Florence Hines (c.1870-1924) helped transform the way African Americans were depicted and perceived onstage. Though much of her life is a mystery, she earned critical acclaim while defying stereotypes and smashing the gender binary in her performances.
Florence Hines (c.1870-1924) helped transform the way African Americans were depicted and perceived onstage. Though much of her life is a mystery, she earned critical acclaim while defying stereotypes and smashing the gender binary in her performances.
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This month, we’re highlighting queer stars of the stage and screen: women who expanded the norms of gender and sexuality behind the scenes and in the limelight
Today’s star helped transform the way African Americans were depicted and perceived onstage. Though much of her life is a mystery, she earned critical acclaim while defying stereotypes and smashing the gender binary in her performances. Let’s talk about Florence Hines.
There is little record of Florence Hines’ personal life at all, let alone her early life. Most of what we know about her comes from newspaper reviews celebrating her performances. Based on when she hit the stage, historians believe she was born around 1870, in the aftermath of the Civil War.
From the mid 1800s to early 1900s, there were many gender-bending performances on the Vaudeville stage. For queer performers, the opportunity to join a traveling show may have offered a much-needed escape from oppressive families, or even the police. It also represented an opportunity to connect with fellow queer folks across the country.
Some prominent drag queens of the day were so famous, they sold beauty products and magazines, or featured in advertisements for alcohol and cigarettes. Despite the fame they earned while they were alive, the careers of many Vaudeville drag performers – especially performers of color – have been forgotten.
One such variety performance was Sam T. Jack’s Creole Burlesque, a standard minstrel show set in a pre-Civil war plantation. Though it was managed by a white man, all the performers were Black. The show featured skits, songs, dancing, and gender-bending – though it failed to overcome the usual stereotypes that Black actors and singers had to perform.
However, around 1890, Sam T. Jack launched “The Creole Show.” The revue remained all-Black, but left the stereotyping behind. This show featured chorus girls, dancers, singers, and musicians – the first all-black theatrical show to avoid depicting African Americans in a derogatory way.
For the show’s master of ceremonies, Sam hired Florence Hines to play the quintessential “dandy” – a well-dressed, vain, womanizing man. She wore a tuxedo tailcoat, cape, and tophat with a cane, which was a far cry from the typical depiction of the Black man: a ragged plantation worker.
Florence sang songs like, “For I’m the Lad That’s Made of Money,” and “A Millionaire’s Only Son.” In one famous number, called, “Hi Waiter! A Dozen More Bottles,” Florence sang, “Lovely woman was made to be loved, / To be fondled and courted and kissed; / And the fellows who’ve never made love to a girl, / Well they don’t know what fun they have missed.”
Florence was possibly the first Black impersonator to depict a Black man as a modern, successful gentleman. When The Creole Show came to Paterson, NJ in 1891, it was so popular that the theater was filled to the brim. Hundreds of people were turned away. The local paper called Florence an “excellent male impersonator.” Another newspaper later reported that Florence “commanded the largest salary paid to a colored female performer.”
In one of the few personal stories about Florence that survived, she got into a fight with one of her co-stars, Marie Roberts. The Cincinnati Enquirer seemed to suggest that Florence and her co-star were actually lovers, writing, “the utmost intimacy has existed between the two women for the past year, their marked devotion being not only noticeable but a subject of comment among their associates on the stage.”
Florence never got any magazines or advertising deals like some of her fellow gender-bending performers. Though she earned great reviews, she was never profiled. No one documented her early life, or why she decided to join showbiz.
In 1920, a traveling vaudeville performer told the Chicago Defender that Florence became a preacher after prohibition was enacted. Three years later, the same paper reported that Florence had been paralyzed since 1906, but it isn’t clear how.
Florence died in San Jose, California on March 7, 1924.
All month, we’re talking about queer stars of the stage and screen.
For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator. Talk to you tomorrow!