MUSIC LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN

Ruth Etting, Nebraska's Sweetheart
1897-1978

    Ruth Etting was one of the most popular singing stars of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Florenz Ziegfeld, who glorified Ruth in the Follies, rated her as "the greatest singer of songs" that he had managed in a forty-year career. On radio she established herself as America's pre-eminent popular singer, continually voted in listener polls as the top female singer on the air. Even though radio and the recording industry were still in their early developing years, Ruth Etting recorded over 200 songs by such composers as Irving Berlin, Johnny Green, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. She was a regular performer on at least eight network radio programs. She appeared in six Broadway shows, made three major full-length movies and was the featured performer in 35 movie short subjects between 1928 and 1936.

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