Signe Paterson

Signe Paterson (May 6, 1890 – August 15, 1963) was a Swedish-born American vaudeville dancer and Broadway performer known for her solo work and for her partnership with Frank Hale in the jazz duo Hale and Paterson. Born in Stockholm as the eldest of eleven siblings, she grew up in Sundleyberg before leaving Sweden at age 14 to pursue a career in America.

After arriving in the United States, Paterson settled in Rhode Island with family friends while studying English and dramatic arts. As a young teenager she joined the chorus of the Chicago production of Prince of Tonight, which toured the United States and Canada. Her next Chicago engagement, in A Modern Eve, proved pivotal: when the female lead fell ill on opening night, Paterson stepped in to perform alongside Hale, earning an enthusiastic audience response. The partnership that formed that night went on to complete 300 performances of the show in Chicago, a record for the period. A Modern Eve was also among her Broadway credits, which spanned 1915 to 1916 and included the musical Pom-pom.

Following her early American success, Paterson traveled to Paris, where she received top billing at venues including Ciro's Paris. She moved in upper-class social circles there, counting Grand Duke Boris of Russia and Alexander Montagu, the Duke of Manchester, among those who attended her performances. Back in the United States, she taught the tango and other dances to society figures in Newport, Palm Beach, and New York City, with students including Edith Rockefeller McCormick. She performed at prominent venues including New York's Winter Garden Theater and Shubert Theater and the London Opera House, and toured in the George M. Cohan Review in 1918. In January 1917, she appeared on the cover of Variety, with five photographs featuring both solo portraits and images with Hale. In 1921 she was presented to President Warren G. Harding in Washington, D.C.

Paterson was credited with introducing several dance forms to American audiences. She brought the shimmy — then called the Shimmy-She-a-Wabble — to the American stage and is also credited with introducing the tango to Broadway. She learned the hula in the Sandwich Islands and performed it in Sweden and Paris before working to raise its profile in America, including a performance in Central Park in 1916 backed by The Royal Hawaiian Orchestra. She is credited as the first non-Hawaiian to introduce the hula to the United States. During her years in the New York theater circuit she also worked with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band on the Keith-Albee vaudeville and motion picture theater circuit. Among her career nicknames were "The Sprite from Sweden" and "Goddess of the Dance." Together with her manager and eventual husband, F. Ralph Gervers, she is credited with producing the first large-scale stage presentation to run at motion picture theaters.

Paterson contributed to the war effort during both world wars. In World War I she served in the Women's Service Division in New York, performed at military training camps to entertain troops, and used her public profile to encourage Swedish-Americans to donate tobacco and pipes to soldiers in the United States Army. During World War II she led the Red Cross Canteen in Tampa, Florida.

Paterson married Gervers and retired from performing to raise a family, relocating to Pittsburgh in 1928 and then to Tampa in 1934. In Tampa she was active in civic life, serving as society editor and associate editor of the Port-Tampa Interbay Beacon, president of the Port Tampa Women's Club, and helping to organize both the Port Tampa Library and the Port Tampa Blood Bank. She and Gervers had two sons, James A. Gervers and Albert Gervers. Through James she is the grandmother of filmmaker Erik Courtney. Paterson died on August 15, 1963, at the age of 73.