page_title: Anna Held
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Anna Held / Career / Early years
caption_attribution_description: English: Anna Held, by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, ca. 1908.
context_page_description: Anna Held was a Polish-born stage performer and singer on Broadway. While appearing in London, she was spotted by impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, who brought her to America as his common-law wife. Her fame seems to have owed more to Ziegfeld’s promotional flair than to any intrinsic talent, and she did not gain critical acclaim. But her uninhibited style inspired the long-running series of popular revues, the Ziegfeld Follies.
context_section_description: Her vivacious and animated personality proved popular, and her career as a stage performer began to gain momentum. She was soon known for her risqué songs, flirtatious nature and willingness to show her legs on stage. Around this time, she became the wife of a much-older Uruguayan playboy, Maximo Carrera, with whom she had a daughter, Lianne (1895–1988), shortly after their 1894 marriage, and who became an actress and producer, sometimes billed as Anna Held Jr.
  Touring through Europe, Held was appearing in London in 1896 when she met Florenz Ziegfeld. Ziegfeld asked her to return to New York City with him and she agreed. He set about creating a wave of public interest in her, by feeding stories about her to the American press, such as her having had ribs surgically removed. By the time Held and Ziegfeld arrived in New York, she was already the subject of intense public speculation. When she finally performed (in a revival of A Parlor Match), the critics were dismissive of her, but the public liked her.
caption: Portrait of Anna Held around 1908, by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger
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