Algeranoff, Harcourt [real name Harcourt Algernon Leighton Essex] (1903–1967), dancer and ballet master, was born in London on 18 April 1903, the son of Thomas Richard Essex, a sculptor, and his wife, Alice Kendall. He was named Harcourt Algernon Leighton Essex. He dropped his original name and assumed that of ...
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James Monahan
revised
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Allan, Maud [real name Ulla Maude Durrant] (1873–1956), dancer, was born in Toronto, Canada, on 27 August 1873. Her name was registered as Ulla Maude Durrant, the daughter of William Allan Durrant (1851–1917), a shoemaker, and his wife, Isa...
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Berk [née Heymansohn], Lieselotte [Lotte] (1913–2003), dancer and fitness trainer, was born on 17 January 1913 in Cologne, Germany, the only daughter of Jewish parents. Her Russian father, Nicolai Heymansohn, was originally a tailor and owned shops selling clothing for men. Her German mother died of a stroke when ...
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Bicknell [née Younger], Margaret (1681–1723), actress and dancer, was born on 11 November 1681 in Edinburgh, the daughter of James Younger, a soldier, and his wife, Margaret Keith. Both of her parents were born in Scotland. She was the elder sister of the actress and dancer ...
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Hester Booth (c. 1690–1773) by John Ellys private collection. Photograph: Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
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Booth [née Santlow], Hester (c. 1690–1773), actress and dancer, was born about 1690. Very little is known about her parents and family background, although her mother, Jane (or Joanna), died in April 1724. She was apprenticed to the dancing-master René Cherrier, probably in 1704, and made her début as a dancer at ...
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John Levitt
Bulkley [née Wilford; other married name Barrisford], Mary (1747/8
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Anita McConnell
Campion, Mary Anne (c. 1687–1706), singer and dancer, was born of lowly parents, her father having possibly been a servant of William Cavendish, first duke of Devonshire. She displayed a precocious talent on the stage; aged eleven, she was a member of Christopher Rich's...
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William Evelyn Chappell (1907–1994) by Gordon Anthony, 1937 [as Elihu in Job by the Vic–Wells Ballet] V&A Images, The Victoria and Albert Museum
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Chappell, William Evelyn [Billy] (1907–1994), dancer and theatre designer, was born on 27 September 1907 in Wolverhampton, the only son of Archibald Chappell and his wife, Edith Eva Clara, née Blair-Staples. He was educated in Wolverhampton and Clapham, London, and at the Chelsea School of Art...
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Kathrine Sorley Walker
Dale, Margaret (1922–2010), dancer and television producer, was born Margaret Elisabeth Bolam on 30 December 1922 at 24 Shieldfield Green, All Saints, Newcastle upon Tyne, the daughter of John Howden Bolam (1892–1953) and his wife, Gladys Margaret, née Downs (1893–1975). Her father, who had served during the First World War with the ...
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Jeffrey Green and Rainer E. Lotz
Davis, Belle (b. 1874, d. in or after 1938), dancer and singer, was born in Chicago on 28 April 1874, the daughter of George Davis. Of European and African ancestry, she spent most of her adult life abroad, largely in Britain, where she arrived in mid-1901 with two boys who were billed as Piccaninny Actors. Her performance style changed from ‘coon shouting’ and ‘ragtime singing’ in the 1890s to a more decorous manner, where prancing children provided the amusement. She directed their stage act, and with two, sometimes three or four, black children the act was a vigorous and popular entertainment in British and continental theatres....
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Nancy Dawson (bap. 1728, d. 1767) by Michael Jackson © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Alsager Vian
revised by K. D. Reynolds
Dawson, Nancy [real name Ann Newton] (bap. 1728, d. 1767), dancer, was probably the Ann baptized at Axminster, Devon, on 17 January 1728, the daughter of William Newton. In her will she named her parents as William Newton, a staymaker, of Martlett Court, Covent Garden...
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Phyllis Selina Dixey (1914–1964) by unknown photographer, 1940 © Getty Images
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Dixey, Phyllis Selina (1914–1964), variety and striptease artiste, was born on 10 February 1914 at 330 Kingston Road, Merton, Surrey, the second child of Ernest Dixey (1891–1972), ship's steward and later railway attendant, from Sevenoaks, Kent, and his wife, (Phyllis) Selina (1891–1978), daughter of ...
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Fransiska Elssler (1810–1884) by John Hayter, 1843 © Copyright The British Museum
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J. Gilliland
Elssler, Fransiska [Fanny] (1810–1884), dancer, was born in a suburb of Vienna, Austria, on 23 June 1810, the seventh of the nine children of Johann Florian Elssler (1769–1843), valet and copyist to Haydn, and his wife, Theresia Prinster (1779–1832), an embroideress. Many stories circulated about her youth, the veracity of which cannot be established, among them that ...
