Born to Elias David and Rachel Goldberg, in an orthodox Jewish family in Joliet, Illinois. She had a brother, Hugo, and a sister, Lillie. Bayes was performing professionally in vaudeville in Chicago by age 18. She toured from San Francisco, California to New York City and became a star both on the vaudeville circuit and the Broadway stage. In 1908, she married singer-songwriter Jack Norworth. The two toured together and were credited for collaborating on a number of compositions, including the immensely popular "Shine On, Harvest Moon", which the pair debuted in Florenz Ziegfeld's Follies of 1908. Bayes and Norworth divorced in 1913. '' After America entered World War I, Bayes became involved with morale boosting activities. George M. Cohan asked that she be the first to record a performance of his patriotic song "Over There". Her recording was released in 1917 and became an international hit. She also performed shows for the soldiers. In 1919, she recorded "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm ?" for Columbia which became a hit for that year. Bayes made many phonograph records for the Victor and Columbia labels. From 1924 to 1928, her accompanist was pianist Louis Alter. One of her most popular recordings was "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?". In her version, she cheekily poked fun at her position as a Jewish performer doing Irish songs by "mistakenly" singing "Has anybody here seen Levi... I mean Kelly." Bayes established her own theater, The Nora Bayes Theater, on West 44th Street in New York.
Marriages and family
Bayes married five times. Her first husband was Otto Gressing, and Norworth was her second. Husband number three was a dancer named Harry Clarke, who also performed with her in vaudeville. Husband number four was New York business man Arthur Gordoni. Her fifth and last husband was Benjamin Friedland, a New York City businessman and garage owner. Bayes bore no biological children in any of her marriages. However, she adopted three children. The oldest was Norman Bayes, adopted by Bayes and Gordoni in March 1918. Bayes' second adopted child was a daughter named Lea Nora, adopted on July 25, 1919. Her third adopted child was Peter Oxley Bayes, born March 9, 1921 in London and adopted on October 16, 1923.
Death
In early 1928, Nora Bayes was diagnosed with cancer, and she died on March 28, 1928 following surgery at Jewish Hospital, Brooklyn, New York. After 18 years in a receiving vault, her body was buried with her fifth husband, Benjamin Lester Friedland, in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. The burial arrangements for Bayes and Friedland were arranged by Friedland's second wife, who left the graves unmarked in 1946. In a ceremony on April 21, 2018, a grave marker was finally placed on Nora Bayes' grave at a public event. On April 11, 2006, under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, Nora Bayes was added to the National Recording Registry. The citation stated that she was
Pop culture
Bayes was portrayed by Ann Sheridan in the largely fictionalized 1944 musical biopic Shine On, Harvest Moon, which focused on her relationship with Norworth. She was also portrayed by Frances Langford in the 1942 movie Yankee Doodle Dandy, where she performs George M. Cohan's song "Over There". The 1980 Garson Kanin novel Smash is about an attempt to make a Broadway musical out of Nora Bayes' life. The novel serves as the inspiration for the 2012 television series Smash, although the subject of the show's fictional musical is not Bayes but Marilyn Monroe. She is mentioned in the 1939 film The Roaring Twenties.
