Mayme Gehrue

Gehrue was born in Louisville, Kentucky.^[4] The date 1883 is often given for her birth,^[5] but is questionable, considering that she was touring in shows by the mid-1890s. She was in a touring dance act as a teen, with her sister Daisy Gehrue,^[1] before Daisy married.^[6][7]

Gehrue appeared on Broadway in Little Red Riding Hood (1900), The Casino Girl (1900),^[8] Nell-Go-In (1900), The Giddy Throng (1901), The King's Carnival (1901), Hoity Toity (1901–1902), Lovers and Lunatics (1906),^[9] The Deacon and the Lady (1910),^[10] and The Opera Ball (1912). She also toured with The Ford Dancers,^[11][12] as "the Yama-Yama Girl" in Three Twins (1910–1911),^[13][14] and in Topsy and Eva (1923), a musical comedy based on Uncle Tom's Cabin.^[15] She was frequently on the vaudeville stage^[16] well into the late 1920s,^[17][18] in the United States and abroad, including a tour in Australia; "to-day she is recognized as one of America's foremost dancing comediennes," noted a 1909 report.^[19]

Gehrue appeared in two silent films, The Fable of the Galloping Pilgrim Who Kept on Galloping (1915, short)^[20] and Above the Abyss (1915). She wrote the lyrics to several World War I-era songs, including "I'm Leaving France for my Old Kentucky Home",^[21] "I Wish to Wed a Sammy",^[22] "Military Band",^[23] "The Man of the Hour", "Dear Little Jessamine",^[24] "Over in Spain", and "Back Down South",^[25] all with music by Victor Hammond.

Gehrue recommended buttermilk, meat, and no corsets for a healthy physique.^[26] She married^[27] and divorced her vaudeville dance partner^[28] Johnny Ford (he later married and divorced vaudeville star Eva Tanguay).^[29]