1878-1961
Subject of several famous Edison dance shorts Annabelle Whitford, who used the name "Annabelle Moore" when performing (it was reportedly her stepfather's surname), was born on this day in Chicago [Note that through the years since her debut in film in the 1890's, she has been credited with both surnames]. She was famous not just for her appearance in early film, she was a sensation long before; which is, of course, how she came to be in motion pictures. She is historically important as a participant in a number firsts. She was the original "Gibson Girl", and was one of the original performers in Ziegfeld Follies in 1907; she was the first actor/performer featured in the very first Kinetoscope installed for viewing in London, England, and she has been credited as introducing eroticism to film--just to name but a few. An excellent case can be made that she was the very first movie star. In terms of how she came to be the subject of films, she was trained as a dancer in her youth and made her formal dance debut at the 1893 Columbian Exchange. It is not a coincidence that she performed "butterfly dances" and similar "dress" or "skirt dances," and that she was from Chicago. The originator of the "skirt dance" was Loie Fuller, who started as a very talented improve or free dancer; she was already a famous burlesque dancer who both choreographed and lit her own dances--the most famous of which was the Serpentine Dance--and she was also from Chicago. When Annabelle traveled to New York the following year, at the age of 16, she became one of the earliest actual performers for the Edison Manufacturing co. when she appeared in the Annabelle Sun Dance (1894) directed by William K. L. Dickson himself, and one of the films shot in the Black Maria, the world's very first film studio (note that the "poster" in the Internet Movie Database for this film depicts a different film, in fact the very next film she appeared in). In all, she made three "skirt dance" films for Edison--including the Annabelle Butterfly Dance (1894) & Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1895)--before moving on to American Mutoscope with another rendition of the Butterfly Dance in 1896. In another historical first, Annabelle Serpentine Dance represents one of the very first color motion pictures, hand tinted, and is most likely the very first distributed color film. In all she appeared 10 "dance" films with both companies combined. At American Mutoscope, she added her Tambourine Dance and a Flag Dance to the world of earliest cinema. Her later dance films in 1897 were all made back at the Edison facility. She has just one other film to her name, a "trick film" made by the German Mutoscope & Biograph company, combining skirt dancing with footage shot at the German aquarium--edited in such a way as to make the dancer appear to be dancing underwater. It was released as A Mermaid Dance in 1902. In the early 20th century, she spent time exclusively in stage revues of various sorts, and even did a little stage acting before retiring for good in 1912. She had married in 1910 and her and her husband moved back to Chicago. He died there in 1958, she followed on the 1st of December in 1961 at the age of 83. In a "not much has changed" note: her and her husband, a Dr., donated in 1957 to a charity to benefit under privileged children in Chicago, when she earned-all on her own-a one time payment for writing an article about her witnessing the horrible fire at the Iroquois Theater in 1903, when the Federal Government learned of the donation, they kicked both of them off of their pensions....classy uh?? Interestingly, in the weeks following that blaze, which killed over 600 people, Annabelle herself was counted among the dead. About her actual death almost 6 decades later, there are conflicting reports as to whether she was buried at Chicago's famed Graceland Cemetery or cremated there and her ashes scattered. Three interesting documentaries have included footage and biographical materials on her, each in their own area of focus: from early color to early erotica. They are listed below:
Glorious Technicolor (1998)
Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003)
The Quiet Room: A Story of Cinema (2013 short)
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| Gibson Girl |
IMDb
Find A Grave entry
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