Gertrude Niesen* (July 8, 1911 – March 27, 1975) was an American torch singer, actress, comedian, and songwriter who achieved popular success in musicals and films in the 1930s and 1940s.
Niesen was born aboard ship as her Swedish father and Russian mother returned from a vacation in Europe. As a child, she hoped for a career on stage and began performing in vaudeville and went into radio, the movies, the stage and nightclubs, becoming a noted comedian as well as a sultry voiced torch singer. Miss Niesen was trained for an operatic career, but switched to popular singing, her voice changing from a soprano to a lush contralto that suited the songs popular at the peak of her career.Credited as Gertrude Nissen, she recorded with Roger Wolfe
![]()
Kahn and His Orchestra and Artie Shaw in a Vitaphone short film, Yacht Party (1932). She also sang and recorded with the Leo Reisman Orchestra for a time. On old-time radio, Niesen was the featured singer on The Ex-Lax Big Show (1933-1934) on CBS and host of The Show Shop (1942), on NBC-Blue. She recorded for Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick in the 1930s, and in 1933 was the first to record the song "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes", by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach.
One of the jobs that brought her to national attention was a weekly showcase in support of Rudy Vallee on a national network show. This lasted for more than three years. She appeared in the Broadway musical Calling All Stars in 1934 and in the Ziegfeld
![]()
Follies of 1936. The original Cast Included: Fanny Brice (her final Broadway appearance), Bob Hope, Gertrude Niesen, Josephine Baker, Hugh O'Connell, Harriet Hector, Eve Arden, Judy Canova, Cherry & June Preisser, Nicholas Brothers, John Hoysradt & Stan Kavanaugh. It was choreographer George Balanchine's Broadway debut. Music was by Vernon Duke with Ira Gershwin providing the lyrics
Follies of 1936. The original Cast Included: Fanny Brice (her final Broadway appearance), Bob Hope, Gertrude Niesen, Josephine Baker, Hugh O'Connell, Harriet Hector, Eve Arden, Judy Canova, Cherry & June Preisser, Nicholas Brothers, John Hoysradt & Stan Kavanaugh. It was choreographer George Balanchine's Broadway debut. Music was by Vernon Duke with Ira Gershwin providing the lyricsDuring 1936 there was a taxi shortage in Chigago. Here’s a quote from the local rag, “Gertrude Niesen, Hollywood star, found her own solution to the taxi problem in Chicago recently.
![]()
Miss Niesen who races midgets on the West Coast used one to commute between her hotel and the night club where she was appearing Her publicity man can probably explain how she drives in traffic without licence plates…….” Her Broadway credits also include Follow the Girls (1944) and Take a Chance.
In Oct. 1938, she recorded the song "La Conga" with Ernesto Lecuona's Cuban Boys in London, England. She also began to appear regularly in movies, including Top of the Town (1937), Start Cheering (1938), and A Night at Earl Carroll's (1940), in which she sang a song that she co-wrote, "I Want to Make with the Happy Times".
She made headlines of another sort in 1941, when she became the owner of Rosecliff, an elaborate Newport villa that had been built for Mr. and Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs. The villa, said to be worth $2.5‐million, was acquired for $17,000 by Miss Niesen's mother at auction. Niesen told a local newspaper that she enjoyed the 22 bedrooms and 22 baths.
At the time, there was considerable interest in how the dowagers of Newport would receive their new neighbour. The Niesens inspected the white marble, 50‐room villa, and then, before Newport could make up its mind, the family sold the structure for what was said to be a good profit.
 |
| Gertrude outside her estate in 1941 |
Her other films included Rookies on Parade (1941), This Is the Army (1943), He's My Guy (1943), and The Babe Ruth Story (1948). Perhaps her most important role was that of the burlesque queen in “Follow the Girls,” which also starred Jackie Gleason in 1944. In the show she sang "I Want to Get Married", which became one of her better-known songs. The show ran for more than 800 performances in New. York before it took to the road. It was also the high point of Niesen's career. In 1946, she appeared on the Philco Radio program starring Bing Crosby. She also appeared on other radio shows including 'Duffy's Tavern'. ("Hello, Duffy's Tavern, Archie the manager speaking, Duffy ain't here.")
In 1943, Niesen married Chicago nightclub owner Al Greenfield. The couple divorced but remarried in 1954, remaining married until Niesen’s death. She died in Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Hollywood, California in 1975, aged 63, after a long illness.
![]()
*There are other spellings of the artist's name, and you may find her mentioned as Gertrude Niessen, Neissen, Neesen or Nielsen. (Edited from Wikipedia, Confetta @ jazzagemusic, the New York Times & Google books)