Ernest Linden, American minstrel and female impersonator, sometimes billed as ‘The Burlesque Queen of Song’

Ernest Linden (active 1870-1887), American minstrel and female impersonator, sometimes billed as ‘The Burlesque Queen of Song’
(photo: H.S. White, 264 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1875)

‘Three of the finest female impersonators ever seen in this country [the United Kingdom] were Fred Dart in 1870, Frank Pieri in 1875, and Ernest Linden who was with the company [Moore and Burgess Minstrels] from 1879 to 1885. His singing voice was not of exceptional strength, but sufficient for the serio songs he adhered to. His speaking voice was of a contralto quality; extremely graceful in all his movement and quite a humorist, he had just the requisite touch of burlesque in all his business that made it so supremely clever and entertaining. Few female impersonators could wear their frocks with the same grace as Linden; these brilliant concoctions were usually made by Worth of Paris. This fact was advertised and they were the admiration of all the ladies present.’
(Harry Reynolds, Minstrel Memories, London, 1928, p. 124)

* * * * *

Philadelphia, Monday, 26 September 1870
‘AT THE ARCH STREET OPERA HOUSE, Ernest Linden, the female impersonator, will appear for the first time this evening, in conjunction with other attractions.’
(The Daily Evening Telegraph, Monday, 26 September 1870, p. 5b)

New Memphis Theatre, Memphis, May 1872
‘Duprez & Benedict’s minstrels, the best troupe that has visited Memphis for a long while, are doing a fine business at the theater. Last night the theater was well filled, and the audience enthusiastic in their praises of the performance. The ballads of Messrs. Frank Dumas and G.B. Harcourt are nearly all new and beautiful, and are among the best we have ever heard, and never fail to convulse the audience with laughter. The falsetto singing of Mr. Ernest Linden is always highly appreciated, while his ”get up” is not interior in style and gorgeousness to that of any operatic singer on the stage. The Messrs. J. Fox and W. Ward are the most artistic clog dancers and acrobats that have ever appeared on the boards of the Memphis Theatre, and their performances never fail to elicit a hearty encore. Altogether the performance is most excellent, and should not fail to draw a crowded house nightly.’
(The Public Ledger, Memphis, Tennessee, Thursday, 9 May 1872, p. 2b)

Emerson’s California Minstrels, The Opera House, Wheeling, West Virginia, December 1976
‘… Ernest Linden is indeed the burlesque queen of song, and won shouts upon shouts of applause from the audience… .’
(The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Wheeling, Saturday, 16 December 1876, West Virginia, p. 4d)

‘Ernest Linden is having a dress built which will cost between four and five hundred dollars when finished. For a detailed description of it we must refer our readers to some of the Miss Nancies of the press.’
(Daily Alta California, San Francisco, California, Sunday, 25 November 1877, p. 2b)

‘The following description of Ernest Linden’s new dress may interest our lady readers; White satin princess en train; elegantly embroidered vine, commencing at the back and running round train, composed of pansies, forget-me-nots and daisies. Wheat worked in gold and other pretty flowers. All worked in bright colors. The front is worked in one large bouquet of beautiful flowers and birds of Paradise. Bottom of dress slashed in blocks, edged with pink satin, and filled with white and pink French lace; round train boxed pleating, piped with pink. Sleeves, Marie Antoinette. Square corsage, fitted with crape lace. A band of white satin embroidered for neck, edged with lace. Gloves, stockings and slippers embroidered to match.’
(Daily Alta California, San Francisco, California, Sunday, 9 December 1877, p. 2b)

‘Ernest Linden has a wardrobe that a princess might envy. He does not depend upon his clothes for success, however, as his female impersonations are wonderful simulations of femininity. – Philadelphia Mirror.’
(Daily Alta California, San Francisco, California, Sunday, 19 May 1878, p. 2c)

Hague’s Minstrels, ‘The Original Slave Troupe,’ St. James’s Hall, Lime Street, Liverpool, England, August 1878
‘Mr. Hague’s latest addition to his company – Mr. Ernest Linden – is a great acquisition. His representation of the ”burlesque prima donna” is an undoubted success. His make-up is clever and tasteful, and his vocalisation natural and artistic.’
(The Liverpool Mercury, Liverpool, Wednesday, 7 August 1878, p. 6e)

‘Hague’s Minstrels at the Colston Hall, Bristol, England, April 1879
‘… The second part of the entertainment was as varied and as interesting at the first. Mr. Ernest Linden, who is styled the ”Patti of the Minstrel Stage,” was immense in his burlesque in personation of a Prima Donna, and his wonderfully flexible voice and powers of humour won for him an enthusiastic encore… .’
(The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, Bristol, Monday, 14 April 1879, p. 3e)

The Moore and Burgess Minstrels, St. James’s Hall, Piccadilly, London, Thursday, 18 September 1879
‘On Thursday evening the Moore and Burgess Minstrels entered upon the fifteenth year of their marvellously successful entertainment … A new artiste of great merit, Mr Ernest Linden, appeared as a coloured prima donna with great success. Mr Linden was arrayed in a magnificent costume by Worth, of Paris, and his scene was extremely amusing and effective… .’
(The Era, London, Sunday, 21 September 1879, p. 3d)

The Moore and Burgess Minstrels at the Colston Hall, Bristol, England, Saturday, 9 December 1882
‘Messrs. Moore and Burgess’s Minstrels, who make it their boast that for seventeen years they have never ”performed out of London,” but who, in consequence of the St. James’s-hall, Piccadilly, which has been their home for so many years, being temporarily closed for repairs and alterations, are now making a provincial tour… . Mr. Ernest Linden, the ”burlesque Queen,” convulsed his hearers by his intensely comic interpretation of the song ”Awfully Awful.”’
(The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post, Bristol, Monday, 11 December 1882, p. 3c)

John Lind (?Lind?), female impersonator, circa 1902

John Lind (1877-1940), Swedish-born international female impersonator, billed from 1904 as ‘?Lind?’ (photo: unknown, possibly Paris, circa 1902; postcard published by Alterocca, Terni, Italy, circa 1902, no. 3344, caption: ‘Monsieur (et non Mademoiselle!) Jhon [sic] Lind’)

Reg Wright

Reg Wright (fl. circa 1920), female impersonator
(photo: E. Dyche, Birmingham, circa 1920)

Lulu

a carte de visite photograph of Lulu, the ‘female’ trapeze artist formerly known as the boy acrobat El Niño Farini, who was actually Sam Wasgate (1855-1939), the adopted son of William Leonard Hunt (1838-1929),
known to the world as the tightrope walker and acrobat, The Great Farini.
(photo: Sarony, New York, circa 1875)

‘At a recent performance in a Dublin circus [Hengler’s] Lulu, the well-known gymnast, met with a terrible accident. She is propelled from a spring platform about sixty feet into the air, and then catches a trapeze. On this occasion she missed the catch, and did not fall perpendicularly on the net intended to receive her, but sideways against the gallery railings, and thence rebounded into the arena. Her injuries are most fearful, and the doctors entertain no hope of her recovery.’
(Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, Tuesday, 5 September 1876, p.3f)

‘The London Athenaeum thinks it may be worth stating that ”Lulu,” the female gymnast, whose recent fall from a trapeze in Dublin has excited public attention, is a man.’
(Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, Sunday, 17 September 1876, p.8g)

Barbette

Barbette (né Van der Clyde Broodway, 1898-1973), American born international wire walker, aerialist and female impersonator
(photo: unknown, probably Paris, circa 1924)

Van de Clyde Broodway, known to the world in the 1920s and 1930s as Barbette, was born in Round Rock, Texas, on 19 December 1899. He began his career as a wire-walker with the Ringling Brothers’ circus but drifted into female impersonation after he replaced at short notice an ailing member of the Alfaretta Sisters trapeze act. In 1923 he was engaged for vaudeville by Thomas Barrasford at the Alhambra Music Hall, Paris, before moving on later that year to feature in the Casino de Paris revue, Y a qu’a Paris. Billed in this as ‘Barbette the Enigma,’ he caused a sensation at what proved to be the beginning of a highly successful international career. Broodway returned to the United States at the outbreak of the Second World War, but in 1942 he fell during a performance and sustained a serious injury. He subsequently became a circus producer and died on 5 August 1972.

* * * * * * * *

‘On stage, against black velvet curtains appeared a young woman in a silvery-gold wig topped with plumes and feathers, with a train of rich lamé and silver lace, undressing on a couch of rich oriental carpets. The woman then rose, naked except for the gems on her breast and belly, and began walking a [low] steel tight-rope. Her eyes shaded green, like some mysterious Asiatic jewel, she walked backwards and forwards along the tight-rope, dispensed with her balancing-pole, and contorted her thin, nervous body as the entire audience held its breath… Then Barbette leapt down on to the stage, gave a bow, tore off her wig and revealed a bony Anglo-Saxon acrobat’s head: gasps from the astonished audience, shattered by the sudden brutality of the action.
‘The Music-Hall has always had its female impersonators. But no one went further in the cult of sexual mystification than this young man who transformed himself into a jazz-age Botticelli…’ (Jacques Damase, Les Folies du Music-Hall; A History of the Paris Music-Hall from 1914 to the Present Day, English translation of the original 1960 French edition, Anthony Blond Ltd, London, 1962, p.30)

Barbette (né Van der Clyde Broodway, 1898-1973), American born international wire walker, aerialist and female impersonator
(photo: unknown, probably Paris, circa 1924)

Van de Clyde Broodway, known to the world in the 1920s and 1930s as Barbette, was born in Round Rock, Texas, on 19 December 1899. He began his career as a wire-walker with the Ringling Brothers’ circus but drifted into female impersonation after he replaced at short notice an ailing member of the Alfaretta Sisters trapeze act. In 1923 he was engaged for vaudeville by Thomas Barrasford at the Alhambra Music Hall, Paris, before moving on later that year to feature in the Casino de Paris revue, Y a qu’a Paris. Billed in this as ‘Barbette the Enigma,’ he caused a sensation at what proved to be the beginning of a highly successful international career. Broodway returned to the United States at the outbreak of the Second World War, but in 1942 he fell during a performance and sustained a serious injury. He subsequently became a circus producer and died on 5 August 1972.

* * * * * * * *

‘On stage, against black velvet curtains appeared a young woman in a silvery-gold wig topped with plumes and feathers, with a train of rich lamé and silver lace, undressing on a couch of rich oriental carpets. The woman then rose, naked except for the gems on her breast and belly, and began walking a [low] steel tight-rope. Her eyes shaded green, like some mysterious Asiatic jewel, she walked backwards and forwards along the tight-rope, dispensed with her balancing-pole, and contorted her thin, nervous body as the entire audience held its breath… Then Barbette leapt down on to the stage, gave a bow, tore off her wig and revealed a bony Anglo-Saxon acrobat’s head: gasps from the astonished audience, shattered by the sudden brutality of the action.
‘The Music-Hall has always had its female impersonators. But no one went further in the cult of sexual mystification than this young man who transformed himself into a jazz-age Botticelli…’ (Jacques Damase, Les Folies du Music-Hall; A History of the Paris Music-Hall from 1914 to the Present Day, English translation of the original 1960 French edition, Anthony Blond Ltd, London, 1962, p.30)

Barbette (né Van der Clyde Broodway, 1898-1973), American born international wire walker, aerialist and female impersonator
(photo: unknown, probably Paris, circa 1924)

Van de Clyde Broodway, known to the world in the 1920s and 1930s as Barbette, was born in Round Rock, Texas, on 19 December 1899. He began his career as a wire-walker with the Ringling Brothers’ circus but drifted into female impersonation after he replaced at short notice an ailing member of the Alfaretta Sisters trapeze act. In 1923 he was engaged for vaudeville by Thomas Barrasford at the Alhambra Music Hall, Paris, before moving on later that year to feature in the Casino de Paris revue, Y a qu’a Paris. Billed in this as ‘Barbette the Enigma,’ he caused a sensation at what proved to be the beginning of a highly successful international career. Broodway returned to the United States at the outbreak of the Second World War, but in 1942 he fell during a performance and sustained a serious injury. He subsequently became a circus producer and died on 5 August 1972.

* * * * * * * *

‘On stage, against black velvet curtains appeared a young woman in a silvery-gold wig topped with plumes and feathers, with a train of rich lamé and silver lace, undressing on a couch of rich oriental carpets. The woman then rose, naked except for the gems on her breast and belly, and began walking a [low] steel tight-rope. Her eyes shaded green, like some mysterious Asiatic jewel, she walked backwards and forwards along the tight-rope, dispensed with her balancing-pole, and contorted her thin, nervous body as the entire audience held its breath… Then Barbette leapt down on to the stage, gave a bow, tore off her wig and revealed a bony Anglo-Saxon acrobat’s head: gasps from the astonished audience, shattered by the sudden brutality of the action.
‘The Music-Hall has always had its female impersonators. But no one went further in the cult of sexual mystification than this young man who transformed himself into a jazz-age Botticelli…’ (Jacques Damase, Les Folies du Music-Hall; A History of the Paris Music-Hall from 1914 to the Present Day, English translation of the original 1960 French edition, Anthony Blond Ltd, London, 1962, p.30)

Lulu

a carte de visite photograph of Lulu, the ‘female’ trapeze artist, formerly known as the boy acrobat El Niño Farini, was actually Sam Wasgate (b. 1855), the adopted son of William Leonard Hunt (1838-1929), known to the world as the tightrope walker and acrobat, The Great Farini.
(photo: The London Stereoscopic & Photographic Co Ltd, London, circa 1873)

‘The New York Evening Post thus discourses on the female gymnast who is at present delighting metropolitan audiences.:
‘“Lulu” is the young woman who swings on the trapeze. The trapeze is over the heads of the audience, and the people stare at her feats of nimbleness and strength as Spanish women do at a bull fight. A net is spread underneath to catch her if she falls; but those who enjoy the show would probably feel additional delight if the net should some time give way and drop her, mangled, to the floor. She also jumps – that is, a 4,000-pound weight drops suddenly on one end of a lever, and the other end, striking a platform on which she stands, send her some thirty feet in the air, where she catches to a stationary platform, amid rapturous applause. She is called the “eighth wonder of the world,” and if jumping like a frog makes a young woman wonderful at all, the play-bill describes her truly.’
(The Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, Thursday, 22 May 1873, p.1b)

‘At a recent performance in a Dublin circus [Hengler’s] Lulu, the well-known gymnast, met with a terrible accident. She is propelled from a spring platform about sixty feet into the air, and then catches a trapeze. On this occasion she missed the catch, and did not fall perpendicularly on the net intended to receive her, but sideways against the gallery railings, and thence rebounded into the arena. Her injuries are most fearful, and the doctors entertain no hope of her recovery.’
(Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, Tuesday, 5 September 1876, p.3f)

‘The London Athenaeum thinks it may be worth stating that ”Lulu,” the female gymnast, whose recent fall from a trapeze in Dublin has excited public attention, is a man.’
(Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, Sunday, 17 September 1876, p.8g)

Russell Wallett, ‘The Lady in Black’

Russell Wallett (1867-1912)
English actor, music hall entertainer and female impersonator,
as a ‘Gibson Girl’
(photo: unknown, UK, circa 1906; half-tone publicity postcard)

Russell Wallett appears as an extra turn at the London Coliseum, February 1908
‘Mr. Russell Wallett appeared on Monday afternoon as an extra turn at the Coliseum. Dressed as a lady, he played the piano and sang. For his sudden lapse into masculinity few were prepared, and he scored a distinct success, especially in his advice to the girls.’
(The Era, London, Saturday, 4 April 1908, p. 19a)