Brice Portrayals
Although the names of the principal characters were changed, the plot of the 1939 film Rose of Washington Square, in which the principal characters were portrayed by Tyrone Power and Alice Faye, was inspired heavily by Brice's marriage and career, to the extent it borrowed its title from a tune she performed in the Follies and included "My Man." She sued 20th Century Fox for invasion of privacy and won the case. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was forced to delete several production numbers closely associated with the star.
Barbra Streisand starred as Brice in the 1964 Broadway musical Funny Girl, which centered on Brice's rise to fame and troubled relationship with Arnstein. In 1968, Streisand won an Academy Award for Best Actress for reprising her role in the film version (sharing the Oscar with Katharine Hepburn, for The Lion in Winter, in the Academy's only tie vote for Best Actress in its history). The 1975 sequel Funny Lady focused on Brice's turbulent relationship with impresario Billy Rose and was as highly fictionalized as the original. Streisand also recorded the Brice songs "My Man," "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You (Than Happy with Somebody Else)" and "Second Hand Rose," which became a Top 40 hit.
Funny Girl, and its sequel Funny Lady, took liberties with the events of Brice's life. They make no mention of Brice's first husband at all, and suggest that Arnstein turned to crime because his pride would not allow him to live off Fanny, and that he was wanted by the police for selling phony bonds. In reality, however, Arnstein sponged off Brice even before their marriage and was eventually named as a member of a gang that stole $5 million worth of Wall Street securities. Instead of turning himself in, as in the movie, Arnstein went into hiding. When he finally surrendered, he did not plead guilty as he did in the movie, but fought the charges for four years, taking a toll on his wife's finances. It is thought that Ray Stark, the producer of the play and both movies and Brice's son-in-law, changed Arnstein's story in order to avoid a lawsuit, as Arnstein was still alive at the time. Brice's son William was not mentioned in the play or movies by mutual agreement; other changes – such as the portrayal of Brice's mother as living in modest means rather than well-off or the omission of Brice's first husband – may have been done in the interest of compelling storytelling.
In 2010, One Night with Fanny Brice, a one-woman show about Brice, written and directed by Chip Deffaa and starring Kimberly Faye Greenberg, premiered in New Jersey. The cast album, on the Original Cast label (OC-3831), was released in September 2010. The next production of the show, by the American Century Theatre Co. of Arlington, Virginia, starring Esther Covington, is slated to open in November 2010, directed by Ellen Dempsey.
The 1946 Warner Bros. cartoon Quentin Quail features a character based on Brice's characterization of Baby Snooks.
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Famous quotes containing the words brice and/or portrayals:
“Your audience gives you everything you need. They tell you. There is no director who can direct you like an audience.”
—Fanny Brice (1891–1951)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)