Tag Archives: Edmund Sayag

The Costume Designer Zig

The costume designer Zig was the pen-name of one of the great artists  for the Paris music hall in the Jazz Age. Prolific as an illustrator, creating artwork for posters, programme covers and sheet music, Zig also created stunning sets and costumes with a tremendous flair and originality from the mid to late 1920s and early 1930s, before dying at an early age in 1936. He must not to be confused with another illustrator called Zig Brunner.

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The Ambassadeurs Show 1929

The Ambassadeurs Show 1929

The fourth Ambassadeurs show in Paris was presented by Edmund Sayag in the summer of 1929 with a vaguely oriental but again distinctively American content.

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The Ambassadeurs Show 1928

The Ambassadeurs Show 1928

The third Ambassadeurs show presented by Edmund Sayag in the summer of 1928 was simply called ‘Vingt-huit’ and once again featured a largely American cast in what was called a ‘record monster programme.’

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The Ambassadeurs Show 1927

The Ambassadeurs Show 1927

The second Ambassadeur’s show presented by Edmund Sayag in the summer of 1927 was described as ‘not a revue but a series of acts to entertain the classy diners’ and primarily featured a range of top American acts headed by Georgie Hale.

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The Ambassadeur Show 1926

The Ambassadeur Show 1926

Edmund Sayag’s first show at the newly renovated Café des Amabassadeurs was Lew Leslie’s all-black production Blackbirds of 1926. Direct from New York, Blackbirds capitalised on the success of The Revue Negre, featuring Josephine Baker, staged earlier in 1925 and was an instant hit.

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Cafe des Ambassadeurs

Cafe des Ambassadeurs

The Café des Ambassadeurs was one of most fashionable and best-known summer venues in Paris situated on the Avenue Gabriel at the entrance to the Champs-Elysées near the Place de la Concorde. Named after the nearby Hotel Crillon that had become the residence of foreign ambassadors, it was founded in 1764 as a simple open air bar, a small pavilion was added in 1772 and it evolved into one of the most famous of the Parisian café concerts.

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Clifford Fischer

Clifford C. Fischer, the originator of the French Casino Project

One of the most picturesque figures in show business, Clifford C. Fischer was an internationally distinquished booking agent and producer who really made a name for himself staging spectacular stage shows as part of the French Casino theatre-restaurant project in the mid 1930s.

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The Kursaal Pleasure Palace Ostende

The Kursaal Pleasure Palace, Ostende

One of the premier locations in Europe in the 1920s and the show piece of Ostende was the magnificently appointed Kursaal entertainment complex.

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Ostende La Reine Des Plages

Ostende La Reine Des Plages

Affectionately called ‘La Reine Des Plages’ (Queen of the beaches), Ostende developed into one of the most important beach resorts in Northern Europe and was greatly favoured by the British. But during the First World War it was in the front line and suffered. As the 1920s dawned it made a comeback and attracted an international and cosmopolitan clientele that rivalled other fashionable places like Deauville and Biarritz.

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Edmund Sayag

Edmund Sayag’s Extravaganza’s

Variously described as the ‘liveliest man in show business’, ‘showman par excellence’ and ‘the Florenz Ziegfeld of Europe,’ Edmund Sayag arose to prominence in the mid 1920s owning or managing several prestigious European venues. He was hailed for putting Ostend back on the map and making Les Amabassadeur café-restaurant in Paris, the world’s most famous night-time rendezvous for the rich and famous.

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