Florence O'Denishawn (born Florence Andrews, July 21, 1897 – March 15, 1991), was an American actress and model, and one of the first group of dancers associated with the

Denishawn school The Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded in 1915 by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California, helped many perfect their dancing talents and became the first dance academy in the United States to produce a professiona ...

Early life

Florence Andrews was born in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...

, the daughter of a banker. She studied dance with

Ted Shawn Ted Shawn (born Edwin Myers Shawn; October 21, 1891 – January 9, 1972) was a male pioneer of American modern dance. He created the Denishawn School together with his wife Ruth St. Denis. After their separation he created the all-male company Te ...

and

Ruth St. Denis Ruth St. Denis (born Ruth Denis; January 20, 1879 – July 21, 1968) was an American pioneer of modern dance, introducing eastern ideas into the art. She was the co-founder of the American Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts and the teac ...

in their "Denishawn" school in California. When she became a professional dancer, she wanted to be billed as "Florence of Denishawn", but the name became "Florence O'Denishawn" in a printing error, and she continued working under that version.

Career

O'Denishawn's stage credits included ''

Hitchy-Koo ''Hitchy-Koo'' is a 1912 American popular song and a series of musical revues, inspired by the song, staged on Broadway each year from 1917 through 1920 and on tour in 1922. Described by ''Variety'' magazine as a "hit song of 1912", the song was c ...

'' (1918-1920), '' Ziegfeld Follies of 1921'', ''Rose Briar'' (1922), ''

Music Box Revue ''Music Box Revue'' was a series of four musical theatre revues by Irving Berlin, presented from 1921 to 1925 at the Music Box Theatre in New York City. The first show was staged by Hassard Short with music by Irving Berlin, and featured contrib ...

'' (1923), and ''Honeymoon Lane'' (1926). Of her appearance in ''Music Box Revue,'' critic George Jean Nathan noted that her "umbilical revelations are so familiar by this time that one wishes she would put on a dress." She was cast in two silent films, ''Lawful Larceny'' (1923) and ''Monsieur Beaucaire'' (1924), in the latter dancing with

Rudolph Valentino Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred ...

. In 1925, she headlined a vaudeville shows in New York and Baltimore, with dancers Nelson Snow and Charles Columbus. She toured with Snow and Columbus in 1927 and 1930 O'Denishawn posed for photographer

NIckolas Muray Nickolas Muray (born Miklós Mandl; 15 February 1892 – 2 November 1965) was a Hungarian-born American photographer and Olympic saber fencer. Early and personal life Muray was born in Szeged, Hungary, and was History of the Jews in Hungary, Je ...

, and for sculptor

Harriet Whitney Frishmuth Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (September 17, 1880 – January 1, 1980) was an American sculptor known for her works in bronze. Life She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her parents divorced when she was in her teens, and she moved to Europe wi ...

. She posed for two bronze statues by Frishmuth, named "Papillon" and "Scherzo", which were commissioned by

Wilbur Foshay Wilbur B. Foshay (1881–1957) was an American businessman, who built a fortune buying utilities throughout the Midwest in the early 20th century. Foshay had built up three different utility company empires; selling each one in turn to fund the a ...

for

Foshay Tower The Foshay Tower, now the W Minneapolis – The Foshay hotel, is a skyscraper in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Modeled after the Washington Monument, the building was completed in 1929, months before the stock market crash in October of that year. It ...

. O'Denishawn gave a celebrity endorsement to a brand of footcare plasters. In 1926, she performed at a benefit show for the Episcopal Actors' Guild. In 1927 she performed in another benefit show, dancing at a midnight cabaret to raise funds for the Association for the Aid of Crippled Children. She danced for a cause again in 1930, at a variety show to benefit the Bide-A-Wee Home for Animals. O'Denishawn embarked upon the study of aviation in 1927, saying "there is nothing that can beat an aeroplane for grace." From the late 1930s into the 1950s, O'Denishawn worked in shops, running her own store in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

, and as head of the

lingerie Lingerie (, , ) is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments (mainly brassieres), sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fashio ...

department at Porter's department store on

Madison Avenue Madison Avenue is a north-south avenue in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States, that carries northbound one-way traffic. It runs from Madison Square (at 23rd Street) to meet the southbound Harlem River Drive at 142nd Stre ...

Opinions

O'Denishawn spoke about "prudery" and artistic expression, saying "There is no mental health in a nation that is afraid to trust itself in the presence of the nude." In 1928, O'Denishawn decried popular dances like the

Charleston Charleston most commonly refers to: * Charleston, South Carolina * Charleston, West Virginia, the state capital * Charleston (dance) Charleston may also refer to: Places Australia * Charleston, South Australia Canada * Charleston, Newfoundlan ...

or the Black Bottom with blatant

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, saying "Dances that are admittedly of a barbaric origin — the shimmy, Charleston, and others — are proving an insidious evil in the way of depriving our American women of their natural grace and movement," further explaining that "Negro anatomy is not the same as ours. The pose of the knees, the modelling of the hips, the line of the feet makes those dances right for the Negro" but not for white dancers.

Personal life

O'Denishawn died in 1991, aged 93 years, in New York. There is a file of her correspondence with Ted Shawn, in the

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Jacob's Pillow is a dance center, school and performance space located in Becket, Massachusetts, in the Berkshires. The organization is known for a Summer dance festival. The facility also includes a professional school and extensive archives a ...

archives in

Becket, Massachusetts Becket is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 1,931 at the 2020 census. History Becket was first settled in 1740, and was o ...

References

External links

* *
A 1917 photograph of Florence O'Denishawn
in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Photographs of Florence O'Denishawn
available at

Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creative ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:O'Denishawn, Florence 1897 births 1991 deaths American dancers People from Shreveport, Louisiana Vaudeville performers