Brice, Fanny (born Fannie Borach) (1891-1951)

US comedian with an act based on parody, dialect, and physical humour. She attained international stardom in the 1921 Ziegfeld Follies with her signature torch-song parody, ‘My Man’. She appeared in vaudeville, musicals, drama, movies, and radio with such luminaries as W C Fields and Will Rogers.

She was born in New York City on Manhattan's Lower East Side to successful immigrant saloon-keepers, taking the name Brice at age fourteen. She excelled at lampooning the fake and preposterous. Eschewing jokes about home life, Brice demonstrated that women could succeed in entertainment without exploiting their sexuality or making buffoons of themselves or other women.