IPARA APAR@ ` yTEXT ` kMorgan, Helen1900╨1941singerBorn in Danville, Illinois, on August 2, 1900, Helen Riggins took the name Morgan in her childhood when her divorced mother remarried. She grew up in Danville and later in Chicago, and after leaving high school about 1918 she held a series of jobs in factories and stores. Various conflicting accounts of her entry into show business survive, but she apparently obtained some voice training, sang in speakeasies, and in 1920 got a job in the chorus of Florenz Ziegfeld╒s Sally. More nightclub singing in Chicago and perhaps a beauty contest in Montreal led to a small role in George White╒s Scandals in 1925. In that year she had an engagement at Billy Rose╒s Backstage Club, where the crowded conditions obliged her to perch on her accompanist╒s piano, an informal touch that soon became a trademark. On Broadway Morgan appeared in Americana, in which she sat on a piano and stopped the show with ╥Nobody Wants Me,╙ 1926, Grand Guignol, 1927, and Jerome Kern╒s and Oscar Hammerstein╒s Show Boat which opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre in December 1927 and in which she was a sensation singing ╥Bill╙ and ╥Can╒t Help Lovin╒ Dat Man.╙ In the Kern╨Hammerstein Sweet Adeline, 1929, she starred and sang ╥Don╒t Ever Leave Me╙ and ╥Why Was I Born?╙ Later shows, less successful, included The Ziegfeld Follies of 1931, Memory, 1934, George White╒s Scandals of 1936, and A Night at the Moulin Rouge, 1939. She also appeared in a number of motion pictures, including Applause, 1929, Glorifying the American Girl, 1930, Roadhouse Nights, 1930 Marie Galante, 1934, Street Music, 1935, Go into Your Dance, 1935, Frankie and Johnnie, 1935, and Show Boat, 1936. Morgan╒s main fame, however, was as a club singer. Her small, pale appearance and her sweet, artless, somewhat thin, and blues-tinged voice made her the ideal performer of the new sort of popular song that was being written in the 1920s and 1930s: ironic, sometimes bitter, distinctly urban, and full of the disappointment, loneliness, and joyless hedonism that filled the smoky, boozy clubs that were seemingly her natural habitat. In her personal life she was unlucky in love, alcoholic, and generous to a fault. She died in Chicago on October 8, 1941.Movie: From the 1929 movie ╥Glorifying the American Girl,╙ directed by Millard Webb. (This is the only movie produced by legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld.) ªstyl ` . ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ !I ∙ !I ■ !I c !I z !I H 5¬ I !I h !I q !I ┬ !I ╧ !I !I
!I ½ !I ╕ !I ( !I < !I F !I L !I T !I k !I y !I ö !I ┘ !I ß !I Θ !I !I !I !I $ !I 1 !I 8 !I E !I L !I _ !I g !I z !I å !I Å !I Ö 5¬ Ü !I ╔ 5¬ ╦ !I link `
