Charmion:
Facts: Charmion, or sometimes Charmain, was born Laverie
Cooper on July 18, 1875. She was a
vaudeville trapeze artist and strongwoman.
Following is a description of her famous trapeze disrobing act. An act filmed by Thomas Edison in 1902.
“She… attempted one or two
[trapeze] tricks, but seemed to find her clothes a bother, so she began to
unhook her waist… Finally the waist came off.
Then she hung by her feet and the skirts, etc., naturally fell down over
her head, leaving a view of lace unmentionables, black stockings, purple garters,
and a large amount of pink silk fleshlings between the garter and the hips…
[So] she loosened and removed “skirts,” “unmentionables,” chemise, shoes,
garters, stockings, and hat until clad in the conventional costume of the
female acrobat.” New York Dramatic
Mirror, 25 December 1897, 18. Quoted
in Blue Vaudeville: Sex Morals and the
Mass Marketing of Amusement 1895-1915, Andrew Erdman
Charmion was one of many female “disrobing” artists of the
time. Rachel Shteir in Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie
Show writes:
“Through their derring-do,
acrobatic and equestrienne undressing acts ventured not simply that women could
act as men or vice versa, but that the genders shared more than many observers
acknowledged. These acts required
strength and agility, grace, and brute force, not simply nakedness. The modern self-referential quality of
undressing acts begins here on the flying trapeze, and a number of female
acrobats undressing in the air during this era display a new physical
awareness.”
Shteir goes on to say “To some observers, Charmaine [sic]
was respectable because she made a museum exhibit of her body. A photo of her in 1901 showed just her back,
in the style of body builders.”
About trapeze – “invented” in 1859 by a Frenchman, Jules
Leotard. Leotard also invented the
aerialist costume, now also used by dancers and gymnasts – the leotard.
In the late 1800’s, vaudeville was drawing middle-class
women into the theatres in large numbers.
And the audiences of the day “considered undressing acts anything but
vulgar and coarse.” “Historian Robert
Synder calls vaudeville’s combination
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