Rose King

Rose King, born Rose Koenig in St. Louis, Missouri in 1891, was an American stage and film performer whose career spanned several decades. She died in 1958.

King's stage career extended from at least 1919 to the early 1940s and encompassed both Broadway productions and vaudeville. Her Broadway credits included the musical High Kickers, the revues The Show Is On, Thumbs Up!, and A la Carte, the musical Take the Air, and the play The Torch Bearers, among other productions.

Much of King's theatrical work was built around her partnership with B. M. "Chick" York, known as Chick York. The two had known each other since early childhood — Billboard Magazine published a photograph of them together taken when York was five and King was three — and their professional collaboration began around 1907. Their vaudeville act, most notably a routine called "The Old Family Tintype," earned them a following in both the United States and England, where they headlined numerous vaudeville bills. In a 1937 radio interview, the pair marked thirty years in show business together.

King also worked in film across different periods of her career. In 1909 she appeared in five silent films, among them The Necklace and The Seventh Day, both of which co-starred Mary Pickford and were directed by D. W. Griffith. Her performance in The Seventh Day drew particular attention in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where local press noted audience enthusiasm for the film. She also appeared in The Country Doctor in a role as a maid.

In 1935, King and York starred together in two short-subject comedy films produced by Educational Pictures in New York: Domestic Bliss-ters and How Am I Doing, the latter built around their vaudeville sketch "The Sleigh Ride." King appeared without York in a character role in Educational's 1938 comedy Love and Onions.