Nora Bayes (1880–1928)

Nora Bayes was born Rachel Eleonora Goldberg to an immigrant Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, and was called Dora as a child. The family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and at age 18, she married Otto Gressing. She began performing in talent shows and got jobs in small vaudeville venues for several years before joining a touring company that took her around the USA. She decided to advance her career further by moving with her husband to New York City. There her popularity as a comic actress and singer grew. She opened the show at the Palace Theatre in London in 1905 and when she returned to the USA, she became part of the Ziegfeld Follies of 1907. She and her first husband divorced, and she remarried to fellow performer Jack Norworth. They starred together in the Follies of 1908, which included a song they had written together: "Shine On, Harvest Moon." Nora commanded high salaries and refused to follow the traditional roles expected of women -- she challenged male theater managers and producers. She earned success on the B.F. Keith vaudeville circuit in 1914 before her fights with Keith caused her to break her contract. Nora recorded George M. Cohan's song "Over There" in 1917 and launched her own one-woman show later that year. She starred in the musical Ladies First in 1918 (with a young George Gershwin on the piano), and continued to perform in vaudeville in England and the USA through 1927.
A highly fictionalized film version of her life called Shine On, Harvest Moon was released in 1944.