Felix Delbrueck writes:

>A friend of ours recently sent us a tape of Florence Foster-Jenkins (the
>squally soprano) from overseas. It comes with very tongue-in-cheek liner
>notes. Did this woman really exist as F F-J, or is she a comic's persona?

She's for real.  I have her on an 1962 LP titled *Florence Foster Jenkins/
The Glory(????) of the Human Voice*, RCA Victor Red Seal LM 2597.  Excerpts
from liner notes written by Francis Robinson, Asst.  Manager of the
Metropolitan Opera:

   "For years her annual recital at the Ritz-Carlton was a private
   ceremonial for the select few...Music critics covered the
   event...Tickets became harder to come by than for a World Series.
   Finally on the evening of October 25, 1944, Madame Jenkins took the
   final step...she braved Carnegie Hall.

   "There are those who claim that her death one month and a day later
   was the result of a broken heart--as unlikelay as the story that her
   career was all a huge joke...Carnegie Hall was sold out and grossed
   something like $6,000...Neither her parents nor her husband gave any
   encouragement whatever to her musical ambitions, but with her divorce
   and the money inherited from her fathershe was free to turn her sights
   on New York...After a taxicab crash in 1943 she found she could sing
   "a higher F than ever before." Instead of a lawsuit against the
   taxicab company, she sent the driver a box of expensive cigars."

Cole Porter was one of her fans, I've read elsewhere.  Like most of
them he must have cherished the giddy feeling that came with attending
one of Madame Jenkins's recital, namely that of choking back paroxysms of
hysterical laughter.  She was a happy person in her own way who made others
happy in anaother way.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]