Mazie King

Mazie King (January 14, 1888 – November 1968) was an American dancer, singer, and vaudeville performer whose career spanned Broadway, touring productions, and the vaudeville circuit from the late nineteenth century into the 1920s.

King's Broadway appearances ran from 1908 to 1913 and encompassed three productions. Her first was The Mimic World in 1908, followed by The Hen-Pecks in 1911, and The Doll Girl in 1913. Beyond Broadway, her stage work included The Rising Generation in 1895, Hogan's Alley in 1896, The Midnight Sons in 1910, The Passing Show of 1913, and Over the Top in 1919. A touring production called Painting the Town occupied her in 1907. Her popularity extended to sheet music, with both dances and songs named in her honor and her likeness featured on published scores.

King was a prominent figure on the vaudeville circuit as well. In 1911 she toured California on the Orpheum circuit, performing an artistic dance piece titled "The Legend of the Spring." She danced with various partners over the years, among them Tyler Brooke in Boston in 1915 and E. E. Marini in Delaware in 1917. By 1919 she was touring with a program called "Dance Jingles," and in 1920 she appeared in a vaudeville program alongside partner Harry Ormond.

Throughout her career King attracted publicity for a number of distinctive achievements. In 1898 she was reported to be the first dancer to have her foot x-rayed while en pointe. By 1900 she was credited as the only toe-dancer to have jumped from a table to the stage, landing on her toes and continuing her dance without interruption. Her legs were said to be insured for $30,000 with Lloyd's of London. In 1910 she posed for miniature portraits intended to display her shoulders. The following year she descended the stairs of New York's 45-story Metropolitan Life Building en pointe, a feat she repeated in 1914 at the Los Angeles Courthouse.

King married three times. Her first husband was fellow vaudeville performer and comedian John F. "Harry" Leonard, who died in 1908. Her second marriage was to Floyd H. Nourse, a booking agent; that marriage ended in divorce in 1914. She married a third time in late 1920, to John G. Patton, a Philadelphia restaurateur, and stepped away from performing for several seasons before returning to the variety stage in 1923. In 1928, writing under the name Mazie King Patton, she registered two works for copyright: Safety First: A Nautical Farce and A Tale of the Sea: A Nautical Farce.