From Wikipedia
Elsie Janis (March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an
American singer, songwriter, actress, and screenwriter. Entertaining the troops
during World War I immortalized her as "the sweetheart of the AEF"
(American Expeditionary Force).
Janis was a tireless advocate for British and American
soldiers fighting in World War I. She raised funds for Liberty Bonds. Janis
also took her act on the road, entertaining troops stationed near the front
lines - one of the first popular American artists to do so in a war fought on
foreign soil. Ten days after the armistice she recorded for HMV several numbers
from her revue Hullo, America, including Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the
Girl. She wrote about her wartime experiences in The Big Show: My Six Months
with the American Expeditionary Forces (published in 1919), and recreated them
in a 1926 Vitaphone musical short, Behind the Lines.
A new musical about this period of her life called
"Elsie Janis and the Boys", written by Carol J. Crittenden and
composer John T. Prestianni, premiered as part of the Rotunda Theatre Series in
the Wortley-Peabody Theater in Dallas, TX on August 15, 2014.
Her final film was the 1940 Women in War co-starring Wendy
Barrie and Peter Cushing.
Elsie Janis died in 1956 at her home in Beverly Hills,
California, aged 66, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery
in Glendale, California.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Elsie
Janis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6776 Hollywood Blvd.
