Gertrude Hoffman and her Girls

**mrcheese** · May 19th, 2010, 05:16 PM

"Gertrude Hay Hoffman was an early 20th-century vaudeville dancer and choreographer.
Known as Kitty Hayes, a native of San Francisco, she founded and choreographed the Hoffman Girls, a Tiller type formation group that used a type of athletic acrobatic transformation of the chorus girl with kicks, leaps etc. The Hoffman Glide (a social dance) was named after her.
Her choreography and special dance effects brought her high praise and rebuke. Her role as Salome in "Vision of Salome" caused scandal at many theatre houses. In Kansas City, her show was stopped for "indecent dancing and costume, or almost lack therof". One judge was called the Hoffman Girls "[o]bnoxious to public morals" and "replete with immoral suggestions and ought not to be tolerated in a Christian community".
For a brief period in her career, Gertrude did impersonations of various other performers, such as Eva Tanguay, Anna Held, Eddie Foy and Ethel Barrymore. The Hoffman Glide, a social dance, was named after her."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Hay_Hoffman

"A remarkably versatile veteran of the performing arts in America was Gertrude Hoffmann who began as a specialty dancer in the late years of the nineteenth century. In New York as one of the first women choreographers, she specialized in chorus lines and special effects. Her third career, for which she was most famous, was as an impersonator. Imitations of other vaudeville and musical theatre acts were tremendously popular in the first decades of the twentieth century for performance by men and women as their own or cross gender impersonators. With her colleague Julian Eltinge, probably the most famous of these, Hoffmann often outshone the originals they parodied. In the 1920s she resumed work as a precision line choreographer and eventually returned to California where as a member of the MGM and WB stock companies she appeared in almost fifty movies as a mother, grandmother, housekeeper, and nightclubbing matron."
http://digital.nypl.org/lpa/nypl/abo...t_d-d_huff.cfm

A "SALOME" DANCE BY MISS HOFFMAN
July 14, 1908, Tuesday
“Two Performances in a Brevity of Costume Given at Hammerstein's. BIG AUDIENCES SEE HER " The Vision of Salome" Produced with Special Scenery in a Subdued Light -- Several Curtain Calls.
Gertrude Hoffmann gave her first imitation of Maud Allan's dance, "A Vision of Salome," at Hammerstein's Theatre yesterday afternoon and repeated it on the Roof Garden in the evening. Miss Hoffmann amply fulfilled her promise to give a "life-like impersonation" of Miss Allan's dance.”

ARREST GERTRUDE HOFFMAN
July 24, 1909, Saturday
“Hammerstein Dancer Held for Offending Public Decency.
After performing her "Salome dance" for some 400 times, Gertrude Hoffman was arrested at Hammerstein's Roof Garden last night by Capt. George Walden, specially detailed from Police Headquarters, for violating Section 1,530 of the Penal Code by offending public decency.”

HOFFMANN ARREST WORRIES MANAGERS
July 25, 1909, Sunday
“Vaudeville Men Fear the Theatrical Lid Is to be Put on Tight by Baker. DANCER APPEARS IN TIGHTS Takes No Chances After Her Arrest for Indecency -- Case Adjourned Until Next Tuesday.”

LOTS OF GLITTER, GIRLS, AND WHIRLS
November 21, 1912, Thursday
“With Gertrude Hoffmann of the Aubrey Beardsley Poses in New Show at the Winter Garden.
Gertrude Hoffmann, fleet of foot and lithe of limb, with her transformations from Aubrey Beardsley poster effects, deep-shadowed, Carmen-lipped, and auburn-hued, to a sunlit figure, flesh tinted and flaunting a mass of golden hair -- the same Gertrude Hoffmann whose voice takes on the syrupy sweetness of an earlier Ethel Barrymore, then breaks into the queer squeakings of an Eddie Foy.”

“Two years ago when Mlle. Pavlowa and M. Mordkine appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in their Russian dances, it was hinted that New York had been given only a taste of the genuine "Ballet Russe" and that next winter a much larger company with numerous star solo dancers would be seen here in all the elaborate productions of the repertoire.
One ballet in particular, "Sheherazade," by Leon Bakst, a chapter from the Arabian Nights Entertainment, with all its settings of Oriental mysticism and costumes of barbaric splendor, would, it was announced, create a veritable sensation. Gertrude Hoffmann, an American dancer whose Salome performances are familiar to this public, saw the "Ballet Russe" in Paris and conceived the idea of organizing a company of her own and bringing it to New York in advance of the opening at the Metropolitan. She succeeded in prevailing upon certain members of the Russian Ballet Company to associate themselves with her, and the result is the present engagement at the Winter Garden.
There can be no question as to the success of the venture. On the opening night the spectators went wild with enthusiasm. Such dancing, such stage settings, had never before been seen on our stage. Even if the organization could boast of only one dancer of the artistic distinction of Lydia Lopoukowa it would still be a notable one. This gifted little dancer, who is not yet nineteen years old, held the audience spellbound. In her youth and grace the spectators saw the reincarnation of Taglioni. Her every movement was a delight and she fairly danced her way into the audience's heart. Another marvel of the terpsichorian art was Alexander Volinine, premier danscer of the Russian Imperial Theatre, whose European reputation long ago put him at the head of his profession. He is a purely classic dancer, handsome of physique, and with a grace and strength that evokes wonder and admiration. He carried Lopoukowa through the intricate figures of their dance with a skill and ease truly remarkable.
The entertainment is divided into three parts, each being a ballet of different type. The first, "Cleopatre." is a love drama with a tragic finale; the second. "Les Sylphides," a series of dances to Chopin's music, and the third, "Sheherazade," an Oriental love drama well interspersed with tragedy.
The setting of "Cleopatre" shows a shrine in the desert. There is a high-columned hall of Egyptian type, affording a view of the Nile between the pillars at the back. Amoun, a young archer, loves a girl, but Cleopatra, the Queen, arrives, wins the archer from the girl, and condemns him to die the next morning. Before the Queen's curtained couch takes place the famous Bacchanale dance, executed by twenty dancers. This scene, with its whirling draperies, brilliant-colored costumes, solo marches and dances, was most striking and drew forth unrestrained applause from the spectators. Gertrude Hoffmann appeared as Cleopatra, while Marie Baldina was the archer's sweetheart. Theodore Kosloff played the archer. Mile. Lopoukowa executed a solo dance as leader of the Bacchanale and brought down the house.
"Les Sylphides," given to the accompaniment of Chopin's music, belongs to the more conventional school of ballet dancing with toe dancing and filmy white skirts. The performers were Lydia Lopoukowa, Alexander Yolinine, Mlle. Cochin, Marie Baldina
and Mlle. Gluck, with a corps de ballet.
The ensemble work of the company was best seen in "Sheherazade," described on the programme as "a chorographic drama." The story is familiar to all readers of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, the scene being the Harem of the King of India and China. The King and his brother go on a journey, leaving their wives under the guard of Chief Eunuch. Their masters have no sooner disappeared than the wives persuade the guard to let them have the keys and, opening the doors, they allow the men slaves to enter. There ensues a noisy revelry, at the height of which the King and his brother return. Soldiers are summoned and all are killed except the King's favorite (Gertrude Hoffmann). She begs for mercy and when the King, refusing, orders her execution, she kills herself with a knife snatched from one of the soldiers. In this ballet there is plenty of Oriental languor, passion and wild dancing, which at times verges on frenzy, and the riot of brilliant costumes is almost bewildering. But it is all well stage managed and artistic in every detail. Both in "Cleopatre" and "Sheherazade" Alexis Kosloff won great applause for some wonderful solo dancing. There is an orchestra of seventy-five musicians, ably conducted by Max Hoffmann. Money has certainly not been spared in presenting the Russian Ballets on a magnificent scale. Their season at the Winter Garden should be a success.”
© Theatre, July 1911

SEEKS GERTRUDE HOFFMANN
July 26, 1919, Saturday
“Husband of Dancer Says She Has Disappeared.”

Gertrude Hoffmann Found.
July 27, 1919, Sunday
“Gertrude Hoffman, the dancer, who eras reported to have disappeared on the night of July 23, has been discovered, according to Val O'Farrell”

"...This is not what Turgenieff calls a reversed platitude. It is not even a paradox. It is simply a plain truth. Of course, frivolous people go to frivolous plays, but the point is that serious people do not support serious plays. It is the seriousness of life that makes people seek relief..."
(c) Gertrude Hoffman, The Westmount News, 2 May 1913.

Gertrude Hoffman.
Apeda, Bangs, de Strelecki...

**mrcheese** · May 19th, 2010, 05:18 PM

Gertrude Hoffman Girls
Dorothy, Elizabeth Schenberger, Louise, Thelma

“Yet another continental troupe from Germany was the Gertrude Hoffman Girls. They were a fearless troupe. Their routine included a dance - finishing by climbing sets of webbing with loops attached. Their evolutions, posture and grace always earned and created thunderous applause. This year I notice a revival of the "Mirror Dance". I first showed the mirror dance in 1905. It is now 1953. It was in a production of Henry Swinhard's "Squatter's Daughter" where two girls are seen making up before a huge mirror - which the "reflection" is that two other girls synchronise their slightest movement or actions in perfect timing. The finale is by flying aloft the "gauze" which is hung about six feet in front of a dead black velvet drapery which forms the climax - to discover four girls”
© Memories of Show Business by Percy G Court, 1953
http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Memorie...ssChapter3.htm

Artists and Models
“is a saturnalia that grows, each year, bigger, better, barer. This one is called the Paris Edition because the name Paris is, with Broadwayites, a synonym for limbs and confidential badinage. The badinage in this show, however, achieves wit; the lace is never where it is expected; and the limbs, particularly those of the Gertrude Hoffman girls, late of the Moulin Rouge, are exquisite, adept. Authors Harold Atteridge and Harry Wabstaff Gribble do not depend on the upholstery to make their lines agreeable; the art directing and music decidedly the most able that those penetrating students of public taste, the Messer Shubert, have ever paid for.”
© Time, 6 July, 1925

Les Gertrude Hoffmann Girls

Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Glaire, Alberta,
Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma,
Louise, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sara,
Florence toute nue, Margaret, Toots, Thelma,

Belles-de-nuit, belles-de-feu, belles-de-pluie,
Le cœur tremblant, les mains cachées, les yeux au vent

Vous me montrez les mouvements de la lumière,
Vous échangez un regard clair pour un printemps,
Le tour de votre taille pour un tour de fleur,
L'audace et le danger pour votre chair sans ombre,
Vous échangez l'amour pour des frissons d'épées
Et le rire inconscient pour des promesses d'aube.

Vos danses sont le gouffre effrayant de mes songes
Et je tombe et ma chute éternise ma vie,
L'espace sous vos pieds est dé plus en plus vaste,
Merveilles, vous dansez sur les sources du ciel.

Paul Eluard, Capitale de la Douleur

Les Gertrude Hoffman Girls

Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Claire, Alberta,
Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma,
Louisa, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sarah,
Nude Florence, Margaret, Thelma and Toots:

Night-birds, fire-birds, rain-birds all,
Trembling heart, hidden hands, and eyes to the wind,
You show me the movements of light;
You exchange a clear glance for the spring,

The turn of your waist for the whorl of a flower,
Boldness and danger for your shadowless flesh ;
You trade love for the thrills of a sword flash
And welling laughter for the promise of dawn.

Your dances are the frightening gulf of my dreams
And I sink and my fall makes eternal my life,
The space beneath your feet grows vast and vaster ;
Marvels, you dance upon the springs of the sky!

Paul Eluard (Modern French poetry by Joseph Twadell Shipley).

Les Gertrude Hoffmann Girls

Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Claire, Alberta,
Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma,
Louisa, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sarah,
Florence in the nude, Margaret, Toots and Thelma

Beauties of night, beauties of fire and beauties of rain,
The trembling heart, the hidden hand and windlike eyes,
You show me the movements of light,
You exchange a glance for a springtime

The girth of your waist for a flower's circuit,
Boldness and clanger for your unsullied flesh,
You exchange love for the shivers of steel
And the unconscious laugh for dawn's promises.

Your dances are the fearful whirlpool of my dreams
And I fall and my downfall perpetuates my life
The space beneath your feet is increasingly vast,
Wonders, you dance upon the springs of the day.

Paul Eluard (Contemporary Prose and Poetry, June 1936 by R.T.)

**mrcheese** · May 20th, 2010, 03:03 PM

“Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Claire, Alberta,
Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma,
Louisa, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sarah,
Nude Florence, Margaret, Thelma and Toots”
Paul Eluard

Gertrude Hoffman and

Girls from the cast Artists and Models [1925]:
Dorothy Drum
Mary Kissell
Claire de Figaniere
Alberta Faust
Charlotte Suddath
Dorothy Ellis (not listed, was the GHG in 1925)
Ruth Zackey
Catherine Gallimore
Emma Kleigge
Louise Blackburn
Margaret (Margaret McKay or Margaret Merle, Margaret Sloan)
Ferral Dewees
Harriet Fowler
Sarah Granzow
Florence (Florence Gunther or Florence Kolinsky, Florence Quinn)
Margaret (Margaret McKay or Margaret Merle, Margaret Sloan)
Thelma (Thelma Carlton or Thelma Kay)
Toots Gregory

1925: Some of the original members of the 'Hoffman Girls' appearing in 'Shake Your Feet'. From left to right are
Dorothy Ellis, Toots Gregory, Claire De Figaniere, Billy Sloane and Louise Blackburn.

Catherine Gallimore

Claire de Figaniere

Louise Blackburn

Mary Kissell

Ruth Zackey

Thelma Carlton or Thelma Kay

**mrcheese** · May 28th, 2010, 06:35 AM

Gertrude Hoffman by Atwell

Gertrude Hoffman by Marius de Zayas, ca 1910

Gertrude Hoffman, Vanity Fair, April 1917

**mrcheese** · June 2nd, 2010, 07:40 AM

Eileen Culshaw, Emma Kleigge (as Emma Kligge), Louise Blackburne by Hesser:

**tsunamiSD** · December 30th, 2022, 08:11 PM

May 19th, 2010, 05:16 PM	#1
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,715 Times in 579 Posts	Gertrude Hoffman and her Girls "Gertrude Hay Hoffman was an early 20th-century vaudeville dancer and choreographer. Known as Kitty Hayes, a native of San Francisco, she founded and choreographed the Hoffman Girls, a Tiller type formation group that used a type of athletic acrobatic transformation of the chorus girl with kicks, leaps etc. The Hoffman Glide (a social dance) was named after her. Her choreography and special dance effects brought her high praise and rebuke. Her role as Salome in "Vision of Salome" caused scandal at many theatre houses. In Kansas City, her show was stopped for "indecent dancing and costume, or almost lack therof". One judge was called the Hoffman Girls "[o]bnoxious to public morals" and "replete with immoral suggestions and ought not to be tolerated in a Christian community". For a brief period in her career, Gertrude did impersonations of various other performers, such as Eva Tanguay, Anna Held, Eddie Foy and Ethel Barrymore. The Hoffman Glide, a social dance, was named after her." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_Hay_Hoffman "A remarkably versatile veteran of the performing arts in America was Gertrude Hoffmann who began as a specialty dancer in the late years of the nineteenth century. In New York as one of the first women choreographers, she specialized in chorus lines and special effects. Her third career, for which she was most famous, was as an impersonator. Imitations of other vaudeville and musical theatre acts were tremendously popular in the first decades of the twentieth century for performance by men and women as their own or cross gender impersonators. With her colleague Julian Eltinge, probably the most famous of these, Hoffmann often outshone the originals they parodied. In the 1920s she resumed work as a precision line choreographer and eventually returned to California where as a member of the MGM and WB stock companies she appeared in almost fifty movies as a mother, grandmother, housekeeper, and nightclubbing matron." http://digital.nypl.org/lpa/nypl/abo...t_d-d_huff.cfm A "SALOME" DANCE BY MISS HOFFMAN July 14, 1908, Tuesday “Two Performances in a Brevity of Costume Given at Hammerstein's. BIG AUDIENCES SEE HER " The Vision of Salome" Produced with Special Scenery in a Subdued Light -- Several Curtain Calls. Gertrude Hoffmann gave her first imitation of Maud Allan's dance, "A Vision of Salome," at Hammerstein's Theatre yesterday afternoon and repeated it on the Roof Garden in the evening. Miss Hoffmann amply fulfilled her promise to give a "life-like impersonation" of Miss Allan's dance.” ARREST GERTRUDE HOFFMAN July 24, 1909, Saturday “Hammerstein Dancer Held for Offending Public Decency. After performing her "Salome dance" for some 400 times, Gertrude Hoffman was arrested at Hammerstein's Roof Garden last night by Capt. George Walden, specially detailed from Police Headquarters, for violating Section 1,530 of the Penal Code by offending public decency.” HOFFMANN ARREST WORRIES MANAGERS July 25, 1909, Sunday “Vaudeville Men Fear the Theatrical Lid Is to be Put on Tight by Baker. DANCER APPEARS IN TIGHTS Takes No Chances After Her Arrest for Indecency -- Case Adjourned Until Next Tuesday.” LOTS OF GLITTER, GIRLS, AND WHIRLS November 21, 1912, Thursday “With Gertrude Hoffmann of the Aubrey Beardsley Poses in New Show at the Winter Garden. Gertrude Hoffmann, fleet of foot and lithe of limb, with her transformations from Aubrey Beardsley poster effects, deep-shadowed, Carmen-lipped, and auburn-hued, to a sunlit figure, flesh tinted and flaunting a mass of golden hair -- the same Gertrude Hoffmann whose voice takes on the syrupy sweetness of an earlier Ethel Barrymore, then breaks into the queer squeakings of an Eddie Foy.” “Two years ago when Mlle. Pavlowa and M. Mordkine appeared at the Metropolitan Opera House in their Russian dances, it was hinted that New York had been given only a taste of the genuine "Ballet Russe" and that next winter a much larger company with numerous star solo dancers would be seen here in all the elaborate productions of the repertoire. One ballet in particular, "Sheherazade," by Leon Bakst, a chapter from the Arabian Nights Entertainment, with all its settings of Oriental mysticism and costumes of barbaric splendor, would, it was announced, create a veritable sensation. Gertrude Hoffmann, an American dancer whose Salome performances are familiar to this public, saw the "Ballet Russe" in Paris and conceived the idea of organizing a company of her own and bringing it to New York in advance of the opening at the Metropolitan. She succeeded in prevailing upon certain members of the Russian Ballet Company to associate themselves with her, and the result is the present engagement at the Winter Garden. There can be no question as to the success of the venture. On the opening night the spectators went wild with enthusiasm. Such dancing, such stage settings, had never before been seen on our stage. Even if the organization could boast of only one dancer of the artistic distinction of Lydia Lopoukowa it would still be a notable one. This gifted little dancer, who is not yet nineteen years old, held the audience spellbound. In her youth and grace the spectators saw the reincarnation of Taglioni. Her every movement was a delight and she fairly danced her way into the audience's heart. Another marvel of the terpsichorian art was Alexander Volinine, premier danscer of the Russian Imperial Theatre, whose European reputation long ago put him at the head of his profession. He is a purely classic dancer, handsome of physique, and with a grace and strength that evokes wonder and admiration. He carried Lopoukowa through the intricate figures of their dance with a skill and ease truly remarkable. The entertainment is divided into three parts, each being a ballet of different type. The first, "Cleopatre." is a love drama with a tragic finale; the second. "Les Sylphides," a series of dances to Chopin's music, and the third, "Sheherazade," an Oriental love drama well interspersed with tragedy. The setting of "Cleopatre" shows a shrine in the desert. There is a high-columned hall of Egyptian type, affording a view of the Nile between the pillars at the back. Amoun, a young archer, loves a girl, but Cleopatra, the Queen, arrives, wins the archer from the girl, and condemns him to die the next morning. Before the Queen's curtained couch takes place the famous Bacchanale dance, executed by twenty dancers. This scene, with its whirling draperies, brilliant-colored costumes, solo marches and dances, was most striking and drew forth unrestrained applause from the spectators. Gertrude Hoffmann appeared as Cleopatra, while Marie Baldina was the archer's sweetheart. Theodore Kosloff played the archer. Mile. Lopoukowa executed a solo dance as leader of the Bacchanale and brought down the house. "Les Sylphides," given to the accompaniment of Chopin's music, belongs to the more conventional school of ballet dancing with toe dancing and filmy white skirts. The performers were Lydia Lopoukowa, Alexander Yolinine, Mlle. Cochin, Marie Baldina and Mlle. Gluck, with a corps de ballet. The ensemble work of the company was best seen in "Sheherazade," described on the programme as "a chorographic drama." The story is familiar to all readers of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, the scene being the Harem of the King of India and China. The King and his brother go on a journey, leaving their wives under the guard of Chief Eunuch. Their masters have no sooner disappeared than the wives persuade the guard to let them have the keys and, opening the doors, they allow the men slaves to enter. There ensues a noisy revelry, at the height of which the King and his brother return. Soldiers are summoned and all are killed except the King's favorite (Gertrude Hoffmann). She begs for mercy and when the King, refusing, orders her execution, she kills herself with a knife snatched from one of the soldiers. In this ballet there is plenty of Oriental languor, passion and wild dancing, which at times verges on frenzy, and the riot of brilliant costumes is almost bewildering. But it is all well stage managed and artistic in every detail. Both in "Cleopatre" and "Sheherazade" Alexis Kosloff won great applause for some wonderful solo dancing. There is an orchestra of seventy-five musicians, ably conducted by Max Hoffmann. Money has certainly not been spared in presenting the Russian Ballets on a magnificent scale. Their season at the Winter Garden should be a success.” © Theatre, July 1911 SEEKS GERTRUDE HOFFMANN July 26, 1919, Saturday “Husband of Dancer Says She Has Disappeared.” Gertrude Hoffmann Found. July 27, 1919, Sunday “Gertrude Hoffman, the dancer, who eras reported to have disappeared on the night of July 23, has been discovered, according to Val O'Farrell” "...This is not what Turgenieff calls a reversed platitude. It is not even a paradox. It is simply a plain truth. Of course, frivolous people go to frivolous plays, but the point is that serious people do not support serious plays. It is the seriousness of life that makes people seek relief..." (c) Gertrude Hoffman, The Westmount News, 2 May 1913. Gertrude Hoffman. Apeda, Bangs, de Strelecki...

May 20th, 2010, 03:03 PM	#3
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,715 Times in 579 Posts	“Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Claire, Alberta, Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma, Louisa, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sarah, Nude Florence, Margaret, Thelma and Toots” Paul Eluard Gertrude Hoffman and Girls from the cast Artists and Models [1925]: Dorothy Drum Mary Kissell Claire de Figaniere Alberta Faust Charlotte Suddath Dorothy Ellis (not listed, was the GHG in 1925) Ruth Zackey Catherine Gallimore Emma Kleigge Louise Blackburn Margaret (Margaret McKay or Margaret Merle, Margaret Sloan) Ferral Dewees Harriet Fowler Sarah Granzow Florence (Florence Gunther or Florence Kolinsky, Florence Quinn) Margaret (Margaret McKay or Margaret Merle, Margaret Sloan) Thelma (Thelma Carlton or Thelma Kay) Toots Gregory 1925: Some of the original members of the 'Hoffman Girls' appearing in 'Shake Your Feet'. From left to right are Dorothy Ellis, Toots Gregory, Claire De Figaniere, Billy Sloane and Louise Blackburn. Catherine Gallimore Claire de Figaniere Louise Blackburn Mary Kissell Ruth Zackey Thelma Carlton or Thelma Kay Last edited by mrcheese; May 20th, 2010 at 03:12 PM..

December 30th, 2022, 08:11 PM	#6
tsunamiSD Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 53,108 Thanks: 634,364 Thanked 641,344 Times in 53,192 Posts	this is supposed to be Gertrude in 1917, along with colorized version __________________ Fortitudo, Fidelitas, Decus I can re-up all my celeb posts, most of my funny posts, and many of my misc funny posts.

May 19th, 2010, 05:18 PM	#2
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,715 Times in 579 Posts	Gertrude Hoffman Girls Dorothy, Elizabeth Schenberger, Louise, Thelma “Yet another continental troupe from Germany was the Gertrude Hoffman Girls. They were a fearless troupe. Their routine included a dance - finishing by climbing sets of webbing with loops attached. Their evolutions, posture and grace always earned and created thunderous applause. This year I notice a revival of the "Mirror Dance". I first showed the mirror dance in 1905. It is now 1953. It was in a production of Henry Swinhard's "Squatter's Daughter" where two girls are seen making up before a huge mirror - which the "reflection" is that two other girls synchronise their slightest movement or actions in perfect timing. The finale is by flying aloft the "gauze" which is hung about six feet in front of a dead black velvet drapery which forms the climax - to discover four girls” © Memories of Show Business by Percy G Court, 1953 http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/Memorie...ssChapter3.htm Artists and Models “is a saturnalia that grows, each year, bigger, better, barer. This one is called the Paris Edition because the name Paris is, with Broadwayites, a synonym for limbs and confidential badinage. The badinage in this show, however, achieves wit; the lace is never where it is expected; and the limbs, particularly those of the Gertrude Hoffman girls, late of the Moulin Rouge, are exquisite, adept. Authors Harold Atteridge and Harry Wabstaff Gribble do not depend on the upholstery to make their lines agreeable; the art directing and music decidedly the most able that those penetrating students of public taste, the Messer Shubert, have ever paid for.” © Time, 6 July, 1925 Les Gertrude Hoffmann Girls Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Glaire, Alberta, Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma, Louise, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sara, Florence toute nue, Margaret, Toots, Thelma, Belles-de-nuit, belles-de-feu, belles-de-pluie, Le cœur tremblant, les mains cachées, les yeux au vent Vous me montrez les mouvements de la lumière, Vous échangez un regard clair pour un printemps, Le tour de votre taille pour un tour de fleur, L'audace et le danger pour votre chair sans ombre, Vous échangez l'amour pour des frissons d'épées Et le rire inconscient pour des promesses d'aube. Vos danses sont le gouffre effrayant de mes songes Et je tombe et ma chute éternise ma vie, L'espace sous vos pieds est dé plus en plus vaste, Merveilles, vous dansez sur les sources du ciel. Paul Eluard, Capitale de la Douleur Les Gertrude Hoffman Girls Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Claire, Alberta, Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma, Louisa, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sarah, Nude Florence, Margaret, Thelma and Toots: Night-birds, fire-birds, rain-birds all, Trembling heart, hidden hands, and eyes to the wind, You show me the movements of light; You exchange a clear glance for the spring, The turn of your waist for the whorl of a flower, Boldness and danger for your shadowless flesh ; You trade love for the thrills of a sword flash And welling laughter for the promise of dawn. Your dances are the frightening gulf of my dreams And I sink and my fall makes eternal my life, The space beneath your feet grows vast and vaster ; Marvels, you dance upon the springs of the sky! Paul Eluard (Modern French poetry by Joseph Twadell Shipley). Les Gertrude Hoffmann Girls Gertrude, Dorothy, Mary, Claire, Alberta, Charlotte, Dorothy, Ruth, Catherine, Emma, Louisa, Margaret, Ferral, Harriet, Sarah, Florence in the nude, Margaret, Toots and Thelma Beauties of night, beauties of fire and beauties of rain, The trembling heart, the hidden hand and windlike eyes, You show me the movements of light, You exchange a glance for a springtime The girth of your waist for a flower's circuit, Boldness and clanger for your unsullied flesh, You exchange love for the shivers of steel And the unconscious laugh for dawn's promises. Your dances are the fearful whirlpool of my dreams And I fall and my downfall perpetuates my life The space beneath your feet is increasingly vast, Wonders, you dance upon the springs of the day. Paul Eluard (Contemporary Prose and Poetry, June 1936 by R.T.)

May 28th, 2010, 06:35 AM	#4
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,715 Times in 579 Posts	Gertrude Hoffman by Atwell Gertrude Hoffman by Marius de Zayas, ca 1910 Gertrude Hoffman, Vanity Fair, April 1917

June 2nd, 2010, 07:40 AM	#5
mrcheese Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Kyiv Posts: 578 Thanks: 44 Thanked 17,715 Times in 579 Posts	Eileen Culshaw, Emma Kleigge (as Emma Kligge), Louise Blackburne by Hesser: