Al Jolson

FLASHBACK

Vanity Fair, December 1928

He looks like Steve Martin, but Asa Yoelson, a.k.a. Al Jolson (1886-1950)—captured out of blackface by Steichen—was more a mammy's boy than a wild and crazy guy. Mother love oozed out of The Jazz Singer, the 1927 mirror-image movie of a cantor's son who hits the music halls. And out of the bionic biopic, The Jolson Story (1946). What they didn't tell you about was his overweening egomania. In 1916 he paid his minstrel brother, Harry, twenty-five dollars a week not to perform and tarnish the Jolson name. He demanded that the Shubert brothers fire the Ponselle sisters from a Broadway show when Rosa's voice rattled his confidence. He had a long-running feud with another Cantor, Eddie. And he kissed his toot-toottootsie, Ruby Keeler, good-bye after her star was born. This month, Overlook Press publishes Can't Help Singin', a history of the Hollywood musical that Jolson kicked off.