Mazie King (January 14, 1888 – November 1968) was an American dancer, singer, and vaudeville performer.

Career

Mazie King danced on Broadway in three shows: ''The Mimic World'' (1908), ''The Hen-Pecks'' (1911), and ''The Doll GIrl'' (1913). She was also in ''The Rising Generation'' (1895), ''Hogan's Alley'' (1896), ''The Midnight Sons'' (1910)'','' ''The Passing Show of 1913'', and ''Over the Top'' (1919). Dances and songs were named for Mazie King; sheet music featured her likeness. She was in a touring show called ''Painting the Town'' in 1907. She toured in California as a dancer on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit in 1911, with her "artistic dance" titled "The Legend of the Spring". Sometimes she danced with partners, including Tyler Brooke in Boston in 1915, and E. E. Marini in Delaware in 1917. She was touring again in 1919, with a program called "Dance Jingles". When she was starring in a vaudeville program in 1920, her partner was Harry Ormond. King drew publicity for various unusual reasons. She was considered the first dancer to have her foot x-rayed '' en pointe'', in 1898. She was said to have her legs insured for $30,000 with Lloyd's of London. "Miss King is credited with being the only toe-dancer who has ever accomplished the feat of jumping from a table to the stage, alighting on her toes, and continuing her dance without intermission," noted one report in 1900. In 1910, she posed for miniature portraits to show her "old-fashioned" and "beautifully moulded" shoulders. She descended the stairs of New York's 45-story

Metropolitan Life Building The MetLife Building (also 200 Park Avenue and formerly the Pan Am Building) is a skyscraper at Park Avenue and 45th Street (Manhattan), 45th Street, north of Grand Central Terminal, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Desi ...

, en pointe, in 1911. In 1914, she repeated the feat at the Los Angeles Courthouse. King took a break for a few seasons when she married late in 1920, but was back on the variety stage in 1923. In 1928 she registered ''Safety First: A Nautical Farce'' and ''A Tale of the Sea: A Nautical Farce'' for copyrights, under the name "Mazie King Patton".

Personal life

Mazie King married a fellow vaudeville performer, comedian John F. "Harry" Leonard. He died in 1908. Her second husband was Floyd H. Nourse, a booking agent; they divorced in 1914. She married a third time in 1920, to John G. Patton, a restaurateur in Philadelphia.

References

External links

*
A 1911 publicity photograph of Mazie King
from the J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, University of Washington Libraries. * George Linus Cobb
"The Mazie King Midnight Trot"
(Rossiter 1916), a sound file. {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Mazie American dancers Vaudeville performers 1880s births Year of death missing