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Laveria Charmion, the Parisian Sensation.
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Charmion (1875-1949, born Laverie Cooper in Sacramento) was a vaudeville trapeze artist and strongwoman who performed a trapeze striptease in 1897 that made her famous. Her performance was recorded in an Edison Company silent film "Trapeze Disrobing Act" in 1901. New York Times, 12 December 1897: "Laveria Charmion, a female trapese performer, who will appear at Koster & Bial's this week, appears on the stage and ascends to her bar in midair in what seems to be street costume. While on the bar she gradually discards her superfluous apparel. This is accounted a 'sensational' turn."
1897
Glasier, F. W. (Frederick W.)
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W013MMD
WHi 71533
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Mazie Trumbull and Frances Trumbull, vaudeville performers.
1906
Mazie Trumbull, famous as a cross-dresser and dancer, and her sister Frances, side by side in a White Studio photograph.
Irene Castle and Augusta Anderson in "The Amateur Wife"
1920
In a backstage dressing room, the straight-laced and innocent Justine Spencer (played by Irene Castle) is shocked to find that her mother (Augusta Anderson) is Dodo, a vaudeville performer, in a sc...
Trapeze Artist Emily Schadel
1875 - 1940
Studio portrait of trapeze artist Emily Schadel, posing on a trapeze.
Apache dance hall scene still from "The Black Butterfly"
1916
In an Apache dance hall with artists' sketches chalked upon the walls, the opera singer Sonia Smirnov (played by Olga Petrova) sits at a rough table surrounded by her male admirers. To her right is...
Publicity Photograph of Valeska Suratt
1907
Valeska Suratt's early fame was for her elaborate costumes, wasp waist, ample bosom and hips. She appeared in the 1906 musical The Belle of Mayfair in which she sang "Why do they call me a Gibson G...
Clara Kimball Young and her Parents
1919
Silent film star Clara Kimball Young, dressed in a pirate costume, with her parents Edward M. Kimball and Pauline Maddern Kimball on either side of her. The skylight in the upper right corner sugge...
