Winnie Lightner

Winnie Lightner (September 17, 1899 – March 5, 1971) was an American stage and motion picture actress. Perhaps best known as the gold-digging Mabel in Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), Lightner was often typecast as a wise-cracking gold-digger and was known for her talents as a comedian and singer. She is also noted for introducing the song "Singin' in the Bathtub" in the 1929 motion picture The Show of Shows.

Life and career

Winifred J. Reeves was born in Greenport, New York, but was raised in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen by her aunt and uncle, Margaret and Andrew Hansen. She had a successful career in vaudeville and finally made it to Broadway, where she performed in George White's Scandals of 1922, 1923, and 1924, in the musical revue Gay Paree in 1925 and '26, and in Harry Delmar's Revels of 1927.

Lightner was the first movie performer in history ever to be censored for what she said or sang on screen rather than for anything she did visually. In 1928, she made a Vitaphone short in which she sang "We Love It", "God Help a Sailor on a Night Like This", "That Brand New Model of Mine", and "We've Got a Lot to Learn." A censorship board in Pennsylvania held the release of the film because of the content of Lightner's songs. According to film historian Alexander Walker, "Warners asked the censors to merely pass judgment on the visuals – the censors refused."