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

A frigid wind blew hard past the weather-beaten exterior of the Palace Garden Theatre in Dawson City, Alaska.  It was the spring of 1900, and gleeful patrons were tucked warmly inside, waiting for the “Flame of the Yukon” to take the stage.

A fiery, red-headed beauty glided out before the crowd, her violent eyes smiling.  The men went wild with applause.  The music began, and the entertainer swayed with the beat, placing a gloved hand to her breast and a fingertip to her lips and then, stretching her arm out, beckoning her admirers.  The elaborate red-sequin dress she was wearing was form-fitting, and the long black cape that draped over her shoulders clung to her alabaster skin.

The piano player accelerated his playing, and Kate Rockwell gyrated gracefully in and out of the shadow of the colored lights that flickered across the stage.  After a moment, with a slight movement of her hand, she dropped the cape off her shoulders and it fell to the floor.  The glittering diamonds and rhinestones around her neck sparkled and shined.  Ever so seductively, she picked up a nearby cane adorned with more than 200 yards of red chiffon and began leaping, while twirling the fabric-covered walking stick.  Around and around she fluttered, the chiffon trailing wildly about her like flames from a fire, the material finally settling over her outstretched body.  The audience erupted in a thunderous ovation.  She was showered with nuggets and pouches filled with gold dust.  This dance would make her famous.

To learn more about Kate, the fortune she made entertaining, and what happened to her earnings read Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

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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. This month the curtain goes up on women entertainers who captured the hearts of the western pioneers.

Ladies and gentlemen, the immensely talented star of Peter Pan and The Lost Child, Maude Adams.

“I wish you could have seen Maudie that night. She was simply wriggling with excitement. It was all I could do to keep her in her dressing-room until the cue came for her to go on…. Just before the curtain went up I made her repeat her first-act lines to me. She had learned them like a parrot, to be sure, but she spoke them like a true little actress.”

Annie Adams’s comments about her daughter Maude’s first full performance at the age of 5 in November, 1877 at the Metropolitan Theatre in San Francisco.

The Palmer Theatre House in New York was jammed to the doors by a curious clientele all there to see the new actress working opposite the most celebrated actor of the day, John Drew. It was October 3, 1892 when the stunning, elfin-like Maude Adams took to the stage in the play “The Masked Ball.” At the end of the evening Drew would be congratulated on his admirable acting job, but Maude would score a hit that would be greater than his entire career. Her performance was so successful the applause lasted for a full two minutes after she made her exit. She was on her way to becoming a star and local newspapers predicted her talent would be talked about for years to come.

“Her performance (in the Masked Ball) was a revelation. There is one scene in the second act where in order to punish her husband for some ante nuptial remarks of his she has to pretend that she is drunk. It was just touch and go whether the scene ruined the play or not. It would have been hard to devise a more crucial test for an actress of even the wildest experience and the greatest skill. In order to carry off this scene successfully it was necessary for the wife to appear to be drunk and yet be a gentlewoman at the same time. Miss Adams achieved this feat. If Miss Adams had done nothing else throughout the entire play than that one scene it would have stamped her as a comedienne of the first order forever.” The New York Daily News – October 4, 1892

Maude Adams’s stage career began at the tender age of nine months. The play was called “The Lost Child” and the baby that was playing the lead became fussy and could not continue in the show after the first act. Maude’s mother, Annie, who was the female lead in the production, suggested her daughter take the child’s place. Maude was so good that the other baby received her two weeks notice immediately after the play ended. For the remainder of that season all the infant roles were played by little Miss Maude.

To learn more about Maude Adams and the other talented performers of the Old West read Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West.

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

The Royal Aquarium in Westminster, England, was a hub of activity on April 6, 1876. Many members of London’s wealthy aristocratic society were on hand for the gala opening of the magnificent structure built entirely underwater.

Dignitaries, barristers, popular sculptors, artists, and photographers were there to witness the occasion and to be inspired by the colorful coral reefs, graceful marine life, and crystal-blue waters. Their attention, however, was drawn away from the oceanic scenery when a tall, curvaceous young woman with Titian red hair entered the room. She was adorned in a simple black gown. Her azure eyes scanned the faces staring back at her, and she smiled ever so slightly. Within moments of her arrival, visitors descended upon the woman to admire her beauty.

Eminent portrait painters and photographers approached the unassuming woman and asked her to sit for them. Poets sought introductions and then recited blank verse about her arresting features. By the end of the evening, Lillie Langtry was the toast of Great Britain-a Professional Beauty to be reckoned with.

Emile “Lillie” Charlotte LeBrenton was born to William Corbet and Emilie 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. Beauty alone was responsible for Lillie Langtry’s initial renown. Her photographs were printed in England and American newspapers, and by the time she was twenty-seven years old she was as famous in those countries as she was in her own.

The writer Oscar Wilde, whom Lillie had met at society parties, convinced her that the theatre was her calling and helped her get her start in the business. Lillie took the stage for the first time on December 15, 1881, in the play She Stoops to Conquer at the Theatre Royal. She was an instant hit.

To learn more about Lillie Langtry read

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

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Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Signers of the Old West

Mary Todd Lincoln screamed.  Clara Harris, seated in the balcony adjacent to President Abraham Lincoln’s wife, jumped out of her seat and rushed to the hysterical woman’s side.  “He needs water!”  Harris cried out to the audience at Ford’s Theatre staring up at her in stunned silence.  “The President’s been murdered!”  The full, ghastly truth of the announcement washed over the congregation and the scene that ensued was as tumultuous and as terrible as one of Dante’s pictures of hell.  Some women fainted, others uttered piercing shrieks and cries for vengeance, and unmeaning shouts for help burst from the mouth of men.

Beautiful, dark-haired actress, Laura Keene hurried out from the wings dressed in a striking maroon colored gown under which was a hoop skirt and number of petticoats that made the garment sway as she raced to a spot center stage.  She paused for a moment before the footlights to entreat the audiences to be calm.  “For God’s sake, have presence of mind, and keep your places, and all will be well.”  Laura’s voice was a brief voice of reason in a chaotic scene.  Few could bring their panic under control.  Mary Lincoln was in shock and sat on her knees beside her mortally wounded husband rocking back and forth.  She cradled her arms in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably.

Laura ordered the gas lights around the theatre turned up.  Patrons bolted toward the building’s exits.  As they poured out into the streets they told passersby what had occurred.  Crowds began to gather and there were just as many people coming back into the theatre as were trying to leave.  Laura stepped down off the stage and began fighting against the current of people pressing all around her.

Word began to pass through the frantic group that John Wilkes Booth was responsible for shooting the President.  Sharp words were exchanged between the individuals coming in and going out of the building.  Insane grief began to course through the theatre and ugly suppositions started to form.  “An actor did this!”  Laura wrote in her memoirs about what people were saying at the event.  “The management must have been in on the plot!  Burn the damn theatre!  Burn it now!”  Laura disregarded the remarks and somehow worked her way to the rear box where Mr. Lincoln was and stepped inside.

To learn more about Laura Keene and her career after President Lincoln’s assassination read Entertaining Women: Actresses, Dancers, and Singers in the Old West

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

The last news Kate heard about Doc (after the Gunfight at the OK Corral and the Vendetta Ride) was that he was in Leadville, Colorado, and on trial for shooting a bartender named Billy Allen. “They arrested him and telegraphed to Tombstone that they had Doc Holliday,” Kate recalled years later.

“A deputy from Tombstone was sent for him with a requisition. Governor Tabor of Colorado refused to sign the document and told the Arizona deputy that Doc Holliday was too good a man to turn over to the Arizona cow thieves. He would not sign the requisition. Doc was free.” Doc was eventually acquitted and moved to Denver.

Kate received a letter from Doc in April 1887. He had plans to travel to Glenwood Springs and wanted her to meet him there. Kate couldn’t refuse the invitation. “Holliday at last broke away from the Earps at Gunnison,” Kate wrote years later. “A [chain] mail shirt was the cause of their parting company. Wyatt had a job to pull and was going to wear the mail shirt. But Doc said to Wyatt, ‘No, you don’t. If you want me to go into anything with you, you have to take the same chance I do or else we quit right here. I thought you had got rid of that shirt long ago.’* “Wyatt insisted on wearing the mail shirt, so Doc left that evening and hit the trail for Leadville. But it was too cold for him, and he went from there to Denver, and later to Glenwood Springs. All those places were in Colorado.”

Kate and Doc reunited in Glenwood Springs in May 1887. Doc’s health had substantially deteriorated. The disease that had been in remission for a time was now fully awake and eating his lungs from the inside out. His lungs were now mostly engulfed in liquid and sloshing around in his chest. Doc struggled to breathe and coughed all the time. Kate noted in her memoir that when he arrived in the area he had tried to return to dentistry to support himself, but the persistent cough made the work impossible to do. Doc then took a short-term job guarding a mining claim for a well-known prospector. According to Kate, Doc also served as “Under Sheriff of Garfield County under Sheriff Ware.”

To learn what became of Kate and Doc read

According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

“Doc and Ike Clanton had some words in a restaurant,” Kate recalled about the events of the first night she returned to Tombstone in late October 1881. “In the morning Ike Clanton came to Fly’s photograph gallery with a Winchester rifle. Mrs. Fly told him that Doc was not there. Doc was not up yet. I went to our room and told Doc that Ike Clanton was outside looking for him and that he was armed. Doc said, ‘If God lets me live long enough to get my clothes on, he shall see me.’ “With that he got up and dressed.

“On going out he said, ‘I won’t be here to take you to breakfast, so you had better go alone.’ I didn’t go to breakfast. I don’t remember whether I ate anything or not that day. In a little more than a half an hour the shooting began. This lady friend and I went to the side window, which faced the vacant lot. There was Ike Clanton, young Bill Clanton, Frank McLowry [sic], and his brother Tom on one side, Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday on the other.

“Before the first shot was fired Ike Clanton ran and lost his hat and left his young brother and the McLowry boys to fight it out.* I was at the side window looking on and saw the fight. Doc had a sawed-off shotgun. He fired one barrel, but after the first shot something went wrong. He threw the gun on the ground and finished the fight with his revolver. I saw him fall once. His hip had been grazed by a bullet. But he was on his feet again in an instant and continued to fire.

“Bill Clanton and the McLowry boys were killed. Morgan and Wyatt [she meant Virgil Earp] were wounded. It’s foolish to think a cow ‘rustler’ gunman can come up to a city gunman in a gunfight. After the fight was over, Doc came to our room and sat on the side of the bed and cried and said, ‘Oh, this is just awful—awful.’ I asked, ‘Are you hurt?’ He said, ‘No, I am not.’ He pulled up his shirt. There was just a pale red streak about two inches long across his hip where the bullet had grazed him. After attending to the wound, he went out to see how Virgil and Wyatt [she meant Morgan this time] were getting along.”

To find out all that Kate recalled about the most famous gunfight in the West read

According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

It was a chilly evening in mid-March 1881.  Kate had traveled from Globe to Tombstone to see Doc.  According to her, she had made the trip at his request.  She noted in her memoirs that they lost no time settling their differences.  The smoke from an oil lamp in his room coiled wraith-like to the ceiling, smirching the cobwebs that festooned the top of the faded curtains.  Kate studied the sad looking, window coverings in the reflection of the mirror into which she was staring.  She had been pinning her hair up and playing with a pair of earrings when she noticed the breeze from the partially opened window ruffle the curtains.  Kate anticipated spending a great deal of time with Doc in the room and pondered whether to update the décor.

Doc had taken up residence on Sixth Street in a small boarding house positioned between a funeral parlor and a winery.  The furnishing was sparse and covered with dust.  Kate’s things were scattered about the room.  Doc had promised to take her to dinner when he returned from the errand he had rushed off to handle.  Once she finished getting ready for the night out she turned her attention to a copy of the Arizona Weekly Citizen lying on a chair by the door.  A story about a murder and an attempted stage robbery twenty-eight miles from Tombstone caught her eye.

“Detective R. H. Paul was on the box with the driver at the time, and his double-barreled Winchester rested by his side,” the March 20, 1881, article noted.  “It is believed that the Cow-boys were completely surprised to find Paul upon the stage, as no two of them would attempt to tackle Paul.  At the first word, ‘Hold!’  Paul coolly reached for his gun, exclaiming, ‘By God!  I hold for nobody!’  It is a question who fired first, Paul or the robbers; but the crack of the rifles were almost simultaneous, frightening the leaders into a run.  Paul emptied both barrels of his gun, and his revolver, while the stage was rattling along as fast as the horses could haul it.  The driver had fallen dead from the box, and a passenger who was upon the box was dying with a mortal wound.  As soon as Paul could regain the lines that had fallen from the hands of Bud Philpot, who was shot through the heart, he drove and transferred Wells, Fargo & Co.’s box and the United States mail intact to J. D. Kinnear, the agent of the line at Benson, and the frightened passengers were sent through to Tombstone.  Paul then started back, accompanied by four men, to the scene of the attack.  Later particulars are awaited here with great interest.

“A vigilance committee was lately formed at Tombstone, backed by all the money necessary to take these parties in hand and teach them a lesson.”

To find out what Kate says happened leading up to the gunfight at the OK Corral read

According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

The main street of Las Vegas, New Mexico, was so crowded the passing streams of people moved as if unseen hands were dragging them this way and that.  In addition to the throngs of people crossing back and forth across the dusty thoroughfare, there were teams of horses pulling buckboards and business buggies, cowhands leading their mounts to the livery, and ranchers hauling supplies in and out of town.  Kate and Doc added to the chaos when they arrived just before Christmas 1878.  After tending to their rides and securing a room at the Adobe Hotel in Gallinas Canyon north of the central plaza of town, Kate put Doc to bed.  He was coughing a wet cough that produced enough blood to saturate a handkerchief.  Doc wasn’t the only tuberculosis sufferer in Las Vegas.  Many patients had gathered in the New Mexico location.  Dry air and rest were the only remedies for the disease.  Sometimes bundled in blankets and sheltered from precipitation, patients there endured outdoor life in all weather, hoping the regimen would heal their damaged lungs.

Tuberculosis patients also sought to rid themselves of the disease by soaking in the hot springs six miles northwest of town.  The September 30, 1878, edition of the Daily Gazette noted that the hot springs near Las Vegas contained the same mineral constituents as those in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Thermal Springs in Europe.  Frontier physicians recommended soaking in the calcium and sodium enriched hot springs because the bicarbonates boosted blood circulation, reduced pain, and repaired tissue damage.  According to Kate, she tried to convince Doc to consider staying put until his health was somewhat restored.  She hoped he would take advantage of the hot springs and the rest.  The attack he had in Dodge City had left him weak and unsteady on his feet.  Kate promised to provide for them both while he was recovering, but Doc refused to go along with her plan.

As soon as Doc was able, he located office space on Bridge Street and opened his practice.  Las Vegas was a stopping point for those traveling along the Santa Fe Trail, it was the biggest city between San Francisco and Independence, Missouri.  Doc anticipated there would be many people in need of a dentist.  The army post, Fort Union, was twenty miles north of Las Vegas, and soldiers routinely spent time in town enjoying the nightlife.  If Doc’s practice faltered for any reason, he could also sustain himself at the poker table.  Las Vegas continually played host to cavalrymen, desperados, and outlaws looking for a fast game.  The number of card players eager to be separated from their money swelled when the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad reached the area.  Before Doc had an opportunity to fully fleece amateur card sharps, the New Mexico territorial legislature passed a bill prohibiting gambling.  The law didn’t stop Doc from dealing, however; he kept his games of chance quiet while maintaining the semblance of an upstanding citizen as the community’s respectable dentist.

To learn more about Kate Elder and Doc Holliday’s relationship read According to Kate

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life and Times of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

The main thoroughfare of Sweetwater, Texas, was so crowded with hunters, trappers, wagons, teams of horses, and soldiers that passing streams of people jostled each other, and some walked shoulder to shoulder.  The air was charged with excitement.  Rumors that Tom Sherman, Kate Elder, Mollie Brennan, and the other five members of the Seven Jolly Sisters were on their way had caused a mild panic, and lonely men desperate for female companionship had flocked to the burg.

Sweetwater was a trading post along the Jones Plummer Trail.  That trail was connected to the major cattle drive town of Dodge City.  Sweetwater was a destination for bullwhackers, buffalo skinners, and cowhands.  Troops from Fort Elliott, eleven miles from town, enjoyed time at Sweetwater, too.  The fort was established [in 1875] to protect the buffalo traders from being raided by Indians.

For Kate, the busy town provided a fresh crush of people to meet and with whom to do business.  Soiled doves relished a change of scenery from time to time.  They liked the possibility of enticing new patrons in a different location.  It also brought renewed business when sporting girls returned to the town where their house of ill repute was located.

The August 24, 1876, edition of the Dodge City Times described the setting where Kate and the other entertainers arrived as a “thriving hamlet overrun with tradesmen.”  Fourteen wagon loads of buffalo hides for a general outfitter in Dodge City known as Chas. Rath & Co. lined the sides of the dusty roadways.  A report that a band of twenty-one hundred Indians south of Sweetwater had been spotted rattled some of the citizenry, but, as long as the soldiers remained in town, panic was abated.

Tom Sherman and his help erected a canvas tent, set up a makeshift -stage, and the Seven Jolly Sisters went to work.  Among the many individuals who spent time with Sherman’s employees was a twenty-three-year-old buffalo hunter and army scout named Bat Masterson.  In late 1875, Bat had taken a job as a faro dealer at the Lady Gay Saloon.  After Sherman’s outfit arrived, Bat could either be found in the saloon or with Mollie Brennan.

On January 24, 1876, Kate and Mollie concluded their dance routine and set off to explore additional business.  They ventured to the Lady Gay for a drink.  The two ladies met Bat at the bar, and he bought them a drink.  Once their drinks were finished, Bat and Mollie retired to his room.  Kate recalled the couple hadn’t been gone long when Sgt. Melvin A. King, one of the men with whom Bat had been playing cards earlier in the evening, charged toward Bat’s room.  King was furious with Bat over what he perceived as “underhanded dealings.”  With a loaded gun in hand, King pounded on Bat’s room door and waited for an answer.  Assuming it was Kate wanting to join the pair for a nightcap, Bat unlocked the door.  Sgt. King burst into the room and opened fire.  Mollie came between Bat and one of the bullets and was critically wounded.  Bat was shot in the pelvis, but he managed to grab his gun and kill King before collapsing.

Despite his best efforts, the local physician could not save Mollie.  An army surgeon was called to the scene to remove the bullet from Bat’s lower mid-section and stayed with him until he recovered.

To learn more about Kate Elder read According to Kate

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According to Kate: The Legendary Life of Big Nose Kate, Love of Doc Holliday

A hot wind ushered Kate and Doc into Dodge in late May of 1878.  The sun’s rays were like the flames of a furnace blasting down on the parched path leading into the city.  The cow town had grown substantially in the short time Kate had been away.  Dodge was never lacking with activity, but now it was a dizzying array of action.  Hack drivers spurred their vehicles up and down the street at a rapid pace, unconcerned with the pedestrians who were forced to jump out of their way.  Harlots stood outside the doorways of their closet-sized dens, inviting passersby to step inside.  Stray dogs wandered about barking and scrounging for food.  Ranch hands led bawling livestock into corrals or railroad cars.  Disorderly drifters made their way to lively saloons, firing their pistols in the air as they went.

The distant sound of voices, back-slapping laughter, profanity, and a piano’s tinny repetitious melody wafted down Dodge City’s thoroughfare.  Kate and Doc were too tired to consider taking part in the liveliness and pressed on toward the Dodge House hotel which was adjacent to a billiard hall and restaurant.  The well-known establishment would be their home for as long as they chose to stay in town.

Dodge was just as Kate remembered it, only more so.  It 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.  Kate and Doc were accustomed to the nightly frivolity and clatter.  They were seldom disturbed by the commotion.  Doc had no trouble falling asleep after the long, hard ride.  Kate, on the other hand, decided to take a position on the balcony of the hotel to make sure no one with any ill feelings toward Doc had followed the pair from Texas.  She would rest only after it seemed Doc was safe.

According to Kate, she and Doc were registered at the Dodge House as Mr. and Mrs. Holliday.  Doc set up a dental practice in the large room the pair occupied at the hotel.  There were three doctors living in Dodge City at the time; none were dentists, although in an emergency they had removed a bothersome tooth or two.  Doc received many referrals from the physicians in town, and his patient list had grown.  To help the practice along, he placed an ad in the June 27, 1878, edition of the Dodge City Times.

“Dentistry.  J. H. Holliday, Dentist, very respectfully offers his professional services to the citizens of Dodge City and surrounding country during the summer.  Office at Room No. 24, Dodge House.  Where satisfaction is not given money will be refunded.”

To learn more about Kate Elder’s life with Doc Holliday read According to Kate