My guest again this week is author Andrew Erdman, whose captivating new book is Beautiful—The Story of Julian Eltinge, America's Greatest Female Impersonator.

In this episode, Andrew continues the story of Julian Eltinge’s rise to the absolute highest realms of show business — and we especially focus on three musicals that were created especially for him by top Broadway talents such as Otto Harbach, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin: That Fascinating Widow (1911), The Crinoline Girl (1914), and Cousin Lucy (1915).

Along the way, you will have a chance to hear some of the songs that they created for Eltinge, as performed by a friend of the pod David Sabella (aka Amanda Reckonwith) including “Those Come Hither Eyes” – from the musical Cousin Lucy (lyrics by Schuler Green; music by Jerome Kern), and "Don't Take Your Beau to the Seashore," (music by Irving Berlin; lyrics by E. Ray Goetz).

If you missed the first episode in this series, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one.

Author Andrew Erdman has immersed himself in this remarkable era of show biz history; his previous book was the equally fascinating Queen of Vaudeville: The Story of Eva Tanquay

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