citizen"
- https://www.newspapers.com/clip/19692840/tatiana_nichols_1979/ "Tatiana Nichols, 68, Dies; Food Authority, Musician"
- "Deaths" New York Times (February 9, 1971): 42. via ProQuest
