Martha Lorber

Martha Caroline Theresa Lorber (June 11, 1900 – July 2, 1983) was an American dancer, actress, singer, model, and Ziegfeld Girl whose Broadway career spanned from 1917 to 1930. Born in New York City to Frederick Lorber, a waiter, and Marie Lorber (née Westfeldt), both German immigrants, she grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Girls' High School there. Her dance training was extensive, with instruction from Alexis Kosloff, Ekaterina Galanta, and Michel Fokine.

Lorber's stage career began while she was still a teenager, with her first Broadway appearance in Over the Top during the 1917–1918 season. She went on to appear in Mecca (1920–1921), Tangerine (1922), and the musical Three Little Girls (1930), as well as the play Mozart (1926). Her association with the Ziegfeld Follies was a defining feature of her Broadway years, with appearances in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918, 1922, 1923, and 1924, including the Ziegfeld Follies of 1923 Summer Edition. Within the Follies, she performed in sketches opposite W. C. Fields, demonstrating comedic ability alongside her other talents.

Beyond Broadway, Lorber took on a lead role in Ferenc Molnár's The Play's the Thing in Baltimore in 1928, and the following year appeared in Little Accident in London. In 1930 she pursued dramatic work in Zoe Akins's The Greeks Had a Name for It, and in 1931 starred in Torch Song in Canada. Later stage work included two roles in The Red Robin in Chicago in 1933 and a production of True to the Marines in Locust Valley in 1934. In 1941 she toured in a one-woman show titled Songs in Action. In 1951, the U.S. State Department hired her for a cultural relations position.

Lorber also had a career as a model, sitting for photographers Edward Steichen, Nickolas Muray, and Arnold Genthe, pin-up artist Alberto Vargas, and sculptor Harriet Whitney Frishmuth. She died at her home in Lebanon Township, New Jersey, on July 2, 1983, at the age of 83.