Florence Foster Jenkins: The Life of the World's Worst Opera Singer

by Darryl W. Bullock

"Probably the most complete and absolute lack of talent ever publicly displayed." —Life Magazine


Madame Jenkins couldn't carry a tune in a bucket: despite that, in 1944 at the age of 76, she played Carnegie Hall to a capacity audience and had celebrity fans by the score. Her infamous 1940s recordings are still highly-prized today. In his well-researched and thoroughly entertaining biography, Darryl W. Bullock tells of Florence Foster Jenkins meteoric rise to success and the man who stood beside her, through every sharp note. 


Florence was ridiculed for her poor control of timing, pitch, and tone, and terrible pronunciation of foreign lyrics, but the sheer entertainment value of her caterwauling packed out theatres around the United States, with the 'singer' firmly convinced of her own talent, partly thanks to the devoted attention for her husband and manager St Clair Bayfield. Her story is one of triumph in the face of adversity, courage, conviction and of the belief that with dedication and commitment a true artist can achieve anything.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Music, History, Humor, Biography Memoir, Memoir

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Described as ‘a veritable Bard of the bent, broken and Baroque’ by Andy Partridge (XTC), Darryl W. Bullock is a writer, publisher and editor, specialising in music and the arts.

He has written for publications including The Bath Chronicle, Venue, Folio, The Spark, The Bath Magazine, Essentially Catering, My Wiltshire, We Are Family magazine, Good Bristol, B-24/7, 3Sixty, The Pink Paper and The Western Daily Press. He has been profiled in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and GT and has featured on BBC One (The Big Questions), C4 (Come Dine With Me) and on numerous local and national radio and TV programmes. He is also the publisher of The Green Guide to Bristol and Bath, the annual guide to ethical living for the West Country.

Darryl is the author of The World’s Worst Records (Volumes 1 and 2) and Florence Foster Jenkins: the Life of the World’s Worst Opera Singer (Duckworth-Overlook, 2016), singled out as ‘delightfully cheering' by bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith in the Guardian. His latest work, David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music, will be issued in September 2017. He posts weekly on his popular blog, The World’s Worst Records (www.worldsworstrecords.co.uk).

—https://www.facebook.com/pg/darrylwbu...

Reviews

[Sandra]

I am amazed with the fact that anyone would ever publish such horrific writing. I suppose it is fitting that the publishing company which produced this book is called: "Overlook Press," because they completely overlooked editing altogether. After only a few pages in, I was so distracted by the many punctuational and structural errors that I almost quit reading it. However, I decided to see the book through to the end being that it is such a short read: a mere 144 pages.

I recently saw an advertisement for Meryl Streep's new movie, which is based on the life of Florence Foster Jenkins. Although I had no clue who Florence was, the film trailer intrigued me and made me curious. As someone who has always loved music and singing, I longed to learn more about why she was considered one of the world's worst singers and how she ended up on stage at Carnegie Hall. When I saw this book on the shelf at my local library, I could not have been happier. Although I learned some things, reading it was arduous.

One of the biggest faults of this biography (beyond how horrendously it is written) is that it only loosely follows a timeline of Florence's life. It jumps back and forth from one year to another so frequently that I cannot imagine readers ever being able to adequately make sense of it all. I was able to grasp that Florence was born into an incredibly wealthy family. She was always interested in music and began playing the piano as a young girl. At twenty years old (already four years into a marriage with a man several years her senior) Florence graduated at the head of her class from the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. She ended up divorcing her husband after this and moving to New York City. Here, she organized and headed up dozens of different social clubs, many of them music related. Florence eventually determined that she had a voice great enough to be shared. She would put on concerts for her friends and even made some actual studio recordings. The problem was that her voice was beyond awful. One person was quoted in the book as saying it sounded "like a cat in heat." People would cheer wildly at her performances in order to mask their hysterical fits of laughter. Yet, to this day, people are unsure of whether she intended this and knew her voice was terrible or if she really believed she was talented. From what I could gather from the text, Florence genuinely thought she had a fantastic voice. And, needless to say, she was a bit off her rocker. There is a rumor that after being involved in a taxi accident, she believed she could hit a higher F than ever before. Rather than suing the cab driver, she supposedly sent him a box of expensive cigars as a thank you. There is another story which claims she was responsible for getting some refreshment ready for a group of cameramen coming to call and ended up filling the bathtub with potato salad in order to fulfill the task. I feel a combination of disbelief and sadness for her. It seems she was kind and considerate, giving a lot of money to charity and such, but was not all there and a laughing stock for many. I look forward to seeing Meryl Streep's performance, but I would strongly discourage anyone from picking up this text. In this case, (and I NEVER thought I would ever say this) skip the book and see the film instead!!

[Katie O’Reilly]

Ineptly and nonsensically written, this is a mini bio of Florence Foster Jenkins. The main problem to me is there’s nothing innately inspirational about an extremely wealthy woman being so rich everyone pretends her singing is good. I also could do without the many fawning references to the Enduring Passion of her long-time lover, who is boinking another woman on the side.

[Hadrian]

Overextended anecdotal biography that really should have been a good long-form article.

[Doreen]

It's an easy, quick read. Her birth, her marriage, and her extensive singing career are recorded here. It's not a very personal account, but it's good if you're only hoping to learn about her life on the surface.

[Stacy Holmstedt]

Favorite quote: "The difference between her and other singers was that other singers occasionally hit wrong notes; Madame Jenkins occasionally hit the right one." Brief and easy to read, if not a little academic.

[Lauren]

I started this one to try to understand whyyy someone with such a bad ear would put themselves out there the way the Madame did. I wound up respecting her dedication and ambition. No one wanted her to be a singer, but she made it happen and here we are, reading about her nearly 80ish years after her death.

"People may have laughed at her singing, but the applause was real."

[Jeni Huber]

Interesting subject but the book is a hot mess.

[Erin]

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be funny - the occasional mean comments and quotes of sources that mock Florence Foster Jenkins could potentially be considered funny? But that, particularly about a woman who was a lifelong philanthropist and patron of the arts, combined with dry historical facts, was not a great combination. This book shouldn't be a book - it should be a pamphlet. Or a Wikipedia page, because it reads like one. There isn't a great "story" element to it, just facts on facts on anecdotes with dates slapped on them.

[Sonia Schoenfield]

Three stars for the writing; four and a half for the subject.

I have always been one of those folks who laughed at Madame Florence's warbly arias and wondered about whether or not she was putting one over on her listeners. This book, in conjunction with the recent movie starring Meryl Streep, has given me a totally different picture of who Florence Foster Jenkins was: music lover, patron of the arts, generous, childishly vain, superstitious and, like the rest of us, wanting to be loved.

Worth reading.

[Michael Ritchie]

2-1/2 stars. One the plus side, this biography of the infamously bad opera singer is short and quite readable. On the minus side, it is a bit of a mess, wandering here and there, as though the author had a deadline (he probably did--the opening of the recent Meryl Streep movie) and have time to get it in shape. He's done his research in terms of her musical performances and her early years, but Jenkins never comes to life, and her relationship with her common-law husband (Hugh Grant in the movie) remains mostly unexamined. Though there is a chapter called Meet Mr. McMoon, about the man who became her chief accompanist, we don't find out how he came to get the job, just that he did. The movie implies that he was gay, but we don't get a hint of this until the final pages of the book. I read it in two sittings, and mostly it felt like an appetizer and made me want to read a real biography of this woman.

[Warren-Newport Public Library]

Eccentric socialite Florence Foster Jenkins (1868-1944) was the laughingstock of the New York City's smart set during the 1930s and 40s. This wealthy heiress was best known for her florid vocal performances and her complete inability to hit the proper notes. Her shows always sold out, but she didn't understand that underneath their applause and cheers, her adoring audiences were barely suppressing their laughter at her campy costumes and dreadful voice. As one critic wrote, "Jenkins' performances are a catalogue of every vocal fault and failure imaginable" (p. 97). Yet some claim that she was so bad, and so devoted to her art despite the naysayers, that she was good.

On the heels of two recent films about Jenkins, a documentary and a feature film starring Meryl Streep, author Darryl Bullock has come out with this brief biography of the woman he calls the "delusional diva". The book has some insights into Jenkins as both a person and as a phenomenon. For example, Bullock points out that Jenkins was a product of the women's club milieu, which supported amateur performers' attempts to bring "culture" to the masses. He also mentions in passing that his heroine may have suffered from either late-stage syphilis or mercury poisoning, but he does not elaborate on either theory.

This book will be of interest to Jenkins's new fans. (Amy B.)

[Melissa]

Between a 3 and a 4 star. The actual book construction is a little uneven and jumps around which gives it a "soapy" feel (he quotes the wretchedly bitchy Simon Doonan - in a soundbite that should just die and I'm not going to repeat it here - who wasn't even born when Madame died in 1944). However, Bullock does evoke a lot of sympathy for his subject, a Society lady who clearly LOVED classical music and had the money to indulge her passion despite (or because of) her lack of voice. You can still purchase Madame's recordings (just search Florence Foster Jenkins on iTunes). I can only take listening to the iTunes samples because it's just too awful. The recordings were made when she was in her 60s/70s and if she ever had a decent voice it is long gone. It's too cruel to laugh at her.

[Ray Quirolgico]

A fast read: this is a straightforward easy biography that pretty much provides biographical data sourced from multiple kinds of records. No great bells and whistles and no eye-opening commentary or additional perspectives. The book even concludes with a simple timeline of her life. So it provides a solid background in the subject but doesn’t necessarily feel like anything is “discovered.” Decent for its purposes.

[Anita]

A very interesting character and this short biography doesn't go into the minutiae, so it is a pretty quick read. An even quicker way to learn about her is the film, Florence! Foster!! Jenkins!!! Meryl Streep is terrific. Best quote from Florence, and word to live b:
"They may say I couldn't sing, but they can never say I didn't sing"

[Sarah]

The biography of Florence Foster Jenkins starts off on a high note -- well written and condensed -- but quickly spirals into oblivion. It seems as if the first two chapters were researched and drafted leisurely while the remaining chapters were rushed for publication....

[Aishuu]

This was like reading a fluff piece in a woman's magazine. Absolutely no depth or no thought involved.

[Linda]

Not so much a biography as a rundown of Florence's performances. So, I found it boring. Skipped a lot of it. The movie is much better!

[Sheng]

Florence Foster Jenkins is probably one of the rarest famous singers in that her fame (or infamy) lies in her utter lack of talent and possibly self-awareness as well. A rich old lady by the time she started headlining her own personal concerts, her audiences would struggle to not laugh out loud at her absolute dearth of skill while reviews would constantly find new ways to criticise her singing, with some even funnier than her own singing. Florence Foster Jenkins: The Life of the World's Worst Opera Singer details Florence's life including her privileged childhood, her philanthropy in the world of music and her eventual career as a terrible singer.

I first heard of Florence Foster Jenkins through the film starring Meryl Streep but I never bothered to watch it. Reading about it though did interest me. Darryl W. Bullock does spend a little too much time on details of her life or on other people's lives like her husband St. Clair that didn't really interest me and took up too many pages in an already short book. At times, it did feel like Bullock was cramming in all kinds of info that he found regardless of whether they were particularly relevant or interesting. The content does get better as you approach the second half and the spotlight starts shining on Jenkins' singing career.

After reading this book, I'm not quite sure how to feel about Jenkins herself. Her lack of talent is apparent, no one can dispute that. However, regarding her character and personality, it seems that the amount of harsh criticism she received may have been a little too much and it could have possibly drove her to her grave due to the heartbreak she received. There was obviously talk about a lack of self-awareness. Jenkins seemed to fully believe in herself and assumed that the audience's laughter and reactions were more of an appreciation for her skill instead of a mockery at the lack of it. There were also accounts of her taking offence at people who told her that she was anything less than amazing and proclamations that she was better than other established, proper singers. Still, there is the side of Jenkins that was generous and active in the music community. She was a gifted pianist and had a knack for finding the next big things. She had a ear for great music although that somehow became deaf to her own voice. Her status built up from her qualifications and generosity may had very well cost her the honesty of her peers and ironically set her up for ridicule as those she surrounded herself by never had the heart to tell her the truth. 3/5

[Thomas Radigan]

With a Hollywood movie starring Meryl Streep coming up as this book was written, we can assume this book was written as a quickie to ensure its publication along with the movie. This book is small as biographies go, but the person written about is more famous for being a historical oddball than any important personage.

What little it says is intriguing though. Jenkins was the daughter of a wealthy family, and she had a sister who died young. An early feminist, she was not content to not be educated, and went to learn music. She was actually very good at playing the piano and writing poetry and music, so it was natural for her to think she could sing. Being generous and charitable with her money, she was a popular woman with personal charm, and people were willing to hear her sing, even though she had the wrong voice. People listened to her for amusement without her realizing it, and she did know about people who mocked her, but that happened to other female singers as well, so she was not much hurt by bad notices. She was an active woman who belonged to many organizations and even starteed her own.

There were of course a number of people around her such as Cosme McMoon who was her pianist, and friends who helped her with financial affairs. There were other bad singing novelty acts in her era, but her reputation came from her activity and audacity as well as generosity. Why people put up with her and remained faithful to her.

[Terri Durling]

A short quick read about a very interesting and eccentric woman, "Florence! Foster!! Jenkins!!!" The title says it all and the exclamations totally describe her appeal to the public. I became intrigued after watching the movie about her starring Meryl Streep, who can do no wrong in my opinion, and seems to have gotten this character, as she always manages to do, down pact. I knew little to nothing about Madame Jenkins and just had to find out more. I was not disappointed and it appears she was exactly as she portrayed herself, a tone deaf opera diva (the world's worst in fact) who once said "some may say that I couldn't sing but no one said I didn't sing". Indeed, that was the truth as she did sing to the delight of her many fans (some if them quite famous in their own right, i.e. Cole Porter) and seemed oblivious to their criticism and laughter. That was part of her great appeal - she was blissfully unaware of her awful singing voice and it almost broke your heart. She was both ridiculous and touching. Her relationships were noteworthy, especially that of her devoted husband/manager, St. Clair Bayfield, who truly loved her and tried to protect her from the truth which was that she couldn't carry a tune. He said of her after her death that she loved singing so much that nothing deterred her.

[Pat Jennings]

This historical account of a wealthy society woman focuses on a trained musician who knew music but who could not sing. FFJ clearly was a humanitarian who was generous with her time, talent, and resources. Perhaps, her strongest talent was organizing people to support community events. She was a wizard at getting people involved and was loved by many for her skills in community activism.

I thought it was sad that she, herself, could not hear her own voice that could not make many of the notes in her choices of difficult operatic songs. She garnered huge audiences. I also thought there was some sadness that folks came because she could not sing not because she could. They did come and she did sing.

Her common law husband of decades stood by her side and supported her in whatever she tackled.

[Dianna]

I enjoyed learning more about Florence Foster Jenkins, notoriously bad coloratura soprano (if you haven't had the pleasure yet, go look her up on YouTube). This book serviceably covers the details of her family and career: lots of dates and places and happenings.

There was a disconnect, though. The author doesn't seem to have any love for her; he seems to be writing a book on a subject he doesn't care about, like a high school kid writing a report on an assigned topic. I would have expected a bit more sympathy—or at least interest—from her biographer.

And one can't help loving her at least a little after hearing this quote: "People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

[Amanda]

Despite working with fascinating, often hilarious subject matter, Bullock seems to run out of steam half-way through the book, relying on quotations from outside sources to fulfill a certain page requirement. A pity, as I was hoping to enjoy the book a lot more than I did.

At a later date, I would like to revisit the life of Madame Jenkins & compare Bullock's treatment with the Nicholas Martin, Jasper Rees biography.

[Jimmy]

If you have not seen the 2016 movie, Florence Foster Jenkins, you need to. It's hilarious and sweet. This book gives some background of the life of this infamous woman from Wilkes-Barre, PA, who loved to sing but had no sense of pitch. She had the means to sponsor her own operatic recitals and many friends to fill the seats. Author quotes critics and friends to fill in the details.

[Starship]

Reads slightly worse than a textbook with long tedious sentences, too many quotes, and an abundance of needless information. The only good part was Florence's life, which was interesting and has a lot to learn from, but does not boost the rating as Florence's life was interesting regardless of this book.

[Susan]

Closer to 2.25 stars and apparently I'm among the more generous reviewers. It's slim and still extremely padded, and an incredibly dry retelling of her life that doesn't quite capture why a "major motion picture" would have been made about it. There are signs of life when it touches her career "peak", but this material is more suited for a longform article than a book-length piece.

[Sally]

After seeing the movie, it is good to get more background on her life. She believed in herself and I think that is why people so enjoyed her terrible voice. They could feel how much she enjoyed entertaining.

[Carolyn]

Hard to explain the phenomenon of Florence Foster Jenkins, but this author does a good job of it. Most enjoyable are all the clever, sarcastic, flattering, ridiculing, critical reviews of her performances.

[Ralph]

Wow! I can’t recommend this as a well written book. However, if you get by the overwhelming amount of superfluous detail included, there is the undeniably dedication of FFJ to her career as a “singer” and as a philanthropist to be had.

[Sarah]

This book reads like a longer bio article. It’s not, but it has no real depth to it either. From all accounts in this book, Florence Foster Jenkins, was all about passion...her passion of life, culture, arts, and especially music, but I just wish the book could have brought more passion to itself.