Ida St. Leon
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Ida St. Leon (16 January 1894 – 8 July 1961) was an Australian circus performer and actress.
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Early life
Ida Jeannie Jones was born in Sydney, Australia, though some publicity suggested she was born in China.[1] Her parents were Alfred St. Leon and Vernon Ida St. Leon[2] of the "Famous St. Leon Family of European Acrobats".[3] As her parents' work suggests, the younger Ida and her siblings were working as circus performers from an early age.[4] When Ida was thirteen, the family were on Broadway, in Margaret Mayo's show Polly of the Circus (1907);[5] Ida St. Leon took over the lead role from Mabel Taliaferro in 1909,[6] and toured with the show for a few years after that.[7]
Career
Stage credits for Ida St. Leon included Finishing Fanny (1912),[8] Our Children (1913), Help Wanted (1914),[9] Little Women (1914),[10] Upstairs and Down (1916), Rachel Barton Butler's Mamma's Affair (1917),[11][12] The Wheel (1921),[13] and Lightnin (1923).[14]
Of her work in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1916), one unimpressed Los Angeles critic wrote that "Ida St. Leon drawls out her snippy lines in that nasal twang described as 'cute.'"[15] Photographers considered her photograph a "bestseller" in 1913.[16]
Personal life
Ida St. Leon's engagement to businessman Leo Maurice Rosenberg was announced in 1916.[17] The Rosenbergs had a son, Leo in 1917, were "estranged" from 1918 to 1920, then reunited.[18] She was named a co-respondent in the divorce of Eugenia and George McIntyre, with accusations that Ida St. Leon was being "overfriendly" with the husband, and accepting significant gifts of cash from him.[19]
