Faith Bacon

Bacon was born Frances Yvonne Bacon in Los Angeles, California to Francis Page Bacon and his wife Charmion, who wed on July 10, 1909.

The couple divorced several years later.

Faith Bacon (born Frances Yvonne Bacon; July 19, 1910 – September 26, 1956) was an American burlesque dancer and actress.

During the height of her career, she was billed as "America's Most Beautiful Dancer".

Bacon's career in burlesque began in the 1920s in Paris.

After returning to the United States, Bacon appeared on Broadway in Earl Carroll's Vanities from August 1928 to February 1929.

The program listed her performance as "Fan Dance - Heart of the Daisies."

She went on to dance in Fioretta and Earl Carroll's Sketch Book, in 1929 and 1930, respectively.

In a 1930 interview, Bacon stated she decided to become a dancer when she visited Paris despite never having had any training.

While in Paris, she met Maurice Chevalier and later premiered in his revue.

During her career, she used bubbles, flowers and fans in her nude dance routines.

In July 1930, she appeared as a "principal nude" in another production of Earl Carroll's Vanities.

She initially performed a routine in which she stood nude and motionless onstage while lights "played over" her body.

At the time, indecent exposure laws prohibited dancers from moving while appearing nude onstage.

According to Bacon, she and Carroll tried several different tricks to get around these laws before finally coming up with the idea of the fan dance.

The dance was an immediate hit.

On July 9, 1930, police raided the New Amsterdam Theatre and arrested Bacon, Earl Carroll and other cast members for "giving an indecent performance".

She was appearing in a scene entitled "A Window at Merls".

Although the show underwent some changes after the raid, Bacon continued to perform the fan dance.

However, Earl Carroll stated that Bacon wore a "chiffon arrangement" during the performance and was not fully nude.

In August 1930, a grand jury decided against indicting Bacon, Carroll and her fellow cast members.

Bacon, who maintained she originated the dance for Earl Carroll in 1930, billed herself as "The Original Fan Dancer".

Following her performance in Earl Carroll's Vanities, Bacon appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 from July to November 1931.

In 1933, she went to Chicago to perform at the 1933 World's Fair after learning that rival dancer Sally Rand was performing a fan dance.

After appearing at the World's Fair in 1933, Bacon's career began to decline.

Over the years, she had gained a reputation of being difficult.

While working in the show Temptations in the winter of 1936 at the Lake Theater in Chicago, Bacon cut her thighs when she fell through a glass drum on which she was posing nude.

The cuts left her thighs scarred and she sued the Lake Theater Corporation for $100,000 in damages.

She later settled for $5,000 which she spent on a ten carat diamond.

The accident scars and ensuing leg pain diminished her dancing abilities.

In October 1938, Bacon sued dancer Sally Rand for $375,000 in damages and sought an injunction barring her from performing the fan dance which Bacon still maintained that she originated.

Rand denied Bacon's accusations, claiming jealousy.

Rand stated, "The fan idea is as old as Cleopatra. [...] She can't sue me for that."

In 1938, Bacon made her only acting film appearance in Prison Train, directed by Gordon Wiles, in which she played the role of 'Maxine'.

At the 1939 World's Fair in New York, she had an official position as fan dancer.

In 1945, she and Sanford Hunt Dickinson—a Buffalo businessman and songwriter—applied for a marriage license.

As Bacon was rumored to be gay, she may have sought a marriage of convenience.

It is unknown whether they ever actually married; they never lived together, but also never divorced.

According to Tullah Innes, a burlesque dancer who crossed paths with Faith frequently, Faith was a lesbian out of necessity as her mother kept her from men.

Later in her life, as her work dried up, there were reports of heavy alcohol and drug use.