Between 1907 and the early 1930s, the Ziegfeld Follies was the most spectacular and famous American revue (a theatrical production consisting of songs, skits, and dance numbers). The Follies was conceived by theatrical impresario (the promoter and manager of a theater company) Florenz Ziegfeld (1869–1932) and his first wife, European performer Anna Held (1873–1918). The revues featured singers introducing the day's top musical numbers, dancers performing elaborately choreographed routines, comedians tickling funny bones, and actors performing one-act plays. Most of all, however, the Ziegfeld Follies was fabled for featuring scores of young, beautiful, elaborately costumed showgirls, who often would do little more than parade about or pose prettily, amid settings that formed a living picture, or tableau.

The Follies began as an American version of sophisticated yet risqué (bordering on indecent) French revues such as the Folies Bergère. The American Follies quickly created a formula all its own...