Fanny Brice was a hugely popular American comedian, singer and actress who had successful careers in cabaret, theater, film and radio, and was further immortalized by Barbra Streisand’s portrayal of her in the 1964 Broadway musical and the subsequent 1968 film, Funny Girl, (which won Streisand the Best Actress Oscar). Born Fania Borach in New York City of Hungarian Jewish descent, Fanny dropped out of school in 1908 to work in burlesque and, within only two years, had made it into the famed Ziegfeld Follies. Fanny went on to great acclaim and fame over the years, with her inimitable (assumed) Yiddish accent, and perhaps had her biggest success playing the bratty little “Baby Snooks†for almost twenty years on the radio. Married three times and the mother of two, Fanny Brice made “My Man†her signature song (along with “Second Hand Rose), and it inevitably evokes the memory of her second husband, the con-man, Nicky Arnstein. He may have used her and abused her, but, as she sang: “But whatever my man is, I am his – forever.” Well, maybe he really did look like Omar Sharif.
