Pauline Markham (born Margaret Hall or Hale, May 1847 – March 20, 1919) was an Anglo-American dancer and contralto singer active on burlesque and vaudeville stages during the latter decades of the 19th century. She began by performing juvenile rôles in Manchester, made her debut on the London stage at 20 and a year later New York as a member of the British Blondes which introduced Victorian burlesque to America, where for a few years she would find phenomenal success before her career settled into a long steady decline.
The critic Richard Grant White once described Markham's singing as vocal velvet and her arms as the lost arms of the Venus de Milo. Markham had studied singing with Manuel García at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Early life and career
Markham was born in England and began her acting career at an early age playing principle boy parts at the Princess Theatre, Manchester. She made her London debut, not too many years later, on November 15, 1867, at the Queen's Theatre in Wigan's The First Night playing Rose, the intended debutant. In late June, 1868 she appeared at the Queen's Theatre in another Wigan play, Time and the Hour, of which one London critic said, “It is by no means good, and by no means bad.”
British Blondes
Later in that year she accompanied Lydia Thompson to New York as a member of her British Blondes, opening at Wood's Museum (Broadway at 30th Street) on September 28, in the burlesque of "Ixion, or the Man at the Wheel". In the piece Markham plays the goddess Venus who is seduced by King Ixion (Thompson). Ixion had a combined run of 102 matinee and evening performances before closing on December 26, 1868. The following February Markham began a long run at Niblo's Garden in Forty Thieves, Thompson's burlesque of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. At the Union Square Theatre (then the Grand Theatre Tammany) in August 1869 she played the central rôle Florizel in The Queen of Hearts, or Harlequin; the Knave of Hearts, that Stole the Tarts, and the Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe, a production that at least one New York Herald critic considered as foolish as its title.
In October 1869 it was reported in the press that Markham's investments had made her a fortune on Wall Street. During this time she was earning upwards to $150 per week, at a time when an experienced actor might expect $50 for a week on the boards.
On October 28, 1870, Markham was seriously injured in a carriage accident in New York on Harlem Street, such that at least one newspaper reported her dead. Eleven days earlier she had opened with Thompson at Wood's Theatre in a burlesque of the Wallace opera Lurline and after a relatively short recuperation she chose to join the cast of the Niblo's December revival of The Black Crook' playing what would turn out to be her signature rôle.
The Black CrookThe Black Crook, a musical about an English ne'er do well who discovers his noble birth and decides to reform, was first produced in America at Niblo's Theatre in 1866 with a run in excess of 300 performances. Markham later became so identified with her characterization of the fairy queen Stalacta, that afterwards some chroniclers erroneously listed her among the original 1866 cast. The revival ran for 122 performances and would return several more times to New York and in tours of the country. During this time, it was not uncommon for Markham to receive after a performance bouquets of flowers festooned with jewelry from her male admirers.The Black Crook, which featured actresses in flesh colored silk tights, has been credited with starting in 1866 what James Lauren Ford called “the great era of the leg show. A criticism of such shows in 1870 by Wilbur F. Storey, editor of the Chicago Times, led to the following incident.