MACHEATH’S LADY FRIENDS PART 1

THIS RESEARCH STARTED INNOCENTLY ENOUGH with Louis Armstrong’s “Mack the Knife.” He sings, “Suky Tawdry, Jenny Diver, Lotte Lenya, Sweet Lucy Brown,/ Oh the line forms on the right, dear,/ Now that Mack, he’s back in town.”

Just who are these lady friends? It’s the kinda research I relish. I share it in Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow.

Lotte Lenya. I’ve long known that Lotte Lenya was a real person. 

Lotte Lenya, (Vienna-born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blamauer, 1898-1981), Austrian-American singer, diseuse and actress. Image, 1962, by Carl Van Vechten—Van Vechten collection at Library of Congress.

“Long based in the U.S.,” Wikipedia recounts, “in the German-speaking and classical music world, she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her first husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language cinema, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a jaded aristocrat in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). She also played the murderous and sadistic Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love.”

Lenya portrayed Jenny in the first performance of The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) in 1928), its music composed by Weill.

Die Dreigroschenoper. Wikipedia notes “The Threepenny Opera is a German ‘play with music’ by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay’s 18th-century English ballad opera, The Beggar’s Opera, and four ballads by François Villon, with music by Kurt Weill.” 

Original poster from Berlin, 1928. 

“The work,” Wikipedia continues, “offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world…. With influences from jazz and German dance music, songs from The Threepenny Opera have been widely covered and become standards, most notably ‘Die Moritat von Mackie Messer’ (‘The Ballad of Mack the Knife‘) and ‘Seeräuberjenny’ (‘Pirate Jenny‘).

Its roles include Macheath, London’s greatest and most notorious criminal; Jackie ‘Tiger’ Brown, London Police Chief and Mack’s best friend from army days; Lucy Brown, Tiger’s daughter, claims to be married to Mack; and Jenny Diver, ‘Spelunken-Jenny’/‘Low-Dive Jenny’/‘Ginny Jenny,’ a prostitute once romantically linked with Mack yet is bribed to turn him in.

Macheath, Jenny Diver, and Lucy Lockit (originally her father is a jail keeper) appear in Gay’s 18th-century opera as well. So does Suky Tawdry (though she’s not in Die Dreigroschenoper). Yet the question remains: who among them are real? 

Macheath? Wikipedia recounts that Macheath is fictional. Indeed, “He was probably inspired in part by Jack Sheppard who, like Macheath, escaped from prison and enjoyed the affections of a prostitute, and despised violence.”

And, wouldn’t you know, Jack Sheppard has appeared here at SimanaitisSays. 

John (Jack) Sheppard, 1702–1724, notorious English thief and escape artist extraordinaire. Sketch by Sir James Thornhill shortly before Sheppard’s execution in 1724.

Hmm…. This encourages Internet sleuthing about the others, the results of which appear in Part 2.

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025