Maud Allan
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Maud Allan (born circa August 27, 1873; died October 7, 1956 in Los Angeles, California) was an actress and dancer.
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[edit] Early life
She was born as Beulah Maude Durrant in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Sources give conflicting years for her birth date, ranging from 1873 through 1880. She spent her early years in San Francisco, California, where she studied music from a young age. Around the turn of the century she moved to Europe, specifically Berlin, where she was accepted in 1895 to the Hochschule für Musik. She later changed her name, at least in part prompted by the scandal surrounding her brother Theodore Durrant, who was hanged for multiple murders in 1898. [1]
In April of 1896, the bodies of two young women had been discovered in San Francisco's Emmanuel Baptist Church, where Theo Durrant was the assistant Sunday School superintendent. The grisly murders, which were compared to the crimes of Jack the Ripper, received sensational and sometimes speculative coverage in the California press. Over 3,600 potential jurors needed to be examined before twelve could be chosen to hear the case. He was found guilty of the murders in November of 1896, and executed January 7th, 1898.[2]
[edit] Stage and dance career
In 1900, in need of money, Allan published an illustrated sex manual for women, titled Illustriertes Konversations-Lexikon der Frau. Shortly thereafter she began dancing professionally. Although athletic, and having great imagination, she had no formal training to any great extent. She was once compared to professional dancer and legend Isadora Duncan, which greatly enraged her, as she disliked Duncan. [3]
She designed and often sewed her own costumes, which were creative. In 1906 her production "Vision of Salomé" debuted in Vienna. Based loosely on Oscar Wilde's Salomé (play), her version of the Dance of the Seven Veils became famous (or to some notorious), and she was billed as "The Salomé Dancer". Her book "My Life and Dancing" was published in 1908, and that same year she took England by storm in a tour in which she performed an amazing 250 performances in less than one years' time. [4]
In 1910 she left Europe to travel abroad. She travelled to the United States, Australia, Africa, and Asia over the next 5 years. In 1915 she starred as "Demntra" in the silent film "The Rug Maker's Daughter".
[edit] "The Cult of the Clitoris" libel case
In 1918 she gave evidence at the trial of British MP Noel Pemberton-Billing, who was accused of criminal libel for:
- 1. The publication of a defamatory article about Maud Allan and Mr J T Grein, her impresario.
- 2. The obscenity of this article.
The trial had to do with obscenity charges brought forth by the state in reference to a performance given by Allan in Oscar Wilde's play, Salome. She was accused of possibly practicing many of the sexually charged acts depicted in Wilde's writings herself, including the indulgence of sex with dead bodies. At this time the Lord Chamberlain had placed a ban on public performances of Salomé. From the 1920s on she taught dance. [5]
She had numerous character actor film appearances in Hollywood in the 1930s, included small roles in the 1936 film of "Show Boat" and the 1936 film "San Francisco", and playing "Dutchess" in the 1940 serial The Adventures of Red Ryder.
Maud Allan died in Los Angeles, California.
