This was a wonderful read and I truly enjoyed every page. Hanson did an amazing job with the information he was able to dig up with this biography of Lillian Lorraine (and various other Follies cameos).

A absolute must-have for anyone interested in Ziegfeld. And kudos to Hanson for finding the living ladies of the Follies and letting them relive and revive their history for us who can only experience it through books like these. ( )

A fascinating read about an otherwise long-forgotten Broadway actress who starred in many of the Ziegfeld Follies shows. I loved all of the photographs, and the story of Lillian's life was well told. I would have preferred a bit more of a background of the Broadway scene at the time, and more information about Flo Ziegfeld's life and history, which was not really covered in any detail. ( )

This unusual book was a win from LibraryThing, and I enjoyed it immensely. Nils Hanson's mother was hired back in the 1920s to be a sort of companion to Lillian Lorraine but mostly to rein in Lorraine's wilder tendencies. Hanson actually met the Ziegfeld girl as a boy. Despite that, he wasn't really interested in his mother's connection with the Ziegfeld Follies until after her death when he found a small trunk in her attic full of memorabilia from those days. His parents had believed it was better to shield him from the lives of celebrities. The trunk finally opened that world to him.

He now heads a Ziegfeld Club in New York where he has access to surviving Ziegfeld girls and their treasured memories. This book represents his retirement project and I wouldn't want anyone to pick it up thinking it is great literature. There are a few repetitions and sometimes the story can jump around a little, but all in all, despite many setbacks, Hanson has written a captivating book.

You'll learn mostly about Lorraine herself of course, but also about stars such as W. C. Fields (and his illegitimate son), Will Rogers, Florenz Ziegfeld and his women, Billie Burke (Ziegfeld's last wife), and the splashy lives some of these people led. Lorraine, for instance, didn't have any sense about money so she lived it up when she had it, and got by when she didn't. Her later life is a tragic story, much of it her own fault.

Ah, but when Lillian Lorraine was 17 and unbelievably beautiful and genuine and a fresh-faced Ziegfeld Follies girl, she was on top of the world. Ziegfeld was said to love her from the day he met her. He made her a star like no other.

There are pictures on almost every page in this book of the stars, the Follies, the big names of the 1920s. It's worth buying the book just to have the pictures, but the story of an entertainment genius and his protege, and a city reveling in an anything-goes atmosphere before the crash is all here as well. ( )

Before this book Lillian Lorraine was not someone I was aware of and I had little interest in the Ziegfeld Follies or Flo Ziegfeld's influence on entertainment. I had no idea what I was missing.

This was a much different approach to a biography than I am used to, it was such a personal story and experience for the author and I found myself really enjoying the inclusion of what drove him to write this, his experience and what he went through to gather the information necessary for this book. I do wish we had learned more about his mother and her time with Lillian but I can understand how that could have been hard to do.

For all that he had so little to work with, he author did a wonderful job bringing both Lillian Lorraine and her world and times to life, and I loved all the photos and images he was able to find and include. My one quibble with this book is one that surprises me, I felt he spent to much time talking about other artists who were rather peripherally involved in Lillian's life, even after they were no longer a part of her life. I usually love added information like this, but in this case it made the book drag and in places hard to read and keep focused on.

I would love it if Nils Hanson wrote more books about all the people he met and learned about while researching this book as his clear love for the period and theater love comes clearly through. ( )

An intriguing look at a Ziegfeld 'girl' who was on Broadway a hundred years ago. Lillian Lorraine was a headliner in the Follies and her companion was the mother of the book's author. This gave the book a point of view different from the standard biography. Nils Hanson searched out women who preformed with Lillian and participated in the Ziegfeld society in New York, touring the closed Amsterdam Theater. The book is loaded with photos of Lillian as well as others who worked with her, such as Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers and Fanny Brice. It's a wonderful retrospective into an era long gone, rediscovering people that are names we no longer know. ( )