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Florenz
Ziegfeld, Jr., the son of a prominent Chicago music professor, has been
reared to culture and taste, but prefers working in show business to a music
conservatory. After successfully promoting a strongman named Sandow on
a national tour, Flo sails for Europe after a stunt to have Sandow fight a
ferocious lion backfires when the lion falls asleep on stage. On the
boat to Europe, Flo runs into his old friend and rival Jack Billings, who
doesn't want Flo to know that he is going to London to sign a new star,
French singer Anna Held.
After having lost all his money in Monte Carlo,
Flo decides to go to London himself and soon learns about Anna. With
money that Billings gives him to leave for home, Flo buys orchids for Anna
and charms her into signing a contract with him, even though he admits that
he is broke. At first Anna, who has fallen in love with Flo, is not
the sensation that he had predicted, but after a publicity stunt in which it
is reported that Anna bathes everyday in milk to keep her complexion lovely,
she becomes one of the biggest stars on Broadway.
After Anna and Flo marry, he continues to look
for new and bigger ideas for shows, hurting the high-strung Anna, who only
needs him to make her happy. His next show is a smash hit, the first
of the Ziegfeld Follies, featuring hundreds of beautiful women whom
Flo, an admirer of female beauty, calls his "Glorified Girls." One of
the girls, Audrey Dane, is an opportunistic young woman in whom Flo takes a
personal interest. Her drinking keeps her from being a big success on
Broadway and soon alienates Flo, but not before Anna sees Audrey kissing
him. Though Flo loves Anna and tries to explain, she leaves him and
files for divorce.
Sobered after the breakup of his marriage, Flo
loses interest in women until he sees Broadway star Billie Burke at a party
and is immediately attracted to her. Her producer doesn't want her to
see Flo, but they court secretly and are soon married. The day after
they marry, a heart-broken and ill Anna telephones Flo to congratulate him.
T hough she feigns cheerfulness on the phone, later she admits to her maid
that she only divorced Flo because she thought it would make him come back
to her.
Several years later, after repeated Broadway
successes, Flo is very happy with Billie and their little daughter Patricia,
but his extravagances, both on stage and in his personal life, bring him
constant financial problems. Although he has been broke before, he
begins to despair when he overhears some men in a barbershop say he will
never have another hit. To prove them wrong, he vows to have four hits
running simultaneously on Broadway, and with Billie's encouragement, and an
advance from Billings, he is able to produce four successful shows in the
same season.
His financial worries appear to be over, until
the stock market crashes in 1929. Although he had never invested in
the market previously, concern for financial security made him buy stock on
margin and he is wiped out, as is Billings. Now old and ill, Flo looks
forward to starting new shows with his old stars, while Billie is forced to
go back to the stage to support them. After a visit from Billings, who
pretends to have money and encourages Flo to plan a new show, Flo dies,
dreaming of bigger sets and higher stairs for production numbers in a new
show. |
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