Lost Ziegfeld Photographer: Alfred Cheney Johnston

A pretty girl is like a melody
That haunts you night and day,
Just like the strain of a haunting refrain,
She'll start up-on a marathon
And run around your brain.
You can't escape she's in your memory.
By morning night and noon.
She will leave you and then come back again,
A pretty girl is just like a pretty tune.

(To the right: "Virginia Biddle" by Alfred Cheney Johnston)

Alfred Cheney Johnston was hired by producer Flo Ziegfeld of the famous Ziegfeld Follies to photograph his "Ziegfeld Girls"!

It was ACJ's sumptuous photographs of the stars of Broadway and the denizons of the Upper East Side that defined the IT GIRLS of the Roaring Twenties!

(To the right: "Dorothy Knapps" by Alfred Cheney Johnston)

Author Robert Hudovernik discovered this photograph on Ebay around 2000. He named her the "Jazz Age Mona Lisa".

He was so inspired by the magnificence of this photograph that he ended up chronicling his journy of discovery of Alfred Cheney Johnston's life and work in his beautiful book "Jazz Age Beauties: The Lost Photography of Alfred Cheney Johnston"!