A Career in Feathers

The biography of Faith Bacon (1910-1956) reads like a well-known nightmare of female ambitions turned foul with that enemy of women who rely on looks, namely old age. As a young woman, Faith was hailed as "The most beautiful American dancer" and "The most beautiful woman of the world", but she ended up a shabby "bag-lady".

Early on her ambitious mother lined her daughter up for a career based on her looks. When Faith was 13 she took her to New York as yet another part of her plans of finding rich "sugar-daddies" for her - or for both of them. As it is Faith was suspected of being a lesbian, but this rumor may have been aired by her mother in order to keep non-millionaires - and this happened before the rise of our days' billionaires - away from Faith: No hanky-panky without money or the ability to further the career of the young dancer. Faith's marriage to the lyricist Sanford Hunt Dickinson has been seen as a cover-up by some, as they never lived together. That may be as it is, as her entire life was full of lies, e.g. about her Mom, whom she had to call her "sister".

For several years, a very young Faith toiled as a chorus dancer, living on a diet of "nothing" in order to keep the body that gave her, and her mother, an outcome. However, 17 years old Faith moved to Paris, but she didn't have her breakthrough until she went back to New York three years later: She invented the "fan dance" and made a career as a nude dancer, in a performance that was seen as extremely "advanced", so to speak.

At that time, it was OK to be nude on the scene as long as one didn't move, and somehow she succeeded in performing within those legal and moral limits. None the less, she was indicted for "immorality", but that didn't make her lose her spirits as something like that was good for the career of a nude dancer, and she ended up being very famous. 

 

 

At some point, other - and younger - dancers learnt from her and, so to speak, "stole" her dance design. She took one of them - namely Sally Rand - to court, but didn't gain anything by that, as her special feather dance wasn't copy righted. At around that time, it had become known that she had become a little too keen on alcohol. 

She may have had talent for e.g. acting, but didn't do much to start a new career in the movies. To me, it looks like she simply lost faith in the future, and destitute at 46 years old, she lept to her death from a window.

 

https://theburlyq.com/

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/faith-bacon-the-rise-and-tragic-fall-of-nude-dancer-in-chicago/

 

https://www.party.dk/kostumer-tilbehoer/temaer-mottoer/burlesque/9978/sort-fjerboa-i-premium-kvalitet-180cm

 

https://travsd.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/how-faith-bacon-inventor-of-the-fan-dance-leaped-to-her-death/ 

 

Wikipedia