Gertrude H. Hoffman
| Gertrude H. Hoffman | |
|---|---|
Gertrude Hoffman as Salome
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| Born |
Catherine Gertrude Hay 7 May 1886 San Francisco, California, United States |
| Died | 21 October 1966 (aged 80) Los Angeles, California, United States |
| Occupation | Performance Dancer and choreographer |
| Years active | 1900-? |
| Spouse(s) | Max Hoffmann |
Gertrude Hoffman (1886–1966) was an early 20th-century vaudeville dancer and choreographer.
Catherine “Kitty” Gertrude Hay was born in San Francisco on the 7th of May, 1886, the daughter of John and Catherine (née Brogan) Hay. Her father, who was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1843, came to California sometime before 1873. Catherine Brogan was born in Ireland around 1847 and came to America in the early 1860s. John and Catherine Hay moved to Portland, Oregon, where John died in 1914. Catherine Brogan Hay died in 1926 at the Long Island summer house of her daughter, Gertrude. Gertrude received her early education at a San Francisco area Catholic convent.
She had been performing on stage for some time as Kitty Hayes before catching the eye of actress Florence Roberts playing a French dancer in Jules Massenet’s five-act opera Sapho at San Francisco’s Alcazar Theatre. Not long after Robert's encouragement to pursue a career in dance, Gertrude signed on at the age of sixteen as a dancer with the vaudeville comedy team of Matthews and Bulger and began a tour that would eventually take her to New York City and the Paradise Roof Garden atop Oscar Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre.
In 1903 Gertrude Hoffman was hired as a rehearsal director at Oscar Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater working with the sixty member "Punch and Judy Co." shows and other vaudeville routines performing at the venue.Willie Hammerstein persuaded her to appear on the stage. Three years later she replaced an ill performer in Ziegfeld’s "The Parisian Dancer" and became a hit imitating Anna Held singing "I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave". Over her career, Gertrude also did impersonations of various other performers, such as Eva Tanguay, Eddie Foy and Ethel Barrymore.
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