His mother, Rosalie (née de Hez), who was born in Belgium, was the grandniece of General Count Étienne Maurice Gérard.

[14] These extravaganzas, with elaborate costumes and sets, featured beauties chosen personally by Ziegfeld in production numbers choreographed to the works of prominent composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern.

[1] The Follies featured the famous Ziegfeld girls, female chorus dancers who wore elaborate costumes and performed in synchronization.

The Follies featured many performers who, though well known from previous work in other theatrical genres, achieved unique financial success and publicity with Ziegfeld.

Included among these are Nora Bayes, Fanny Brice, Ruth Etting, W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Marilyn Miller, Will Rogers, Bert Williams and Ann Pennington.

[6][17] This musical, which concerned racial discrimination in the South during the late nineteenth century, was a collaboration between Ziegfeld, Urban, and composer Jerome Kern.

[22] The unnamed party in this romantic triangle was showgirl Lillian Lorraine, an entertainer of limited talent but charismatic stage presence and beauty whom Ziegfeld discovered in 1907 when she was a 15-year-old performer in a Shubert production.

Ziegfeld spent years promoting her career, transforming her into one of the most popular attractions in his Follies[23]: 18–19  and establishing her in an apartment two floors above the residence he shared with Held.

Universal Pictures originally made Show Boat as a silent, and obtained the rights to the popular Broadway score after the film was shot.

The 18-minute prologue is introduced by Ziegfeld and producer Carl Laemmle, and features excerpts from the stage production performed by cast members Jules Bledsoe, Tess Gardella, Helen Morgan and the Broadway chorus.

RKO Pictures had its first hit with its lavish presentation of Rio Rita (1929), starring Bebe Daniels and John Boles.

He was personally chosen for the role by Billie Burke, who felt that while Powell did not physically resemble her late husband, he possessed the right manner.

"What I tried to do primarily was to get across the essential spirit of the man", Powell later said, "his love for show business, his exquisite taste, his admiration for the beauty of women.

"[111]: 184  Nominated for seven Academy Awards, The Great Ziegfeld received Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress (Luise Rainer as Anna Held), and Best Dance Direction (Seymour Felix), for the astonishingly opulent production number, "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody"—one of the most famous musical sequences ever filmed.