Actress, singer, and dancer Ruby Keeler was born Ethel Hilda Keeler in Canada, 1910. She became a Ziegfeld Follies girl after receiving a  note from Flo Ziegfeld, who sent her bunch of roses and a  charming note asking “May I make you a star?”.

She must have agreed, because she was a Follies girl by the time she met and married Al Jolson. She later starred in the movie of 42nd Street opposite Dick Powell and Bebe Daniels as well as a string of other movies in the 1930s.

This photo was taken by Alfred Cheney Johnston, around 1929, the year after she married Jolson.  The clip below is Keeler dancing from the 1932 movie of 42nd Street:

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