Ziegfeld Cinema Corporation
At the end of the year in 1920, around the time Monroe-native Edith May Leuenberger had her traumatic Ziegfeld Follies experience, Flo Ziegfeld’s brother William K. Ziegfeld incorporated his own film company. “Ziegfeld Cinema Corporation” represented a concern that William K. had dabbled in since around 1916, but he chose not to pursue outside funding for it until 1920. Today I’m going to look at this firm, and the career of William K., because of the light it shines on the experiences of Edith May, William Wesley Young and less directly Leon Goetz.
The incorporation of Ziegfeld Cinema came on the back of a failed attempt by William K. to produce a movie in El Paso, TX. I was unable to find any information on the brokers “McNulty & Cuneo” of Boston, which bodes poorly for the integrity of Ziegfeld’s firm. Editors at United States Investor had reservations about “Ziegfeld Cinema Corporation” for other reasons:
United States Investor, April 16th, 1921. Part I/3
United States Investor, April 16th, 1921. Part 2/3
United States Investor, April 16th, 1921. Part 3/3
It seems that Flo and his friends had an equally dim view of brother William: the second half of Edith May’s beauty contest prize was a starring role in a film made by another start-up, the “Mayflower Film Corporation”. (The first half was a six week contract at the Follies.) I find it interesting that this Mayflower firm, rather than Ziegfeld’s brother’s enterprise, benefited from the contest. Mayflower never got of the ground; William Ziegfeld’s company fared little better. Given the quality of the Ziegfelds’ contacts, and Flo Ziegfeld’s interest in developing starlets, this is quite remarkable— why wasn’t Ziegfeld Cinema Corporation successful?
I suspect this failure has its roots in the character of William K. Ziegfeld; the volatile post-WWI political climate; and the genesis of the Ziegfeld family in the United States. William K. and Florenz were the sons of Dr. Florence Ziegfeld Sr., the owner of a music school in Chicago. Note how Dr. Ziegfeld’s “Florence” is the English version, while his eldest son’s “Florenz” reflects Dr. Ziegfeld’s German-speaking heritage. Florenz was born in Chicago; while Florence was born in Jever in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg of the German Empire. Dr. Ziegfeld earned a degree at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music and then in 1867 immigrated to Chicago, where he quickly established an internationally-renowned college of music, according to a website run by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology.
Dr. Ziegfeld’s religious/ethnic background is debated: “Ziegfeld’s father was a German Lutheran and his mother was a French Catholic; he himself was baptized Catholic. However, presumably because of his name and profession, he was often mistaken for being Jewish.” Researchers like author Dennis Grunes are adamant that the Ziegfelds were Jewish, and that they downplayed their religion for political reasons. All historians agree that Flo Ziegfeld was generous to Jewish charities and Zionist causes. Roman Catholicism would have been typical of the German immigrant milieu in which Ziegfeld was brought up.
If this ethnic/religious confusion represents a superficial conversion to Lutheranism (the state religion of the German Empire) by Dr. Ziegfeld or his ancestors, it throws light on Dr. Ziegfeld’s activities in Chicago because such conversions were typically made by people who sought positions of trust inside the imperial power apparatus.
Certainly Hapsburg intelligence services were interested in the Central United States during the Civil War period (1860-65). Austro-Hungarian agent provocateur Heinrich Börnstein, a publisher who stoked anti-Catholic tensions out of St. Louis, worked for President Lincoln running a detainment/concentration camp for civilians in Missouri during the hostilities. On his return to Vienna, Börnstein was given lease of the Theater in der Josefstadt, was a censor for the Stadttheater, and had a street in the Strebersdorf district of the city named after him.
Dr. Ziegfeld had remarkable connections for a recent immigrant to the White City: the board of his musical college was graced by the same Honorable Richard Stanley Tuthill whose Chicago court judged in favor of Col. Fabyan during Col. Fabyan’s and Col. William Selig’s 1916 anti-British provokatsiya effort around Elizabeth Wells Gallup’s Baconian Cipher theories. Read more about that in Imperial German “Active Measures” and the Founding of the NSA.
All these remarkable achievements aside, history remembers Dr. Ziegfeld for his cooperation with Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore. Gilmore was the US military’s “bandmaster general” during the Civil War and oversaw important propaganda efforts that followed the conflict. He had immigrated to the USA from Ireland at the politically tumultuous time of 1848. Gilmore was quickly absorbed into the Federal (Northern) patronage system; he is famous for his tune “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again.” In the aftermath of the war, Gilmore was tasked with organizing “soft power” events to promote the victorious Yankee cause at home and in Europe. These propaganda events are where Dr. Ziegfeld hit his stride: “In 1872, one year after the Franco-German war, he [Dr. Ziegfeld] assembled the world’s most famous military bands from France, Germany, and Britain at the Boston peace jubilee.” Dr. Ziegfeld did this under the celebrated patronage of Gilmore.
Dr. Ziegfeld’s youngest son William K. Ziegfeld enters the print record in 1901 with an (expensive!) self-published magazine, The Philharmonic, which promoted his father’s role in this 1872 Boston Peace Jubilee. Dr. Ziegfeld was Gilmore’s point man on the event, as prominent German talent in Berlin and Vienna wanted nothing to do with the Bostonian agenda. Dr. Ziegfeld was sent to Austria to lean on Johann Strauss II and politick with Chancellor Bismark in order to force the German Emperor to lend his famous Royal Prussian Kaiser Franz Grenadier Band to Boston. From William K.’s magazine:
Excerpt from W. K. Ziegfeld’s The Philharmonic, January 1901. This text comes from a serialized set of reminisces from Dr. Ziegfeld, titled “The Peace Jubilee 1872: Dr. Ziegfeld’s Memories”.
Judging by Dr. Ziegfeld’s “Memories”, it seems that no one involved in music on the Prussian General Staff would refuse him an audience and that Prince Bismark worked behind the scenes to conjure the Emperor’s acceptance of Dr. Ziegfeld’s (or the U.S. Army’s) demands. (Readers will remember that in 1907 Bismark’s cooperation with press magnate William Harden came to fruition when Harden outted the pacifist “spiritualist/homosexual camarilla” leader Prince Philipp Eulenburg, removing the anti-war influence on Kaiser Willhelm II. Bismark had lost power when Prince Eulenburg’s star rose.)
1901, however, was a long time after 1872 and William K. Ziegfeld’s The Philharmonic promoted the English musical scene, which could be considered a competitor to that of the German. Dr. Ziegfeld’s 1901 reminisces about his German musical experience in 1872 were mostly derogatory to Johann Strauss II and the various military leaders he (claims to have) bullied, for instance:
The Philharmonic, January 1901. Dr. Ziegfeld’s reminisces of his 1872 Boston Peace Jubilee. 1/2
The Philharmonic, January 1901. Dr. Ziegfeld’s reminisces of his 1872 Boston Peace Jubilee. 2/2
The most just evaluation of Dr. Ziegfeld’s character is that he bent with the prevailing winds and probably belonged to a group of men who worked for the highest bidder.
Apart from the The Philharmonic, William K.’s career prior to 1920 is mysterious, whereas his brother Flo’s was extremely public. As Dr. Ziegfeld’s most outwardly successful son, Flo gained prominence combing Europe for performers who his father could showcase in America. Flo branched off into increasingly low-brow acts, for example promoting strongman Eugene Sandow. He then went to Europe and recruited Anna Held from a "French" burlesque show (German Economics Ministry):
Sandow’s act combined physical prowess with the refinement of classical art. His poses recalled those of Greek statues, but his near nudity was always an important part of his attractiveness to audiences. In a way, Ziegfeld began to learn how to sell “sex” to a Victorian era audience, pushing boundaries of the accepted yet legitimizing possible transgressions with references to classical style, artistic refinement, or European extravagance.
Eugene Sandow, from the Wellcome Collection.
As late as 1904, the Washington Post reported that “Mr. Ziegfeld has gone to Europe, where he will keep his eyes open for any novelties that may add to the gayety of New Yorkers during the coming season.”[33] Such nods to European culture—advertising Anna Held, a woman of Jewish and working-class origin, as the “star of Paris”—were ambiguous, however, as they did not imply traditional bourgeois high culture, but rather a more undefined allure of metropolitan refinement.
Ziegfeld’s wife, Anna Held. From the Harvard Theater Collection.
Ziegfeld and Held enjoyed one of the strange, unofficial marriages that were so often exploited in the international organized prostitution scene. (International musical acts were often used as cover for human trafficking.) It was the money from exploiting Held that gave Ziegfeld the first seed capital he needed to start the Follies in 1907, other known investors over the years were William A. Brady, “prize fight promoter and theatrical hustler,”— the same William A Brady who became President Wilson’s anti-pornography film czar; “European” burlesque promoter Joseph Weber; Marc Klaw and Abraham Lincoln Erlanger; Charles Dillingham; William Randolph Hearst and Arthur Brisbane; and New York gangster Arthur Flegenheimer, also known as “Dutch Schultz”.
While Flo was building his Follies Empire, William K. was developing an interest in film much like Sint Millard. (Millard was the Chicago-based pornographer who conned Leon Goetz out of the eye-watering sum of $25,000 through their U.S. Health Films company.) Here’s a Washington D. C. report on a 1916 movie-star swindle that caught up to William K. in NYC:
The Sunday Star, Washington D.C. March 26th, 1916.
And another Millardesque con-job in El Paso shortly thereafter:
El Paso Morning Times, June 13th 1917. A vigilance committee was typically a group of citizens entrusted by the community to maintain law and order, and resolve legal disputes, where more formal systems for doing this had not yet been established.
William K.’s angle was to sell El Paso city fathers on a movie production of “Still Jim” that appears never to have been produced. It was after this bust that William K. looked to Boston for investors.
El Paso Morning Times, July 23rd 1917. Doris Darat is pictured.
William K. did produce at least one film, however: “The Black Panther’s Cub”. Naturally, this film was a variant on the White Slave Trade film tradition that helped develop early film’s “porn problem”. A young girl is pressured into restarting her prostitute mother’s bordello by a male authority figure “Earle Foxe”— Film Daily’s synopsis below. The situation bears resemblance to the emotional manipulation tactics used by pimps who were active in international prostitution, as described by author Charles van Onselen in “The Fox and the Flies”.
Wid’s Film Daily, February 20th, 1912. This film was Florence Reed’s last.
As readers can see from the showing notice below, this particular piece of pornography got the attention of some well-placed investors around Boston and even Harvard University. Foreign rights to the film were sold before domestic rights, the latter only being sold after extensive editing. (Remember Europeans’ perceptions of US films being as pornographic?):
Wid’s Film Daily, January 27th 1921.
Wid’s Film Daily, June 2nd, 1921. Excerpt from column summarizing newspaper reviews.
“The Black Panther’s Cub” hit on tropes that would become staples in Hollywood during the 1920s. One of Flo Ziegfeld’s key partners was William Randolph Hearst, who also lent his media empire to promoting Lady Duff Gordon (LDG). LDG’s romance-author sister, Elinor Glyn, was famous for portraying sexually voracious, older heroines and relishing big cats. Glyn described the type of sex appeal she glorified— “It”— using ‘big cat’ metaphors, much like Sigmund Freud used to describe his concept of narcissism. The big cat/having-“it” trope was popular throughout the 1920s and found its most potent expression in the Elinor Glyn/Clara Bow/LDG film “The It Girl” (1927). William K. could, therefore, be considered a little ahead of Hollywood’s curve.
Florence Reed in a December 1920 photo for “The Black Panther’s Cub” in which she played both the mother and the daughter. “Black Panther” was the mother’s working name in a bordello she ran. Florence Reed’s costume represents bordello chic, circa 1920.
Promotional Poster for “The Black Panther’s Cub”, 1921.
“The Black Panther’s Cub” had all the advantages that a movie could hope for: opening on Times Square, a Broadway run, exceptional promotional opportunities and connected investors’ ears. To date, I’ve found no other films made by the Ziegfeld Cinema Corp. It’s possible that the film’s commercial advantages were political disadvantages, as Ziegfeld’s friends in government were busy making a show of their disdain for pornography at this time. William K.’s career took an exceptionally interesting turn, however. On the heels of his cinema failure, he organized a photography expedition to Soviet Russia.
The US government had broken off diplomatic relations with Russia in 1917, though many powerful people were unhappy with this break. “Humanitarian Cult” luminaries were at the forefront of changing this situation when Franklin Roosevelt was elected to office in 1933. From the US State Dept.’s official history:
President Roosevelt decided to approach the Soviets in October 1933 through two personal intermediaries: Henry Morgenthau (then head of the Farm Credit Administration and Acting Secretary of the Treasury) and William C. Bullitt (a former diplomat who, as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of State, was informally serving as one of Roosevelt’s chief foreign policy advisers).
[William Christian Bullitt was analyzed by Sigmund Freud in Vienna in the 1920s and wrote a book with Freud about the psychology of Woodrow Wilson, in which the authors refer to the president as “Little Tommy”.]
The seeds for this foreign policy change were sown in the early 1920s. With the threat of Imperial Germany vanquished, New York City potentates returned to the subject of socialism and pacifism. This was a time when, in the US and UK at least, socialist ideas were all the rage among privileged young people. In addition, politically-savvy men like Henry Morgenthau advocated for women’s emancipation. It appears that William K. found an angle to work here too, as he organized a photographic expedition to the USSR to document the life of William Dudley "Big Bill" Haywood, under the auspices of the premiere news photography agency, Underwood & Underwood. The expedition happened sometime in late 1922.
W. D. Haywood was a labor activist who served on the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America; he advocated violence yet remained committed to a pacifist foreign policy, even when like-minded Mischa Appelbaum sold out to the robber barons. Haywood fled to the Soviet Union to avoid imprisonment for his anti-war activities in 1918. Many of Ziegfeld’s pictures from his Russian Expedition were reprinted in railway union periodicals.
The Richmond Palladium, October 18th, 1922.
Railway Maintenance of Way Employee’s Journal, January 1923.
Railway Maintenance of Way Employee’s Journal, January 1923.
Railway Maintenance of Way Employee’s Journal, January 1923.
Rhyme from The Railroad Trainman, August 1922.
The Railway Trainman, December 1922.
The Railroad Trainman, December 1922.
What does it take to go from being a failed movie executive to an international photographer in one of the most politically sensitive places in the world? Not much, if you come from a family like the Ziegfelds.
