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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My Personal Journey Back in Time, January 2, 2007
This review is from: The Copacabana (Images of America) (Paperback)
Rather than watching those traditional parades on television during the morning of New Year's day, I instead spent a very pleasant couple of hours returning to the wondrous days of my youth. It happens that I entered this world only a scant six months before the Copacabana made its own debut in October 1940. However, even by my late teens I had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to frequent a nightclub some two hundred miles distant from my home in rural upstate New York. What we did have here, starting in the early 50's, was television, and that first opened to a cloistered twelve-year-old that wondrous, glorious world of show business. The faces of Jerry Lester, Peter Lind Hayes, Sid Caesar, Vivian Blaine, Martin and Lewis, Jimmy Durante, the young Eddie Fisher and so many others - fixtures on television in its infancy - were all there in this profusely illustrated volume. All those stars I was watching on television as a kid, when they were not before the cameras, were appearing at one time or another at the Copa. For someone like me, who still wistfully dwells in that decade of the 50's, these were all my old friends!
At first glance one would receive the impression that this is primarily a picture book, a miniature coffee table book, as it were. However, the often lengthy and always insightful captions deliver a thorough history of this New York City institution, starting with its conception and tracing the path to its ultimate demise, as the times and popular tastes changed. While the history of the Copa's first decade contains many names unfamiliar to most of us, those in its artistic and financial management, still many others are well known. Some performers appearing at the venue during the 1940's had already achieved fame in the movies, even vaudeville, while others like June Allyson and Joanne Dru, plucked from the Copa chorus line, would later make their mark in Hollywood.
I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the entertainment business in this country during a golden age. The original Copacabana for some four decades provided a venue for the best and most revered talent of the day to display their wares, and Ms. Baggelaar most ably escorts us along the journey through those years.
Albert J. Kopec
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful, lively read, April 3, 2007
This review is from: The Copacabana (Images of America) (Paperback)
The Copacabana captures the essence of entertainment, particularly the1950's, during which time my parents and relatives in the Midwest savored the music and comedy of these young emerging stars. Though they never attended the performances at the Club, they were well aware of the biggest names in show biz through radio and newly emerging television.
Performers like Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Jimmy Durante, Eddie Fischer, Frank Sinatra, Julius La Rosa, Red Buttons, Tony Benett, Sammy Davis Jr. Johnny Raye, Milton Berle, Mel Torme, Sid Caesar, Xavier Cugat, and Joe E. Lewis among many others entertained our families and captured our attention while we were gathered around the television at my grandmother's house. My parents and grandparents owned most of their albums.
Kristin Baggelaar makes all of these stars come to life in her book, which celebrates this famous Manhattan Night Club. Her interviews create an intimacy with the characters as if she knew them all personally. In a few words she cites their place in history and highlights their accomplishments and personality. Billy Eckstine was a "robust" baritone, "big hearted" Jimmy Durante was a "perennially crowd pleaser," and Tony Bennett "grew as a performer" at the Copacabana.
Her writing is lively, historic, fast moving and makes all of us who have read this book wish we were indeed a part of the glamour and sophistication of this era of American history.
Jean E. Baldikoski
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Three Steps Up and One Flight Down, March 8, 2007
This review is from: The Copacabana (Images of America) (Paperback)
This book's lots of fun! Just a hoot. This is a chronological picture and caption story about the Copacabana that can't be found anywhere else. Kristin Baggelaar interviewed former Copa showgirls to get their insightful stories and photos. Being a Copa Girl back then was like being an American Idol today. A marvelously resourceful undertaking.
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