Biography
Sophie (or Sonia) Kalish-Abuza, 13 January 1884, in transit between Russia and Poland, d. 9 February 1966, New York, USA. A legendary performer of generous proportions, brassy and dynamic, who claimed to be The Last Of The Red-Hot Mamas. The daughter of Russian parents, Tucker was taken to the USA when she was three years old. Sophie’s father took the man’s name and papers in an attempt to evade the Russian authorities. By the time she was 10-years-old Tucker was a singing waitress in her father’s cafe in Hartford, Connecticut, and in 1906 she moved to New York to work at the Café Monopole, the German Village Cafe and then in burlesque, vaudeville and cabaret. Sometimes, because of her plain appearance she was persuaded to work in ‘blackface’, and made a reputation as a ‘Coon-Shouter’ in the ragtime era. After a teenage marriage failed (as did two later attempts), she added ‘er’ to her ex-husband’s name of...
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