Tag Archives: Ziegfeld Follies

Black

Fernando (Sonny) Jones

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Fernando (Sonny) Jones was an intriguing, if somewhat elusive, black performer who made his life and career in Europe and especially in Paris in the 1920s.  He was an accomplished dancer and made it big headlining in the Palace Theatre show Paris Voyeur in Paris in the 1925-1926 season. Throughout his career he was closely linked to Louis Douglas, another high profile black artist.

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Personalities

Miss Florence

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Miss Florence

The stunningly beautiful and dark haired ‘Miss Florence’ startled Parisian audiences as a member of the Gertrude Hoffman troupe in 1924 when she came on stage on an elephant as the Queen of Sheba. She became a popular celebrity in her own right, before teaming with Julio Avarez in a dancing partnership that proved highly successful mainly in New York and Miami cabarets in the 1930s.

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Dolly Sisters

Jenny Dolly and the Speedway star Harry Knight

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Gasoline and love – Jenny Dolly and the Speedway star Harry Knight

I recently bought a rather lovely postcard showing the Dolly Sisters early in their career, signed by them (the ‘Sisters Dolly’) to a H. C. Knight. It is most likely that the card was given to Harry Knight, the speedway driver of Indianapolis in about 1911.

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Dancing Duos

The Outrageous Rocky Twins

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The Outrageous Rocky Twins

The Rocky Twins were deliciously handsome, outrageous and lived life to the full but never maximized their obvious talent and so never really attained star status. They were a pair of Norwegian brothers who made a name for themselves in the Jazz Age as dancers in the Paris music hall in the late 1920s at the tender age of eighteen. Their act took Paris by storm because in one of their numbers, they dressed up in drag and imitated the famous Dolly Sisters who had just retired. Their unique performance enabled them to star in stage shows all over Europe and America and at the same time their good looks became highly sought after by connoiseurs of the body beautiful of either sex.

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