Journal Notes

Enter to win a copy of

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Winners will be announced on February 28, 2016

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jeanne Eagels, the Forlorn Leading Lady

Triumph and tragedy, alternating strangely throughout her life converged on the night on October 3, 1929, when Jeanne Eagels, beautiful and famous actress, suddenly collapsed and died. At a time when her health seemed much improved and she was planning a comeback to the Broadway that had barred her for eighteen months, the black curtain descended noiselessly and swiftly.

It brought to an end the drama of a woman who had made a sensational rise to the heights of theatrical stardom, a woman men clamored for and loved, perhaps too well. Romance, broken hearts, success and defeat, adulation and repudiation – a pageant of experiences and emotions – had paraded through her life. And in the end Jeanne Eagels was the same woman she had been years before – a proud, tempestuous spirit seeking bewilderingly for some distant horizon of happiness.

On her last day alive it probably did not seem to her that death was in the wings. If so, it made no difference. For that night she dressed in her most elaborate and beautiful clothes. She was planning to join a Broadway party. Broadway! The street which soon, she thought, would once more echo to her name and where incandescents would spell it out in glittering letters.

But hardly had she dressed when she suddenly fell faint. The night before she had taken an overdose of a solution of a sleep-producing drug called chloral hydrate. She was rushed from her Park Avenue home to a private sanitarium. They brought her into a room for an examination. She sat on the bed a moment, and then wearily took off her coat. It revealed her in all her glory. Jewels shone magnificently. Diamonds and pearls sparkled on her fingers, about her neck and on her wrist.

She signed. There was only a nurse to see this last act. She sank on the bed in convulsions. A little later she was lifeless. And then Broadway and the whole world learned with astonishment of her sudden passing.

To learn more about Jeanne Eagels career and the events that led to her untimely death read

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dora Hand, the Tragic Songbird

Dora Hand was in a deep sleep. Her bare legs were draped across the thick blankets covering her delicate form and a mass of long, auburn hair stretched over the pillow under her head and dangled off the top of a flimsy mattress. Her breathing was slow and effortless. A framed, graphite- charcoal portrait of an elderly couple hung above her bed on faded, satin-ribbon wallpaper and kept company with her slumber.

The air outside the window next to the picture was still and cold. The distant sound of voices, back-slapping laughter, profanity, and a piano’s tinny, repetitious melody wafted down Dodge City, Kansas’s main thoroughfare and snuck into the small room where Dora was laying.

Dodge was an all night town. Walkers and loungers kept the streets and saloons busy. Residents learned to sleep through the giggling, growling, and gunplay of the cowboy consumers and their paramours for hire. Dora was accustomed to the nightly frivolity and clatter. Her dreams were seldom disturbed by the commotion.

All at once the hard thud of a pair of bullets charging through the wall of the tiny room cut through the routine noises of the cattle town with an uneven, gusty violence. The first bullet was halted by the dense plaster partition leading into the bed chambers. The second struck Dora on the right side under her arm. There was no time for her to object to the injury, no moment for her to cry out or recoil in pain. The slug killed her instantly.

In the near distance a horse squealed and its galloping hooves echoed off the dusty street and faded away.

A pool of blood pored out of Dora’s fatal wound, transforming the white sheets she rested on to crimson. A clock sitting on a nightstand next to the lifeless body ticked on steadily and mercilessly. It was 4:30 in the morning on October 4, 1878, and for the moment, nothing but the persistent moonlight filtering into the scene through a closed window recognized the 34 year-old woman’s passing.

Twenty-four hours prior to Dora being gunned down in her sleep she had been on stage at the Alhambra Saloon and Gambling House. She was a stunning woman whose wholesome voice and exquisite features had charmed audiences from Abilene to Austin. She regaled love starved wranglers and rough riders at stage and railroad stops with her heartfelt rendition of the popular ballads Blessed Be the Ties That Bind and Because I Love You So.

To learn more about how Dora Hand’s career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lillie Langtry, the Professional Beauty

Twenty-three-year-old Lillie Lantry’s striking looks inspired poets to write sonnets about her grace and pin-and-ink artists to sketch her elegant profile. She was known as a “Professional Beauty,” one of a handful of women in England with such arresting features they were invited to the finest soirees just so guests could admire them. Langtry was a tall, curvaceous lady with titian red hair, and portraits of her sold in shops for a penny.

Emile Charlotte LeBreton was born to William Corbet and Emile Martin LeBreton in October 1853 on the Isle of Jersey, a few miles off the coast of Saint-Malo, France. She was the only daughter in a family of six children. Her mother called her “Lillie,” which fit the beautiful child with lily-white skin.

Her education included studies in history, the classics, and early theatre. By the time she turned age twenty, she had developed a love for theatre and a strong desire to leave her birthplace and see the world she had read so much about.

She married Edward Langtry on March 9, 1874, not long after watching his yacht sail into the Jersey harbor. He took her away from her home to England, where they met and mingled with the country’s most renowned aristocrats. But their marriage would not survive the attention Lillie received from male admirers and friends who persuaded her to pursue a career on stage. The two separated after the birth of their daughter in April 1881.

Theatre owners looking to capitalize on the well-known siren’s popularity invited her to join their acting troupes. Knowing that only her beauty attracted them, Lillie refused all offers, deciding instead to take acting lessons. For months she trained with the critically acclaimed actress Henrietta Hodson Labouchere, and on December 15, 1881, she made her acting debut at the Theatre Royal in Westminster.

To learn more about how Lillie Langtry’s career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lola Montez, the Countess of Landsfeld

Lola stood quietly in the middle of the stage at the Bella Union Saloon in San Francisco and let the audience gaze up at her. She was a captivating beauty with dark, curly hair. Men from the various mining camps around traveled to town nightly to see the “fair-skinned woman with the pretty face.” She always began her act the same way:

“Good evening, gentlemen. I am Lola Montez. I was born in the year 1830, in Seville, the capital of Andalucía, the land of the serenades and balconies, of troubadours and romance – the fatherland of Miguel Cervantes, of Las Casas of the Roman Emperors Trajan and Theodosius.”

After the short introduction the music would start and the audience would cheer wildly. Lola would dance out on stage wearing flesh colored tights and a crinoline skirt. The excited crowd didn’t know that most of what she had just told them about herself was a lie. Lola had spent so many years creating her fictitious background that she had probably forgotten what the truth was anyway. And as long as the house was packed with men who paid to see her, she didn’t care.

Lola was actually born in 1818 in Ireland and her name was really Marie Dolores Eliza Rosanna Gilbert. By the time she had reached the Gold Country in 1851, she had already built a reputation for herself as a woman who possessed extravagant charm and thrived on adventure.

Like many other entertainers, Lola had come to California to enjoy the rewards of the Gold Rush. Stories of gold being tossed at the feet of performers lured many singing and dancing acts west. Lonesome and bored miners had an insatiable appetite for entertainment and they were willing to pay handsomely to see shows and variety acts. Lola Montez became one of the most popular performers of her time.

Lola was well known for a number she called the “Spider Dance.” She wore a risqué costume and fluttered around the stage pretending to be trapped inside a spider’s web. The music and dance became more and more frantic as giant tarantulas made of cork were dropped down on her from high above the stage. The curious miners were thrilled and shocked at the display. Lola’s dancing brought her high praise, but some found the scene a little too provocative for their taste.

To learn more about how Lola Montez’s career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sara Kirby Stark, the Pioneer Manager

Sarah Kirby threw down the newspaper and paced across the room, only to turn and race back to the crumpled pages. She picked them up, smoothed them out, and once again read the diatribe against her penned by John Hambleton. Sarah was stricken with grief at the suicide of Hambleton’s wife. That the actor should blame her for his wife’s untimely death and publish his accusations in the San Francisco newspapers increased her distress. Her fingers whitened, and the edges of the page crumpled as she saw herself likened to a snake squeezing the life from its victim. Hambleton wrote of his dead wife’s devotion:

For six years of struggling hardship through poverty and sickness she was at my side night and day, with the same watchful attention as a mother to an infant, until, with the last two months a change had taken place, like a black cloud over shadowing the bright sun. She gradually lost all affection for me, riveting her attention on a female

friend who, like a fascinating serpent, attracted her prey until within her coils. In silence I observed this at first, and deemed it trifling, until I saw the plot thicken.

Sarah crushed the flimsy copy of the Evening Picayune again. She must counter this ugly story or lose her reputation in the city. Not for this had she struggled to attain a pinnacle of success as both an actress and a theater manager. As a manager of a company of actors—one of very few women managers—bad publicity could cost her everything.

A genuine pioneer of theater in California, Sarah Kirby had made her debut in Boston but arrived in the brawling new territory within a year of the first rush of Argonauts heading for the sparkling, gold-laced streams of the Sierra. Rowe’s Amphitheater in San Francisco saw her first performance as Pauline in The Lady of Lyons.

Two months later she appeared at the Tehama Theater, which she had opened and comanaged in Sacramento. By August 1850, she was a full-fledged manager, producing plays at a theater in Stockton, and in September she was back at the Tehama in Sacramento.

To learn more about how Sara Kirby Stark’s career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

The time is now. Enter to win a copy of the book

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Emma Nevada, Diva of the Diggins

Doc Wixom lifted his three-year-old daughter and stood her carefully in the middle of the table. Wrapped in an American flag, golden brown ringlets framing her sweet face, Emma Wixom smiled at her audience. The church on the banks of Deer Creek was crowded with miners and merchants, teamsters and salon keepers. They were there to benefit a local charity, and the sight of a child symbolized the hopes of the future.

Unafraid of the eager faces crowded around the table, little Emma Wixom knew what was expected of her. She was happy to sing on this lovely morning. She did it all the time, unaccompanied, singing for the pure love of the sound.

That summer day in 1862, in the thriving California Gold Rush town named Nevada, she gave a performance to remember. Inside the Baptist church on the banks of Deer Creek, Emma took a deep breath and released a pure soprano voice that held the audience spellbound. By the time the last note sounded, there was not a dry eye in the house. Brawny, wet-cheeked miners showered her with nuggets of pure gold.

Emma Wixom, the daughter of a country doctor, began a long and illustrious career that day in the church. She would go on to sing opera in Europe and America. She would draw standing-room-only crowds to her performances, but her biggest fans remained the reckless, rugged gold miners who first took a little child into their hearts.

To learn more about Emma Wixom’s (later known as Emma Nevada) singing career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Time to enter to win a copy of the book

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Lillie Langtry, the Jersey Lillie

At 23 years-old Lillie Langtry’s striking looks were inspiring poets to write sonnets about her grace and pen and ink artists to sketch her elegant profile. She was known as a “Professional Beauty,” one of a handful of women in England with such arresting features they were invited to the finest soirées just so guests could admire them. Langtry was a tall, curvaceous lady with Titian red hair and portraits of her sold in shops for a penny.

Emile Charlotte LeBrenton was born to William Corbet and Emile Martin LeBreton in October of 1853 on the Isle of Jersey, a few miles off the coast of Saint-Malo, France. She was the only daughter in a family of six children. Her mother called her “Lillie,” which fit the beautiful child with lily-white skin.

Her education included studies in history, the classics and early theatre. By the time she turned 20 she had developed a love for theatre and a strong desire to leave her birthplace and see the world she had read so much about.

She married Edward Langtry on March 9, 1874, not long after watching his yacht sail into the Jersey harbor. He took her away from her home to England where they met and mingled with the country’s most renowned aristocrats. Their marriage would not survive the attention Lillie received from male admirers and friends who persuaded her to pursue a career on stage. The two separated after the birth of their daughter in April 1881.

Theatre owners looking for a chance to capitalize on the well-known siren’s popularity, invited her to join their acting troupe. Knowing that they were attracted only by her beauty, she refused all offers, deciding instead to take acting lessons. For months she trained with the critically acclaimed actress Henrietta Hodson Labouchere and on December 15, 1881, made her acting debut at the Theatre Royal in Westminster.

Lillie’s performance was stunning and audiences filled the house nightly. Labouchere became her manager and arranged for her pupil to appear at the most prestigious playhouses in England and Scotland. New York theatre owner and producer Henry Abbey saw Lillie in a show in Edinburgh and was instantly captivated by her talent. He wrote Henrietta with a generous proposal for Lillie, including an offer of 50 percent of the gross proceeds from her shows. Henrietta encourage her student to accept, but Lillie held out for 65 percent of the gross and payment of all her travel expenses.

To learn more about how Lillie Langtry’s singing career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Time to enter to win a copy of the book

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Catherine Hayes, the Irish Prima Donna

A demure ten-year-old girl sat in front of a clear blue river, half hidden under a canopy of willow trees in a lush garden, singing. Her silvery-toned voice resonated across the water and filled the afternoon sky with a melancholy sound. Couples canoeing on the river paddled toward the song, halted their boats, and waited in the shadows of the trees, listening. No one said a word. Not even a whisper gave away their position to the unknowing girl. Indeed she didn’t realize anyone was paying attention until she finished her tune and rapturous applause commenced. Thus was the romantic beginning of Kate Hayes’s singing career.

When Catherine (Kate) Hayes was born in July 1823 in Ireland, her mother, Mary, compared the child’s features to those of a cherub. Her talent for singing like an angel was soon revealed.

Kate’s father, Arthur, abandoned her and her sister when they were small children, leaving the family destitute; consequently, Kate and her sister were forced to go to work as soon as they were old enough. From the age of eight, Kate worked a variety of jobs, from caring for infants to scrubbing inn floors. At nineteen she found employment as an assistant to a charwoman. She sang as she cleaned the homes she worked in, and passersby who overheard her were astonished at her remarkable voice.

Bishop Edmond Knox of Limerick heard Kate singing as he was passing by one of the homes she was cleaning, and he proclaimed that she had the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. He was the first to recognize her potential and consequently took her on as his protégé. Bishop Knox consulted with friends and, along his wife Agnus, helped raise the necessary funds to send Kate to Dublin with letters of introduction to the accomplished vocalist and voice teacher Professor Antonio Sapio.

Professor Sapio agreed to train the young girl, as her voice possessed a clearness and mellowness he had rarely heard before. One month after her arrival in Dublin, Kate made her first formal public appearance at a concert hosted by her instructor. The discriminating audience was impressed by her talent, and the reviews in the newspaper the following day reflected the crowd’s pleasure. Intuitively, Sapio knew his protégé required more specialized training than he could provide and encouraged Catherine to continue her studies in France.

Bearing a letter of introduction from celebrated pianist George Osborne, Kate arrived in Paris in October 1844. Manuel Garcia, a renowned voice instructor who also taught other singers such as Jenny Lind, Maria Malibran, and Henriette Sontag, became her vocal teacher.

Garcia taught Kate everything he could, then sent her to Italy to study for a career in opera. She concentrated on language arts and drama. In Milan, she met many influential theater patrons who arranged for her to audition for Giuseppe Provini, manager of the Italian Opera in Marseilles, France. Provini was so taken by her talent that he scheduled her operatic debut on May 10, 1845, as Elvira in Bellini’s opera I Puritani. She was discovered by an American stage producer shortly after her debut in Italy. The producer quickly whisked her off to the United States.

To learn more about how Catherine Hayes’ singing career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Enter to win a copy of the book

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Polish Phenomenon

A cold wind blew down the canyon, carrying pellets of frozen snow and grit from the mines in the hills surrounding Virginia City, Nevada. The wind swirled through the narrow streets, bringing damp, cold air and the smell of wood smoke into National Guard Hall. A restless audience debated the prospects of entertainment this stormy evening.  Could a Polish woman really deliver the goods tonight?

Miners with callused hands mingled with clean-fingered merchants and discussed the probabilities of a rousing performance. Gamblers watched the stage for signs that the mysterious Madam Modjeska would soon appear and wagered she would be unintelligible in the French play Adrienne Lecouvreur. Helena Modjeska barely spoke English, they said with knowing looks. Her English teacher had been German, they chuckled, so the odds were good that the great tragedy would become a farce.

Backstage, Helena Modjeska paced the boards, running her lines and tamping down nerves. She was more than six thousand miles from Cracow, waiting in the wings to perform a play in front of an audience of Comstock miners about a Parisian courtesan who had died nearly fifty years before. This brawling town of Virginia City was shocking, with its gambling dens and brothels doing brisk business alongside shops, hotels, and, just one street away, churches. How could she possibly convey the pathos and strength of the character through two language barriers in a town described as an outpost of hell?

That she did so, and with startling success, was chronicled in the Nevada press. Barely two weeks after Helena’s thirty-seventh birthday, the Territorial Enterprise of October 23, 1877, presented her with a gift of unstinting praise: The acting of Madame Modjeska last night at National Guard Hall was not like anything ever seen before in Virginia City. It was the perfect realization of something which we fancy is dreamed of by us all, but which we have waited and waited for through the years until deep down in our hearts we have concluded it was something too rare for any earthly one to give realization to—that it was but a longing of the divine within us which only in some other state less sordid, dull and cold that this could find full expression. But last night the dream was made real, and more than once did the audience rub their eyes and look up with that questioning gaze which men put on when startled suddenly from a broken sleep.

To learn more about how Helena Modjeska’s acting career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

Enter to win a copy of the book

Entertaining Women:

Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

Long before actors were vying for an Oscar nomination and world wide fame thespians were trying to carve out a modest living entertaining prospectors and settlers of the Old West. Today the curtain goes up on a woman entertainer who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Catherin Norton Sinclair, the Talented Divorcee.

Shakespearean actor Edwin Forrest rifled through the desk drawer in the sitting room of the New York home he shared with this wife, socialite turned actress and theatre manager Catherine Norton Sinclair. The contents of the drawer belonged to Catherine, but Edwin wasn’t interested in maintaining her privacy. In his frantic search, he uncovered a worn and rumpled letter written to his bride from fellow thespian, George Jamieson. “And now, sweetest, our brief dream is over; and such a dream!” the correspondence began. “Have we not known real bliss? Have we not realized what poets have to set up as an ideal state, giving full license to their imagination, scarcely believing in its reality? Have we not experienced the truth that ecstasy is not fiction? And oh, what an additional delight to think, no, to know, that I have made some happy hours with you… With these considerations, dearest, our separation, though painful will not be unendurable; I am happy, and with you to remember and the blissful anticipation of seeing you again, shall remain so…” Jamieson’s declaration of his feelings for Catherine ended with a promise to do “my utmost to be worthy of your love.”

Edwin reread the letter with poised dignity and on its completion sank into the nearest chair, cursing the day he had met the woman he had married. After a few moments, he arose and frantically paced about the room. He denounced Catherine for her infidelity and fell to the floor weeping uncontrollably. According to Edwin’s biographer William Rounseville Alger, Edwin was “struck to the heart with surprise, grief, and rage.” Catherine’s take on Edwin’s reaction and the circumstances surrounding her husband reading the letter are vastly different from Alger’s account. Almost from the moment the pair met, Edwin was jealous of everyone Catherine knew in her social standing and did not shy away from making a scene.

Catherine was born near London in 1818 to Scottish parents who had four children in all. Her father, John Sinclair, was a well-known vocalist who had toured America in 1831 and 1833. Historical records note that Catherine was endowed with natural beauty, and, whatever the quality and quantity of her formal and social education, she had in her teens acquired a sparkle and vivacity that attracted men. She was popular and well-liked and attended formal soirees, theatre openings, and art exhibits with a myriad of friends from all walks of life.

To learn more about how Catherine Norton Sinclair’s acting career began and about the other talented performers of the Old West read

Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.