Mlle. Elaine Amazar

Elvira Amazar (1890s – February 7, 1971), also known as Vera Amazar or Elaine Amazar, was a Serbian-born Russian-American soprano singer and actress. She was also the subject of the first photograph described as "cheesecake", in 1917.

Elvira Amazar was involved with a married colleague, George Baklanoff, for several years. (His wife and children lived in Russia.) Her claims that he deceived her into traveling with him led to their arrests in Chicago, under the Mann Act, in 1920. The couple left for Paris soon after they were charged; Baklanoff was allowed to re-enter the United States in 1921, and the deportation orders were dropped by 1922. She became a citizen of the United States in 1929.

She was an actress, known for The Volcano (1919), As a Man Thinks (1919) and L'aviateur masqué (1922).

Amazar began her singing career in Russia, and found further success in Monte Carlo and Milan. She moved to the United States during World War I, a member of the Boston National Opera Company and a client of the Bel Canto Music Bureau. She sued her lover, baritone Georges Baklanoff, for an assault while they were on a Pacific Coast tour in 1917. They later reached a settlement.

Amazar was known for wearing short skirts and high heels, and is often mentioned in connection with the term "cheesecake". As the story goes, in 1915, Amazar raised her skirt to show some of her bare leg for a photograph. The photographer was George Miller. Miller's editor liked the image enough to declare it "better than cheesecake," and the word "cheesecake" became a term for photographs of attractive young women baring some skin.

She had a daughter, Tatiana Amazar (1911-1979), born in Russia, who became a cookbook author and food editor. Elvira Amazar died in New York City in 1971, in her seventies.

Mlle. Elaine Amazar was born on February 16, 1899.