"They must attract men. You cannot define the quality. In one word, I would say it was promise: a promise of romance and excitement - all the things a man dreams about when he thinks the word "Girl."

Flo Ziegfeld could recognize a girl with promise by the way she walked across the stage. The word would spread that Ziegfeld was casting a new extravaganza, and pretty girls from all walks of life would flock to the theatre for the chance of becoming a Ziegfeld Girl.

The Ziegfeld Girl made her debut in the first edition of the Follies in 1907. Within three years she had become the symbol of grace and beauty throughout the country, and the ambition of thousands of girls.

Flo would sit in the front row center of the orchestra to watch hundreds of young hopefuls parade across the stage, anxious to hear him say the word, "You." In an instant he could recognize that indefinable, illusive quality that made a Ziegfeld Girl. In the course of a year, more than fifteen thousand girls would audition for the man known as "a collector of beauty and a connoisseur of charm."