Many of us have heard the song “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” (Sorry in advance for the earworm I may have caused you!)
He'd fly through the air with the greatest of ease
A daring young man on the flying Trapeze
First published in 1867, the song was written about the phenomenal success of trapeze artist Jules Léotard. I was reminded of the song recently, as I was writing my biography Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb because Sanora Babb’s good friend, the writer William Saroyan, referenced the song in his breakthrough 1934 story “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” Anytime I reference the story in my writing, the song would implant itself in my mind, playing repeatedly.
The song makes you think that it was only men who were trapeze artists at the time, but this is not true at all. In fact, well before Saroyan referenced the song in his short story, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, another, female trapeze artist became a national sensation who would transform the idea of not only what a trapeze artist could be, but also what the woman swinging from it should look like. Her name was Laverie Vallee (1875-1949), and she went by the stage name Charmion.
During her tenure on the vaudeville stage, Charmion reinvented the trapeze act entirely. You see, Charmion had extremely large upper-body muscles that she loved to flex. Her famous trapeze act was called the “Trapeze Disrobing Act,” and it was done as a flirtatious striptease in which she would start her performance in full Victorian attire and then strip down to a bodysuit all the time perched and swinging from a trapeze. Because she combined burlesque with gymnastics, she was able to move beyond the typical working-class audiences that watched burlesque and instead present herself as a physical culture advocate and dress reformer who promoted body positivity and empowered women to embrace their strength.
When asked why she conceived her act, Charmion answered:
At the time that I thought seriously about disrobing whole on the trapeze, it was a novelty and a thing unheard of. I immediately resolved to adopt the measure. I thought just like this: it wasn’t extraordinary for a woman to perform on the trapeze, in fact it was so common that it was a difficult matter to make a novelty of it. . . . As far as disrobing is concerned, the act is perfectly harmless; however, there is sufficient suggestiveness to it. . . . That is what the people like, just a hint of suggestiveness and then they are eager to witness the performance even though they might criticize the feat.
Her admirers included Thomas Edison (who even made a short film about her). What’s even more impressive than her feats of strength and agility, though, is how she was able to normalize and even glamorize her strong body in the early 1900s. She did so by using existing technologies, such as photographs and films, buttons and postcards to spread her image widely worldwide (much like her male contemporary, Eugen Sandow, did). By the end of her career in 1912, Charmion was a household name. It was an amazing feat for a woman at the time, but it didn’t come without a cost. As scholar Bieke Gils points out, “On the other hand, a consequence of the increasing reliance of both performers and their managers on newly emerging visual technologies, such as photography and cinema, encouraged a continued objectification of the female body as sexual commodity.”
Laverie (Lulu) Vallee (1875-1949) was born in Sacramento, California. Little is known about her childhood, but what is known is that she fell in love with the circus and began training from an early age. She developed her physique through trapeze work and various physical training disciplines at a local gymnasium: training on the horizontal bars, fencing, bag-punching, wrestling, hand-balancing, and weight-lifting. She was small, standing only five feet tall and weighing 115 pounds, but every ounce of her upper body was solid muscle.
During her twenties, Charmion performed acrobatic acts in Sacramento and San Francisco under the stage name Lavevi Charmion, but with limited success before her desire to achieve more led her to move to New York. Soon, she hit the Vaudeville stage with the New York Vaudeville Company. When Chamion made this transition, she reinvented herself, claiming that she came from Paris, which was considered an artistic, liberal city at the time. This association with France made her act more palatable to the family-orientated vaudeville audiences. She toured across the U.S. and Europe.
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In some shows, the MC would come on stage to announce that the trapeze artist had fallen ill and that they’d have to cancel the act. That’s when, deep in the audience, a woman’s voice would shout, “I can do it.” The shocked MC would motion for her to come to the stage, and she ran to it, wearing her lengthy, heavy dress. When she first began her act, the woman would seem awkward. But with each piece of clothing she peeled off and threw into the crowd, the better her trapeze skills would become until finally, stripped down to her leotard, she would perform masterly and the audience would be on their feet. The woman, of course, was Charmion.
Before long, Charmion became a sensation, the highest-earning female performer in vaudeville on American stages, receiving over $200 weekly.
Charmion’s act wasn’t just a striptease. It was also symbolic. During the late 1800s, women had to wear large, heavy dresses and corsets that impeded their movements. Many athletic women, my first biographical subject included — Charmian Kittredge London — had to challenge the gender norms of Victorian-era female attire if they wanted to be able to do their sport. (In Charmian Kittredge London’s case, she cut her skirt in two and sewed it into culottes to more easily ride her horse astride through the Oakland Hills near San Francisco.) The strongwoman, Charmion, felt the same way and often talked in interviews about how women’s attire made it difficult for women to lead active lifestyles. By taking off her clothes during the striptease portion of her act, Charmion displayed live and on stage how much easier it was for her to move her body when she’d shed the burden of her clothes.
Charmion also used the limelight to become a health influencer. She believed women could become healthier through physical fitness and advocated for a free women’s gym where women could train freely with weights. She also urged women to eat healthy, recommending that they eat whole foods (like eating clean today!)
Charmion would leave the stage in 1912, shortly after marrying her second husband, the wrestler William Micahel Vallee, in Buffalo, NY, when she was 37. They lived in Buffalo for many years. She moved back to California during the 1930s and died in 1949 in Santa Anna, Orange County.
The next time you hear the tune, “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” perhaps you’ll think instead of Charmion, the trapeze artist who pushed against gender norms and used the spotlight to advocate for change for women so they could become stronger and be able to move more freely in the world.
If you’ve liked the pieces I’ve written on early Strongwomen Charmion and The Great Sandwina, let me know! I’m considering this as a future book project!
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Upcoming Events
My biography Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb launches on October 15, 2024 so stay tuned for many upcoming events beginning in October.
July 27, 1 - 3 PM PST - Poets in Parks featuring Jan Beatty, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Forrest Gander, Dana Gioia, Brian Martens, and Katie Peterson
Armstrong Redwoods Forest Theater
17000 Armstrong Woods Road
GUERNEVILLE, CA 95446
Well done. Your book idea is excellent, Iris, and I can't imagine anyone better to write it!