Blossom Seeley

Acting

1886-07-16 · New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Blossom Seeley was one of the greatest vaudeville singers, an equal in talent and billing to Nora Bayes and Sophie Tucker.  Blossom began as a child performer and worked San Francisco's Barbary Coast as a ragtime singer. Her strutting and finger-snapping, syncopated rhythms gave distinction to her act and she was enticed eastward to New York, the center of big-time vaudeville and musical revues. She worked solo in vaudeville and with her husbands.  Joe Kane was one and Rube Marquard, the top flight pitcher for the New York Giants was another.  Benny Fields came next and he was to be Blossom’s lasting partner on stage and off. Seeley made a couple of films, appeared on radio and seemed to be content to fade away in tune and time with vaudeville. After Benny Field’s early death in 1959, Blossom tried a comeback, appearing on the Ed Sullivan TV show.  Although she could still sing well in her seventies and eighties, and was still a captivating performer, her era and her audience were gone.