page_title: Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
section_title: Cultural references
hierarchical_section_title: Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. / Cultural references
caption_attribution_description: English: Poster for the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld
context_page_description: Florenz Edward Ziegfeld Jr. was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies, inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat. He was known as the "glorifier of the American girl". Ziegfeld is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
context_section_description: In 1936 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released a semi-biographical film extravaganza, The Great Ziegfeld, starring William Powell. He was personally chosen for the role by Billie Burke, who felt that while Powell did not physically resemble her late husband, he possessed the right manner. "What I tried to do primarily was to get across the essential spirit of the man", Powell later said, "his love for show business, his exquisite taste, his admiration for the beauty of women. He was financially impractical but aesthetically impeccable—a genius in his chosen field." Nominated for seven Academy Awards, The Great Ziegfeld received Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress (Luise Rainer as Anna Held), and Best Dance Direction (Seymour Felix), for the astonishingly opulent production number, "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody"—one of the most famous musical sequences ever filmed. It was MGM's most expensive production since Ben-Hur (1925), and it made back twice its cost.
  Released by MGM ten years later, Ziegfeld Follies (1946) was an all-star revue that includes Powell in a cameo role as Ziegfeld. A 1978 NBC-television film, Ziegfeld: The Man and His Women, stars Paul Shenar as Ziegfeld. Directed by Buzz Kulik, the three-hour biopic was nominated for seven Emmy Awards and received the award for Outstanding Cinematography (Gerald Finnerman).
  Ziegfeld appears as a character in a number of films:
  The Jolson Story (1946), played by Eddie Kane
  I'll See You in My Dreams (1951), played by William Forrest
  The Story of Will Rogers (1952), played by William Forrest
  The I Don't Care Girl (1953), played by Wilton Graff
  The Eddie Cantor Story (1953), played by William Forrest
  The Helen Morgan Story (1957), played by Walter Woolf King
  Funny Girl (1968), played by Walter Pidgeon; played by Roger DeKoven in the original Broadway stage production
  W. C. Fields and Me (1976), played by Paul Stewart
caption: Poster for The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
exif: {}