Sophie Tucker (1884-1966) The singer was born Sonia Kalish in Russia. "The Last of the Red Hot Mamas," she was a classic belter, a big and buxom vaudeville headliner who later in life won new fans as a nightclub headliner. Racially color-blind, she played a self-described "Yiddishe hunch" and performed African-American songwriter Sheldon Brook's "Some of These Days," the song that became forever associated with her and provided the title for her 1945 autobiography.