Orval Hixon

Like Ruth St. Denis, Bothwell Browne, and many other performers of the era, dancer and songwriter Bobbie Tremaine used exotic costumes and dances associated with foreign cultures to heighten her appeal to American audiences. In 1921, Tremaine wrote a serialized story entitled "Confessions of a Dancer," a greatly romant...

Though cross-dressing vaudevillians were fairly common in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dancer Bothwell Browne (1877-1947) broke from a tradition of broadly humorous bawdy or vulgar impersonations in favor of work that explored a more nuanced view of gender. Famous for playing characters such as Cleopatra, Br...

When a punctured eardrum ended Japanese born Sessue Hayakawa's original dream of a naval career, he enrolled at the University of Chicago to study banking. During a 1914 trip to Los Angeles, Hayakawa was lured into acting and went on to become one of the great film idols of the early motion picture era, rivaling Dougla...

This photograph features a woman in an elegant gown and an ornate headpiece. Her necklaces drape over her chest in a way that mirrors the parabolic shape of her headpiece, emphasizing her face against the dark background. Hixon often manipulated his photographs as they were developing, which he appears to have done to...

Usually, rube comics were favored by rural audiences who liked their entertainers down to earth. In Chic’s case, you couldn’t get more down to earth than the outhouses that figured in his storytelling. Despite a preference for sophisticated monologists, Broadway audiences took to two of the cracker barrel types, includ...

Born in New York in 1893, Hazel Flint later became a silent film actress of the 1920s, starring in films like Modern Daughters (1927) and The Bootleggers (1922). Not much is known about her role in these films or the films themselves, likely because they are considered "lost films" meaning they are believed to no longe...

The Duncan Sisters were American actresses and motion picture figures of the 1920s. They were 12 and 14 when they entered vaudeville in 1914. They performed, as the Duncan Sisters, and were noted for their radio personas, “Topsy and Eva”. Later Rosetta and Vivian would find greater success, as a stage duo, with th...

John Sigvand “Ole” Olsen and Harold Ogden “Chic” Johnson were American comedians of vaudeville, radio, stage, motion pictures, and television. Olsen and Johnson partnered in 1914 perfecting their comedy during the vaudeville era. Olsen and Johnson were also Broadway sensations most noted for their comedy “Hellzapoppin”...

Theodore Kosloff was a Russian-born ballet dancer, choreographer, and film and stage actor. He completed his ballet training at Moscow's Imperial Theater in 1901 and while on tour around the United States in 1909, became acquainted with Cecil B. De Mille. De Mille cast Kosloff's first acting role in his 1917 film "The...

Portrait of an unknown figure titled "Treat Head". The figure is captured in a sinister portrayal. The atmosphere is extremely dark, obscuring the model in shadows. Shadow effect is a major component of this portrait. As the figure is lit from below, casting the dark silhouette of their hands eerily on the model's...