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Show Boat
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Marge Champion and Gower Champion dance together in striped costumes and hats, smiling and holding arms, in a scene from the 1951 musical Show Boat.
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Show Boat
Show Boat Marge Champion as Ellie May Shipley and Gower Champion as Frank Schultz in the 1951 film version of Edna Ferber's Show Boat.

Show Boat

novel by Ferber
Written and fact-checked by
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History

Show Boat, popular sentimental novel by Edna Ferber, published in 1926. The book chronicles three generations of a theatrical family who perform and live on a Mississippi River steamboat. It was the basis of a successful Broadway musical and has been produced several times for film and television.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.