Tag Archives: Ziegfeld Follies

Dolly’s Revels

Dolly’s Revels
 
The first cabaret show to be presented by Harry Foster and Major E.O. Leadlay at the Piccadilly Hotel in Piccadilly, London was called Dolly’s Revels. It was staged by Edward Dolly, the brother of the famous Dolly Sisters in February 1924 and had costumes designed by Dolly Tree.

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Harry Cahill

Harry Cahill was a multi-talented American dancer, female impersonator, singer and composer who became a popular and well-known figure in Paris during the 1920s and because of his achievements was once described as ‘a type of product of the Jazz Age.’

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Fernando (Sonny) Jones

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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Miss Florence

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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Jenny Dolly and the Speedway star Harry Knight

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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The Outrageous Rocky Twins

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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