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Dancers in flamesMary Grace Swift aa Teaches history , Loyola University , New OrleansPublished online: 02 Jun 2008.

To cite this article: Mary Grace Swift (1981) Dancers in flames, Dance Chronicle, 5:1, 1-10, DOI: 10.1080/01472528108568824

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Dancers in Flames

Mary Grace Swift

Ballet history is replete with tales of horror, of tender maidensengulfed in flames that charred their milk-white flesh. It was not war,passion, or arson that burnt their beautiful young bodies to the pointwhere death was welcomed after days of suffering. Though it is notwidely known, a series of unfortunate brushes of ballet tutus tooclose to open flames sent at least a dozen young ballerinas to ghastlydeaths in America between 1850 and 1870.

In America, the Chestnut Theatre of Philadelphia is creditedwith the installation of the first gas lighting system, in 1816, and itsuse spread to other major houses in subsequent decades.1 The adventof gaslight had no small influence on the growth and popularity ofthe Romantic ballet. Its radiant softness lent mystery and characterto the setting. It also, brought risks, although the long-establishedsystem of oil-burner lamps was no safer. Americans shuddered whenthey read of a fire caused by an oil-burner at London's Drury LaneTheatre during a performance of The Revolt of the Harem onDecember 14, 1844. The skirt of the promising English ballerinaClara Webster brushed the flame, and the horrified audience saw herrush about the stage while flames consumed her clothing. Finally, astage carpenter rolled himself over her, extinguishing the fire at thecost of great personal suffering to himself. While the ballet programwent on to its conclusion, Clara was taken home, where she died onDecember 17. When word came to America of her accident, the

© 1982 by Mary Grace Swift.

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Broadway Journal described it in a long article called "Barbarities ofthe Theatre." "We have often noticed with alarm," the Journalnoted, "the flaring of the footlights at the very steps of the actresses.The lights should be carefully protected, as recommended by theLondon coroner, with a net-work of wire, and as he exhibited, thedresses might also be rendered incombustible. . . . It may occur again,at any moment," the Journal warned.2 The Spirit of the Timescountered by complaining about "born alarmists" such as the writerof the Journal article.3

However, only too soon in America did a rash of fires beginwhich escalated both in horror and in the numbers of dancersinvolved. Niblo's Garden in New York was the scene of one of themost famous burnings. There on December 24, 1850, AdelaideLehman was dancing in a pantomime called La Fete Champetre, astandard work in the repertoire of the famous Ravel family. TheLehman family, large in itself, had come to America in 1846. Theyhad united their talents with those of the Ravel brothers, whofrequently needed the services of a charming ballerina, especiallyafter their own wives became mothers of several children. On thisoccasion Adelaide had climbed a ladder in order to peer through awindow, when her dress brushed against the wing lights and flamesinstantly surrounded her. In order not to alarm the audience, shejumped from the ladder without screaming. Running down the sideof the stage, she covered her face with her hands. Two members ofthe company, Francois Ravel and Joseph Marzetti, tried to extin-guish the fire, searing their own hands and faces in the process.Finally, a carpenter's baize jacket was thrown over her. ManagerJohn Sefton announced to the audience, who did not know the fulltruth of what had happened, that Mademoiselle Lehman had had anaccident and that Josephine Bertin would take her place in theperformance. Without further ado, the show went on. Adelaide diedon December 31 after an eight-day martyrdom. "She expired in themidst of her family, without complaint, and her sole regret was toleave on earth her father, her brothers and her sisters, of whom shewas the principal support," the New York Herald declared.4 Figarowas no less sorrowful. "That one so young, so fair, so gentle, and sokind, so talented and so truly estimable in every relation in life, asAdele Lehman is . . . adds deeper poignancy to our grief."5 The

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DANCERS IN FLAMES

Tribune noted that "the flame, too, was enamored of the grace thatrivalled its own litheness."6

Some months later and hundreds of miles distant, anotherlovely young dancer met a similar death. Joseph M. Field, proprietorof St. Louis' Varieties Theatre, had engaged a ballet company in thefall of 1852 which included a young Emilie Baron, a French dancerwho had made a name for herself in an earlier engagement in NewOrleans. On October 7, 1852, Mam'selle Baron was dancing in theballet Nicodemus, which had been staged in St. Louis by LeonEspinosa. At one point, Emilie Baron had to enter the door of acottage on stage. As she waited behind the wings for her next en-trance, Baron carelessly approached too near a sidelight, which madeher bouffant skirt shoot up in flames. When a stagehand tried to ex-tinguish it, Mam'selle Emilie fled from him, convulsed in agony asflames danced above her head. Members of the cast struggled bothto beat out the fire and to keep her from running toward the inflam-mable scenery and jumping into the parterre.7 Baron's devotedFrench mother, who always waited in the wings to assist her darling,finally dragged the girl to the dressing room, insisting in brokenEnglish that "No—Americaine—no Americaine" could touch her.After applying oil to the burns by means of cotton batting, shewrapped her child in a blanket and took her home. Years later it wasrevealed that while the charred young beauty was being conveyedhome, she gave birth to a stillborn child, of unknown paternity.8

The Old Bowery Theatre in New York was the scene ofanother conflagration in the spring of 1855, the least publicized ofall these mishaps. There a Miss Denvil, sister of the actress RachelDenvil, was playing in a gorgeous pantomime spectacle called SevenTemptations, or Virtue and Vice Contrasted. It was based on an oldfairy tale called The Seven Castles of the Seven Passions, a Faustiantale of selling a soul to Mephistopheles to gain a renewal of youth. Asthe curtain rose, Faust and Mephistopheles appeared upstage. MissDenvil, protraying the character Frailty, entered the scene wearinglong tarlatan skirts. She pirouetted, holding a golden ewer in onehand and a golden goblet in the other, miming the pouring of liquorinto the goblet. Unluckily, she swirled too close to the footlights,and in a second her flimsy skirts were enflamed. Faust, Mephistopheles,and the stagehands ran to her assistance, as well as boys in the pit,

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who climbed the orchestra rails to get onto the stage. The curtainwas lowered, the stage manager came forth to assure the audiencethat her burns were slight, and the program then continued. However,after lingering a short while, Miss Denvil too died.9

The year 1856 brought at least two new burnings. In St. Louis,a Miss Miller was mortally injured after her skirt caught fire from agas jet at Woods Theatre.10 In New York on March 19,1856, again atNiblo's Garden, the skirt of Pauline Genet, a nineteen-year-oldFrench dancer with the Ravel Family, caught fire in the Green Room.Ironically, as she was looking out a window at a distant conflagration,her skirt came too near a gas light. Her companions were panic-stricken, and one of them was somehow injured in jumping from thestage. Pauline died on March 29. A benefit was given in April fromwhich $1,000 was earned for her dependent mother.11

In 1859 tragedy struck the Marsh Troupe, a group of per-formers whose real name was Guerineau. While dancing in Macon,Georgia, little Mary Marsh (Guerineau), born in 1847, came too nearthe footlights and in a moment felt searing pain. A man sprang imme-diately on stage and wrapped his cloak about her, thus smotheringthe flames, but not before Mary's entire body had been burned. Thistime, at least, the performance was stopped, and Mary was carried toa hotel, where she died a few hours later. Another performer,Georgianne Mosely, died a few years later from the effects of burnsshe had received in trying to save Mary.12

A popular form of entertainment in this era was dancing on atightrope, which often was stretched across the orchestra pit. Jose-phine Farren, a pretty and popular danseuse of the Volks Garten, aGerman theatre on the Bowery, was performing on the tightrope onFebruary 4, 1860, when her dress is reported to have touched one ofthe footlights, and in an instant she was another flaming torch. Someof the musicians in the orchestra who sprang to aid her received verysevere burns themselves. The house was crowded and much confusionensued, but the Tenth Ward police soon arrived and ushered theaudience out safely. Miss Farren died the next day. Frank Leslie'sillustrated Newspaper noted that "this is a case which calls on thebenevolence of the public, as she supported her mother and youngersisters by her exertions, and was in every respect a praiseworthyyoung woman."13

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The death of Josephine Farren, reprinted from Old Bowery Days byAlvin F. Harlow.

All these incidents, horrible as they were, were nothing incomparison to the scene that occurred in Philadephia in 1861.

The veteran showman William Wheatley had opened the Con-tinental Theatre on September 9. For a new production of The Tem-pest, he had hired four sisters from the family of Mrs. George Gale,the widow of an English performer. Hannah and Adeona Gale hadcome to America in 1857 with the company of Domenico Ronzaniand had performed in many American cities. So successful were thetwo elder ones that Mrs. Gale also brought her two younger daughters,Ruth and Zelia, to America in 1861, in time to join Wheatley's cast.

On Saturday, September 14, Wheatley, protraying Prospero,was alone on stage. There the sea was represented by a spacious greenc;mvas. Behind the scene, members of the corps de ballet preparedfor a dance that was to open the second act. Their three connecteddressing rooms were on the second floor of the theatre, nearly 50feet from the footlights; they were reached by a flight of stairs run-

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ning up from the side of the stage. The middle room of the three,occupied by the principal dancers, contained a large mirror with agas jet beneath it. Unthinkingly, the girls arranged their costumesbefore it. A row of pegs extended along the wall above the mirror,upon which the dancers hung their street dresses while wearing theirstage attire. Ruth Gale had hung a tarlatan dress nearest to the rightend of the mirror. As she reached to take it down, the dress caughtfire. In the flickering of an eye, her clothes were ablaze. Shriekingwith terror, she ran across the room to her sisters, who tried to extin-guish the flames with their bare hands. Mad with fright, Ruth toreherself from them and rushed into the outer room, spreading terrorto the other girls, whose skirts also caught fire. Then Zelia Gale, whohad first run to her terrified sister, fled screaming down the stairstoward the stage. The stage carpenter, Thomas Bayard, wrenched upthe cloth which represented the sea and wrapped it about Zelia toextinguish the flames. In her anguish, however, she had dashed withforce against some silvered plate glass used to represent water, andcut herself frightfully. The audience became panic-stricken whenAnnie McBride rushed upon the stage shrieking, also enveloped inflames. Attendants rushed from the sides, tearing up more of thewave cloth to wrap about her. Wheatley tried to convince the audi-ence there was no danger and that they should be calm. No soonerhad he made this attempt than louder and more piercing cries wereheard from behind the lowered curtain, where all hell, it seemed, hadbroken loose. Six or seven dancers, with their clothes nearly allburned off them, ran frantically about, their screams reverberatingthroughout the building. Hannah Gale leaped from the window onSansom Street, falling upon the pavement with such force that shewas insensible. Anna Nichols jumped from the platform at the headof the dressing room stairs to the stage, nearly 25 feet, and wasseverely injured. Phoebe Forden was shockingly burned. ClaraClifton, who also sprang from the Sansom Street window, was caughtby a spectator. Eventually all the victims were taken to the Pennsyl-vania Hospital. There Anna McBride died at six o'clock on Sundaymorning, Ann Phillips at one o'clock the same day, and two hoursafterward Hannah Gale joined them in death. Mary Herman died atfour o'clock that afternoon, and in the course of the next night.

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Adeona Gale and Phoebe Forden also expired. On September 17Ruth Gale followed, and in a matter of time, Zelia Gale, Annal'liillips, Abbie Carr, and Hannah M. Develin also joined this lucklessband of vvilis.14

The Gale Sisters and their companions were deeply mourned.In the history of the American theatre, their cruel fate was consid-ered second in the rank of tragic events only to the burning of theRichmond Theatre in 1812. "Bayard," the columnist for Wilkes'Spirit of the Times, left the most touching tribute:

They were the most dutiful and loving of daughters—faithful, honest,zealous, in all that served to make a cheerful home; and that home waseverything to them. Gifted with rare personal beauty, amiable andcheerful in disposition, they had hosts of friends among men andwomen whose friendship was worth having. Instinctively shrinkingfrom every approach of temptation, they passed the trying ordeal ofthe stage without blemish; and when the widow mother folded themnightly to rest, she knew that she held in her loving arms daughters aspure and as spotless as ever blest the maternal heart. United in a lovethat strengthened with their years, they were daily and hourly nearerand dearer to each other—the horizon of their little world shut down attheir door-sill, nor could the thousand brilliant temptations of the outercreation draw them, singly or collectively, for one moment away fromthe domestic altar. Like celestial satellites, they revolved around theplanet mother, in perfect harmony and unsullied brilliance, until thefearful summons came that translated them—let us devoutly trust—tothat heaven of the blest, where temptation and suffering are unknown.These lovely girls unconsciously did a great and good work for theirprofession. They proved, as many other good women have done, thatthe theatre, and even those positions herein most open to suspicion,may claim and preserve the highest standard of virtue—that the balletgirl, upon whom is cast the lascivious leer, and who, in the careless andwicked conversation of the lobby, is classed with the wanton of thehighway, may be as pure in heart, as innocent in mind, as blameless inlife and conduct, and as far beyond the reach of temptation as thetcnderest daughter of luxury or the severest Puritan by nature. Thesesisters have shown that a modest, virtuous life, even behind the scenesof the dreadful theatre, can force from a skeptical world that homagewhich virtue never fails to extort from the most unwilling; for, duringtheir entire career, I never heard even a hint that they were not whatthey seemed—pure, simple-hearted, industrious, worthy of all praise."They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they

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were not divided," may be truly said of the two eldest, Hannah andAdeona. . . . The terrible catastrophe at Philadelphia has shown us thatthe noblest Christian virtues are not beyond the reach of the humbleballet girl; let us, then, show the often broken-spirited, perhaps broken-hearted ones, who hide a life of domestic wretchedness and sometimesof sharp poverty behind the smile-wreathed faces of their characters inthe evening's bill, that we can at least entertain a liberal degree ofhuman charity and sympathy for them, not merely as members of onecommon family, bound to a common judgment.15

This was the worst of these tragedies, but it did not put anend to such horrors. On New Year's Eve, 1867, about a dozen girlswere preparing for their entrance in a great Eastern spectacle entitledSadak and Kalasrade in St. Louis' Varieties Theatre. One of the girlswas Dora Freeberthyser, the daughter of Conrad Freeberthyser, whohad directed the popular Swiss Bell Ringers when they touredAmerica in the previous decade. The room in which the girls dressedwas heated by a small stove, red-hot at the time. As Dora sat dressingnear it, her light gauzy ballet skirt caught fire. The press reported:

The scene that took place as the agonized girl ran screaming about theapartment was of the most harrowing nature, all was confusion andalarm, and for some moments those present appear to have been tooparalyzed with fear to make any attempt to extinguish the flames. Alittle girl named Bell, an attache of the theatre, threw a water proofcoat round the ill-fated Dora, but was unable to control her desperatestruggles and did not succeed in putting out the flames althoughassisted by the sister of the unfortunate victim.16

Dora, who was about eighteen years old, died on January 3; her sisterwas burned painfully, but not dangerously injured.

Probably there were more of these young victims in America.17

Such incidents would be concealed, if possible, for fear of causingcustomers to stay away from theatres, which so frequently burned inthe nineteenth century. Their lives were snuffed out chiefly by care-lessness, on the part of both managers and themselves, it can be saidin hindsight. However, many theatre managers were only followingthe normal lighting procedures of their era in failing to providesufficient distance between exposed lights and the bouffant costumesof the day. As for the carelessness of the girls, who could expect

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otherwise from light-hearted, energetic, vivacious young lasses? Theirstories afford many insights into nineteenth-century theatricalpractices, but perhaps it tells more about the very ballet girls them-; dves. Far from being hard, coarse floozies, as they are sometimesdepicted, these dancers were very often, it seems, gentle, sweetdutiful daughters, often the sole support of a needy family. Fortun-iitely, the improvement around 1870 in fire proofing solutions intowhich costumes could be dipped and the introduction of electriclights in the 1880s eventually eliminated this particular occupationalhazard.

Notes

1. Gösta M. Bergman, Lighting in the Theatre (Stockholm:Almqvist and Wiksell, 1977), p. 258. Other information onlighting may be found in Frank C. Brown, "Lighting in EarlyPlayhouses," Theatre Magazine, 27 (1918), 36, and in P.Gerald Bangham, "Nineteenth Century Gas Lighting," Diss.Ohio State University 1959.

2. "Barbarities of the Theatre," Broadway Journal, 1, No. 5(February 1, 1845), 71.

3. Spirit of the Times, February 8, 1845, p. 600.4. New York Herald, January 1, 1851. L'Abeille de la Nouvelle

Orléans, January 8, 1851 (reprint of article from Le Courrierdes Etats-Unis).

5. Figaro, December 28, 1850, p. 254.6. New York Daily Tribune, January 1, 1851.7. Anzeiger des Westens, October 14, 1852; St. Louis Intelligencer,

October 14, 1852; St. Louis Evening News, October 13, 1852.Mary Grace Swift, "St. Louis' Resident Ballet Company: 1852,"Missouri Historical Review, 72, No. 2 (January 1978), 121-35.

8. John Carboy, "Theatrical Reminiscences," undated, unidenti-fied clipping in the Harvard Theatre Collection. The author givesevidence of a wide knowledge of the American theatre.

9. Unidentified clipping, dated "March 4," in Lillian Moore Collec-tion, New York Public Library. Information on Seven Tempta-tions came from the New York Herald, May 1, 1855 ; Spirit ofthe Times, May 19, 1855; and George C. D. Odell, Annals ofthe New York Stage, 6 (1850-1857), 370.

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10. Margaret Blackburn, "The Stage in St. Louis, Missouri, after1850," M. A. Thesis, State University of Iowa 1925, p. 45.

11. Era, April 20 and 27, 1856; New York Tribune, March 21 and31, 1856; "The Ravel Family," unpublished memorandum,University of Texas Humanities Center.

12. Porter's Spirit of the Times, January 7, 1860, p. 288; T. AllstonBrown, History of the American Stage, (New York: Dick andFitzgerald, 1870), pp. 235-6.

13. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 18, 1860, p. 182.Alvin F. Harlow, Old Bowery Days (New York: Appleton,1931), p. 384.

14. New York Herald, September 16, 1861; William D. Coder, "AHistory of the Philadelphia Theatre, 1856-1878." University ofPennsylvania 1936, pp. 21-4; Frank Leslie's Illustrated News-paper, September 28, 1861, pp. 305-7.

15. Wilkes' Spirit of the Times, September 28, 1861, p. 64.16. Missouri Republican, January 4, 1867.17. Certainly the most famous case abroad was the burning of the

brilliant Emma Livry at the Paris Opéra on November 15, 1862.Her story is described by Parmenia Migel in The Ballerinas (NewYork: Macmillan, 1972), pp. 234-8.

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