Bessie McCoy (1888 – August 16, 1931) was an Irish-American Vaudeville star best known for her 1908 hit song and dance routine "

The Yama Yama Man "The Yama Yama Man" was a comical song for the Broadway show ''The Three Twins'', published in 1908 by M. Witmark & Sons with music by Karl Hoschna and lyrics by Collin Davis. It became popular after Bessie McCoy's animated performance in a sati ...

", for which she became known as "The Yama Yama Girl". Her husband was the war correspondent

Richard Harding Davis Richard Harding Davis (April 18, 1864 – April 11, 1916) was an American journalist and writer of fiction and drama, known foremost as the first American war correspondent to cover the Spanish–American War, the Second Boer War, and the First ...

. McCoy was born in Ireland as Elizabeth Genevieve McEvoy. Her mother and father were a vaudeville act known as McCoy and McEvoy, they were Irish clog dancers. Bessie, along with her sister, entered stage in their teens as chorus girls. She appeared in a number of Broadway musicals and made a breakthrough in the play "The Echo". She was given the "Yama Yama Man" song in the 1908 revue ''Three Twins''. She became famous for her lazy, husky singing while performing unusual acrobatic dance routines while dressed in a clowns pajama suit with a fools cap topped by a puff ball. She met Harding Davis at this time, and they were married in 1912 when she was 24 years old. After Harding's early death in 1916 from a heart-attack, McCoy retired from stage work and lived in the Davis' Connecticut estate. In 1931, while in France with her 16-year-old daughter Hope, she died suddenly after an emergency intestinal operation.

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* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:McCoy, Bessie 1888 births 1931 deaths Vaudeville performers American stage actresses Irish emigrants to the United States (before 1923)