Biography
Ruth Etting was born in David City, Nebraska in 1897 to Alfred and Winifred (née Kleinhan) Etting. On her mother's death when she was five years old, she went to live with her paternal grandparents, George and Hannah Etting. Alfred Etting remarried and moved away from David City and largely out of his daughter's life.
Ruth Etting left David City at the age of seventeen to attend art school in Chicago. Her job designing costumes at the Marigold Gardens nightclub led to employment singing and dancing in the chorus there. She became a featured vocalist at the nightclub, and married gangster Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder on July 12, 1922. He managed her career, booking radio appearances, and eventually had her signed to an exclusive recording contract with Columbia Records. She made her Broadway debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1927. She went on to appear in a number of other hit shows in rapid succession, including Simple Simon and Whoopee!. In Hollywood, she made a long series of movie shorts between 1929 and 1936, and three feature movies in 1933 and 1934. In 1936, she appeared in London in Ray Henderson's Transatlantic Rhythm.
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