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A Golden Age
A Playbill listing from 1928, the climax of Broadway's most production-packed decade.

The1920s were Broadway's busiest years, with as many as fifty new musicals opening in a single season. Record numbers of people forked over up to $3.50 a seat. It was also a decade of extraordinary artistic development in the musical theatre.

. . . the 1920s as a whole saw the the form so refine and transform itself that, by the decade's finish, the "Tee-Oodle-Um-Bum-Bo" chorus line, the Bubble Dances, the nineteenth-century comedy, and the unmotivated star shot would be virtually extinct, unknown to the better writers and unpopular even with second raters.
- Ethan Mordden, Make Believe: The Broadway Musical in the 1920s (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997), p. 4.

In 1924, ASCAP won a long battle to give American composers creative control over their scores. As unauthorized interpolations by other composers became a thing of the past, the musical began to grow in ways that no one could have envisioned. Several historians suggest that a "golden age" of the American musical began in September 1925, when four hits opened within a space of seven days –

– Vincent Youmans & Irving Caesar's No, No Nanette (321 perfs), the most lasting musical comedy hit of the decade.
– Rudolf Friml's romantic operetta The Vagabond King (511 perfs), featured matinee idol Dennis King as a common thief who squelches a rebellion against the King Louis XI of France.
– Jerome Kern, Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II's Sunny (517 perfs), starred popular actress Marilyn Miller (more on this show below).
– Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's Dearest Enemy (286 perfs), a musical comedy about a romance between a patriotic New York girl and a British officer during the American Revolution.

These shows were written by craftsmen who took musical theatre seriously, trying to provide quality entertainment and make a profit at the same time. This approach kept the musical theatre booming right through the decade. Among the hundreds of musical comedies that flooded Broadway in the early 1920s, one new star emerged to dominate the decade -- Marilyn Miller.

Sally and Marilyn Miller
Marilyn Miller in her biggest hit, Sally.

When producer Florenz Ziegfeld decided to build a hit, he spared no expense, especially when showcasing his favorite star (and sometime mistress) Marilyn Miller. A so-so singer adept at both ballet and tap, Miller's enchanting dancing persona made her Broadway's top female musical star of the 1920s. 

Her longest running success was Sally (1920 - 570), the story of a poor dishwasher who rises to fame as a ballerina. Ziegfeld commissioned a Jerome Kern score (including "Look for the Silver Lining"), throwing in a Victor Herbert ballet for good measure. Follies veteran Leon Errol handled the comedy, but the triumph was Miller's. She played the show on Broadway for two years, toured for a third and filmed an early sound version in 1929. Surviving prints give a hint of Miller's appeal -- her singing and acting border on the awkward, but when she dances, she is irresistible. She went on to star in two more 1920s hits –

– Sunny (1925 - 517) starred Miller as a circus bareback rider who loves and (eventually) marries a millionaire. The score, which included the hit "Who?," was the first of several collaborations between Jerome Kern and lyricists Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. A 1926 London version starring Binnie Hale and Jack Buchanan ran for 363 performances, reinforcing Kern's position as the first American composer whose shows found equal acceptance in Britain and the USA.

– Rosalie (1928 - 327) had Miller playing a European princess who loves a dashing West Point flyer. Her royal father (played by Frank Morgan) abdicates so his beloved daughter can marry a commoner. The operetta-style score featured melodies by Sigmund Romberg and George Gershwin, including the Gershwin hit "How Long Has This Been Going On?" 

The often waspish critic Alexander Woollcott described how Miller's Rosalie "star entrance" was staged at the New Amsterdam Theatre --

"There comes a time once in every two or three years when the vast stage of that playhouse begins to show signs of a deep and familiar agitation. Down in the orchestra pit the violins chitter with excitement and the brasses blare. The spotlight turns white with expectation. Fifty beautiful girls in simple peasant costumes of satin and chiffon rush pell-mell onto the stage, all squealing simple peasant outcries of "Here she comes!" Fifty hussars in fatigue uniforms of ivory white and tomato bisque march on in columns of four and kneel to express an emotion too strong for words. The lights swing to the gateway at the back and settle there. The house holds its breath, and on walks Marilyn Miller."
- Review in The World, as quoted in Cecil Smith's Musical Comedy in America (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1950), p. 268.

The sister-brother team of Adele and Fred Astaire surround Marilyn Miller in this publicity photo for the musical Smiles.  They were three of Broadway's top stars in the 1920s.

Charming as Miller was on stage, her volatile temper made her difficult to work with, and she had a gift for using colorful language. Patricia Ziegfeld recalls the day her father took her to a matinee performance of Sally. During the show, the little five year old thought Miller "seemed to be floating over the stage like a thistledown angel," but a backstage visit proved to be an eye opener. (Please pardon the edits - this is a family friendly site) –

Miss Miller was at her dressing table putting cold cream on her face. She was still in the bugle-bead and diamante costume that she had worn in the last act. "Hello, Marilyn," Daddy said. "May we come in?"

"Hello, you lousy son of a b****," Miss Miller said. "Hello, you no-good b**t**d . . . "

"What seems to be the the trouble, Marilyn dear?" Daddy asked her. "Is something bothering you?"

"You g*d*m well know what's bothering me," Miss Miller said. "It's this piece of crap you call a costume. I've told you a thousand times it weighs a ton, and as far as I'm concerned you can take it and shove – " 
-Patricia Ziegfeld, The Ziegfeld's Girl. (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1964) pp. 183-184.

Miller co-starred with Adele and Fred Astaire in Ziegfeld's unsuccessful musical comedy Smiles (1930 - 63). After a triumphant appearance in Irving Berlin's hit revue As Thousands Cheer (1933 - 400), Miller did not return to the stage as her tempestuous marriage and chronic health problems drove her into premature retirement. Three years later, she died at age 37 of a sinus infection. It is fair to say Miller was irreplaceable, since all of her hits have proven unrevivable without her.

No, No, Nanette
The original sheet music cover for No, No, Nanette (1925), which played at The Globe Theatre (now known as the Lunt- Fontanne).

Few musicals have easy gestations, but even fewer have as difficult a time as No, No, Nanette (1925 - 321). When its first pre-Broadway tour stumbled in 1924, the producers brought in new stars, a new script and new songs -- in essence, creating a new show. Composer Vincent Youmans and lyricists Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach offered a hit-drenched score that included "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy." Harbach and co-librettist Frank Mandel turned this slight story into a charming laugh fest, highlighted by Youmans' sparkling melodies. The lighthearted coming of age plot centered on a fun-loving Manhattan heiress who gives her fiancé the cold shoulder and runs off to (gasp!) Atlantic City for a weekend. By the final curtain, Nanette and her man are reunited, and her bible publishing father mends his philandering ways.

Nanette was such a hit in Chicago that it stayed there for more than a year. By the time Broadway saw the show, a successful London production was already running. Translated into various languages, it enjoyed international success through the end of the decade. After three mediocre screen adaptations, Nanette began to fade into obscurity. Then in 1971, a nostalgic Broadway revival revamped the book, left most of the score intact and electrified audiences with several sensational dance sequences. In this version, it has become the most frequently performed musical comedy of the 1920s.

The 1920s also brought a slew of revues and remarkable new composers. For more on them . . .