The fanciful, witty and amusing love scenes of and idealized actress of stage and screen at the turn of the twentieth century.
"This little book is not in the least statistical, it is merely the legitimate off-spring of imagination and observation. Personally, the only man that ever told me he could not live without me was divorced by the lady he married two months afterwards, on the ground of cruelty. However, this is my idea of how a popular actress should be loved."
Elsie Janis (1889-1956), born Elsie Jane Bierbower to Jennie and John Bierbower in Columbus, Ohio, first entertained at the age of 2 ½ in various church activities at Dr. Washington Gladden's First Congregational Church at the northwest corner of Broad and Third. Janis's career in the performing arts was long and varied—from her childhood when she began doing imitations of celebrities in vaudeville, to her starring roles on the stages of New York, London, and Paris, to the battlefield where she entertained troops in France and England during World War I, to Hollywood where she acted, wrote for film, and supervised productions. From her teen years on, Janis wrote songs for herself and for others as well as a number of books, magazine articles, and poems. Janis's mother Jennie was, until her death in 1930, Elsie's constant companion and manager, and was known as one of show business's most infamous stage mothers.
