The Copacabana (Images of America) (Paperback)

by Kristin Baggelaar (Author)
Key Phrases: production singer, undated photograph, New York, Monte Proser, Copa Girls (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
It has been years since New York has seen anything quite like the old Copacabana. The Copa, Manhattan's best-known night club, was also the most popular nightspot in America. From the moment it burst onto the scene in 1940, an aura of glamour and sophistication hovered over the Copa. It was a luminous glow that, over the course of five decades, served this illustrious establishment well, beckoning the people who made it famous-Hollywood stars, sports heroes, foreign dignitaries, and the town's leading families, including the Kennedys, the Roosevelts, and the Du Ponts. The Copa was a showcase for past, present, and future stars, including Joe E. Lewis, Sophie Tucker, Jimmy Durante, Julie Wilson, Tony Orlando, and Wayne Newton. Through vintage photographs and stories from performers, Copa Girls, and other people connected with the Copa's history, The Copacabana chronicles how this landmark institution became an American cultural icon.

About the Author
Kristin Baggelaar is the author of Folk Music: More Than a Song and The Folk Music Encyclopaedia. A portion of all sales of The Copacabana will be donated by the author to the Society of Singers, a charitable organization that helps professional singers in need and works within the entertainment community by directly supporting the future of aspiring singers with vocal arts scholarships.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (December 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738549193
• ISBN-13: 978-0738549194
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #776,923 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Personal Journey Back in Time, January 2, 2007

By	Albert J. Kopec - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three Steps Up and One Flight Down, March 8, 2007

By	zavsays (New Jersey) - See all my reviews

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Copacabana : A nostalgic trip to "The Copa", January 26, 2007

By	M. Trautman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a former musician who worked at the Copacabana during the 1960.s Kristin Baggelaar,s wonderful book accurately describes the history of "The Copa" through wonderfully reproduced photos. She takes you on a chronological trip from the earliest days of the Copacabana to it;s sad demise in the 70.s. I highly recommend this book to anyone who remembers or is interested in those glorious days of show business.

Morty Trautman