Maud Allan part I

Seventy-five years ago, on March 8, 1908, the Canadian-born aesthetic dancer Maud Allan made her sensational London debut featuring The Vision of at the Palace Theatre. For nearly two years she was the idol of the popular press, the rage of London's entertainment world, and the toast of British society. For the previous five years she had toured the European continent from Brussels to Belgrade, but she had been hampered by lack of funds and inept management, and though her infrequent performances had attracted critical admiration-including that of England's vacationing King Edward VII-her career had never caught fire. Seven years after her debut in London, Maud Allan was once again struggling for recognition. She regained it one time-but in the form of notoriety that was to remove her permanently from public attention. When she died in Los Angeles in October 1956, the few obituary notices were brief and highly inaccurate. Why? Even to pose such a question is to furnish part of the answer, for Maud Allan was the victim of both her success and her personality. Though not the first to use the Salome story as the basis for a dance production, her version was the most celebrated of the many offered to the public. Yet less than three years after her

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