Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Theatrical producers who make it big on Broadway often start their climb from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, not the raucous frontier. Even fewer would dream of becoming a successful theatre owner in the storied West End of London. A third-generation Oklahoman, Max Weitzenhoffer has a life story as unique and colorful as you will find, a remarkable blend of risk-taking, glamour, and glitz that has been enriched by saloon keepers, oil wildcatters, wealthy art patrons, artists, and Broadway and Hollywood stars. When it comes to both the art world and the theatre, there is not much Weitzenhoffer has not accomplished--while maintaining his lifelong ties to Oklahoma and his beloved University of Oklahoma, to which he donated his family's $50 million art collection. But his real fame came on Broadway, where he produced two Tony Award winners, Dracula and the hit musical The Will Rogers Follies, and partnered with some of the biggest names in the business, including Andrew Lloyd Webber. Today, he and his business partner Nica Burns own six theatres in London, one of which is home to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts I and II. Clearly, here is a man who was born to put on a show, and what a show it has been
Synopsis
Today, most remember "California Girl" Lillian Frances Smith (1871-1930) as Annie Oakley's chief competitor in the small world of the Wild West shows' female shooters. But the two women were quite different: Oakley's conservative "prairie beauty" persona clashed with Smith's tendency to wear flashy clothes and keep company with the cowboys and American Indians she performed with. This lively first biography chronicles the Wild West showbiz life that Smith led and explores the talents that made her a star.
Drawing on family records, press accounts, interviews, and numerous other sources, historian Julia Bricklin peels away the myths that enshroud Smith's fifty-year career. Known as "The California Huntress" before she was ten years old, Smith was a professional sharpshooter by the time she reached her teens, shooting targets from the back of a galloping horse in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West. Not only did Cody offer $10,000 to anyone who could beat her, but he gave her top billing, setting the stage for her rivalry with Annie Oakley.
Being the best female sharpshooter in the United States was not enough, however, to differentiate Lillian Smith from Oakley and a growing number of ladylike cowgirls. So Smith reinvented herself as "Princess Wenona," a Sioux with a violent and romantic past. Performing with Cody and other showmen such as Pawnee Bill and the Miller brothers, Smith led a tumultuous private life, eventually taking up the shield of a forged Indian persona. The morals of the time encouraged public criticism of Smith's lack of Victorian femininity, and the press's tendency to play up her rivalry with Oakley eventually overshadowed Smith's own legacy.
In the end, as author Julia Bricklin shows, Smith cared more about living her life on her own terms than about her public image. Unlike her competitors who shot to make a living, Lillian Smith lived to shoot.