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Florenz Ziegfeld had arrived on Broadway at a time when comic opera was neither comic nor opera, when music-hall ladies were exposing themselves in long black stockings, tights to the knee and voluminous skirts. A standing joke of the period concerned the stage-door Johnny escorting a chorus girl while a child chased after them yelling, "Where are you going, Grandma?" It was Ziegfeld who raised the revue from cheap vaudeville business to an affluent art. With one triumph behind him (he'd introduced strong man Sandow at the Chicago World's Fair), but no money (he'd lost the profits at Monte Carlo), Ziegfeld had visited London's Palace Music Hall and been entranced by the alluring chanteuse who sang "Won't You Come and Play Wiz Me?" Every producer in America had tried to lure Mile. Anna Held across the Atlantic, at any price. Young Ziegfeld went backstage without a dime and secured a contract and Anna's heart. Under his aegis she became the brightest of stars, and with her he became the brilliant impresario.
It was Anna who inspired her husband to undertake the Follies. The original beauties were known as "Anna Held Girls" and they startled America when the revue opened at the open-air Jardin de Paris on the roof of the New York Theater. Here was mirth, music and the prettiest girls Broadway had ever seen, presented in luxurious costumes and elegant decor. Ziegfeld had a talent for beauty; he also had taste. He would pick one girl for her loveliness of feature, another for grace, another for the magnificent red hair which would flame on a stage when surrounded by a sea of silver blondes. Everything was done to make each girl feel beautiful. Costumes were made of the most costly materials, satins, laces and furs were the most exquisite ; when a Ziegfeld beauty stood, framed against satin draperies and lit with a pale pink spot, she appeared not only glorified but spiritually radiant. He also saw to it that her pocketbook reflected some of the radiance. Chorus girls until now had been paid thirty dollars a week; in Ziegfeld productions they started at fifty and showgirls earned one