# Hail Anna Held! (Eve's book is the bomb-diggity) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 14, 2000, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329 "2000-06-14T10:54:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lux\_Fiat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/1 "2000-06-14T10:54:12Z")
So I said it would take me a long time to finish Eve’s book, and it has. Until this past Sunday, in fact. It’s great. Eve made sure that I now admire and respect a woman whom I didn’t even know existed until I read her book. Not to mention how much I admire and respect Eve as a writer. I can pinpoint precisely, toward the beginning of the book, the line when _Anna Held and the Birth of Zeigfeld’s Broadway_ ceased to be simply a book I was reading and became a story with which I was involved: “She rolled her eyes like a pair of dice, but they paid off much better than any honest dice ever did.” Exactly the sort of surprising turn of phrase in which I delight. Eve: Fantastic book. You did indeed give Anna a three-handkerchief death, and I now find myself wanting to visit her grave. Brava! (If I may be permitted a bit of pretentious exclamation.) ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/2 "2000-06-14T12:51:45Z")
I finished Anna on Sunday as well! Eve, it was an interesting, satisfying read on a subject I knew nothing about. You’re an excellent biographer - the research was thorough and the photos cool as hell. Thank you for spilling your identity so the board could get a glimpse of your and Anna’s greatness. I’m going to re-read it now. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/3 "2000-06-14T14:20:19Z")
Thanks, thanks to both of you–I’m so glad I brought Anna back to life! I do cringe sometimes when I go back and read some sentences I now think are rather over-wrought, but I guess all writers do that. Anyone who wants their copies signed, just send 'em to my work address . . . And to plug someone ELSE’S book, Greg King’s new bio of Sharon Tate is first-rate (and, I might add, uses my “Films of the Golden Age” article on her as one of its sources). Haven’t been on the MB at all this week, but Ike just E’d me and told me to check in. Been too busy, aggravated and demoralized (mostly about work). Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sit on the stove and moan . . . ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/4 "2000-06-14T15:55:34Z")
Wait Eve, I have a question!! You didn’t mention the Ziegfeld theater on 54th Street in your book. What’s the scoop on it? ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/5 "2000-06-14T16:47:52Z")
The current Ziegfeld Theater is a fairly new building, put up long after Ziegfeld’s death in 1932. Most of the “Follies” were staged at the (still extant) New Amsterdam on 42nd Street, built in 1902. In the late '20s, Ziegfeld put up a Ziegfeld Theater on the upper west side, but it was torn down in, I think, the '60s. ---
**Author:** ![SaxFace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@SaxFace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaxFace)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2000, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/6 "2000-06-14T18:47:40Z")
Wow. I bet you didn’t even have to look any of that up. YOU ROCK, Eve. Thanks! P.S. I’m going to call my “Godfather”, Vincenzo, and get you a decent job, ok? ---
**Author:** ![Lux\_Fiat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2000, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/7 "2000-06-15T05:33:55Z")
The photos _were_ cool as hell. Moreso now that I feel like I know the people in them. Especially the one on the back cover. If I had a copy of that one, it’d go straight onto the wall. Hope work goes better for you as the week progesses, Eve. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2000, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/8 "2000-06-15T18:11:42Z")
Thanks, Lux, dear—I LOVE that photo, and also want to frame the original when I get it back. You want me to send you a laser copy of it? For those of you in the dark, the back-cover photo is of Anna riding an ostrich in 1911; she has a smirk on her face and if you block out the front and back of the ostrich, it looks like she’s standing there on big ol’ ostrich legs. ---
**Author:** ![Lux\_Fiat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2000, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hail-anna-held-eves-book-is-the-bomb-diggity/22329/9 "2000-06-16T07:22:57Z")
> [@](#): > > You want me to send you a laser copy of it? Oh, _hell_ yes. If I ever find myself awake during normal postal hours (Damn you, second shift, I’ll see you in hell!), I’m going to try to send my book off for that signature. It will become the first book in my “signed first editions” collection. 🙂