Bessie Bonehill

She was born into a poor family in West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England. Official records give her birth name as Betsey Bonehill.^[3] She appeared in the 1860s as a double act with her sister Marion.^[4] After cropping her hair, she became well known as a "principal boy" actor in local pantomimes, before moving to London and appearing as a male impersonator and performer of "coster songs" in theatres in the 1870s and 1880s.^[2] Many of her songs were written by Arthur West,^[a] a friend of Charlie Chaplin.^[4] In 1877 she married Louis Abrahams, and had two daughters and a son with him.^[5]

While she was appearing in London, American vaudeville impresario Tony Pastor persuaded her to travel to the United States to perform. She first appeared in Pastor's Theatre, on 14th Street, Manhattan, in 1889. The New York Times described her as "lithe and frisky, strident as to voice and nimble as to feet.... [S]he is as much at home in masculine garb as if to the manner born."^[5] According to her local obituary, "her success was immediate and her male impersonations were the theatrical sensation of the winter. Her beauty, cheerful personality and her entire freedom from vulgarity were new then in male impersonation."^[6] Her song "Comrades", which she performed as a newsboy, was a success, and she toured widely in the United States.^[6]

She remained in the United States for most of the next decade, bringing her family with her; a British music hall manager said that "she had sold out to the mighty dollar".^[2] In 1890 she married for the second time, to an American, William Smith (known professionally as William Seeley), who was several years her junior; they had a son.^[5] She performed in the musical Little Christopher, and another show, Playmates, written by her husband, before returning to vaudeville as the head of her own traveling company which toured across the United States.^[5] She was sometimes billed as "England's Gem",^[2] and as "England's Favorite Comedy Cantatrice".^[7] One reviewer described her as "the best character singer ever imported to these shores".^[8] Her style as a male impersonator was adopted by later artists such as Vesta Tilley and Hetty King.^[4]

The company included her husband and son Jack (from her first marriage), who performed together as a musical comedy act, Seeley and West.^[6] The company also toured in Britain, Europe, South America, and South Africa, from where they had to escape at the start of the Boer War.^[2] Bessie Bonehill settled with her family around 1896 on a run-down 600-acre estate, Deer Hill Farm, at Sayville on Long Island, which they developed as a family home.^[5]

She started a tour in England in 1901, but fell ill from what was later diagnosed as stomach cancer. She died on 21 August 1902 at Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire at the age of 47.^[1][6] She was buried (as Betsey Smith) at Kingston Cemetery, Portsmouth.^[9]