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John Jarrot and Joan Sawyer doing the Maxixe

Stage Name

Birth Name
Joan Sawyer Bessie Josephine Sawyer
   Joan Sawyer was one of the most successful female dancers in the nightclub circuit in the 1910s. She started her professional dance career in 1907 in the production of the Vanderbilt Cup. Her shrewd business sense and self promotion garnered her top billing among her dance partners hips, some who were very famous dancers themselves such as Rudolph Valentino (not yet a movie star) who she partnered for months in the Vaudeville circuit untill Valentino became involved in a complex sex scandal involving millionaire Jack de Saulles, his wife Blanca, the actress Mae Murray and Joan Sawyer. Valentino was a divorce witness for Blanca, which abruptly ended his partnership with Sawyer. Soon afterwards Blanca de Saulles shot her estranged husband dead.

   She was very popular with New York's '400'. Around 1914 she would manage, dance, teach and perform at the very popular "Persian Garden" (in the Winter Garden Building.) She had her own band called "Joan Sawyer's Persian Garden Orchestra (PGO.)"

John Jarrot & Joan Sawyer (above)
Photos
Like the Castle's, Joan choose to use Black musicians over their white counterparts for her own routines as well as her club ...

   Sawyer's main dance competition was the Castle's, Mouvet and Walton. Joan is said to have created the Aeroplane Waltz and Joanelle dance. In 1913, Lew Quinn and Joan Sawyer made the first real attempt to introduce a new dance to the United States called the Rhumba.

Birth Place

Birth Date

Spouse

Offspring
El Paso, Texas b.10/11/1887 n/a n/a
 

Dance's

Dance Partners

Music Titles
Aeroplane Waltz (Creator) Bennie Dixon Joan Sawyer Maxixe (1914)
Ballroom Dances Carlos Sebastian Joan Sawyer's Persian Garden Orchestra
Danse of the Shadows George Raft Aeroplane Waltz
Joan Sawyer Maxixe (1914) Jack Webb Joanelle
Joan Waltz ( Hesitation ) John Gilbert La Rumba (Tango)
Joanelle (1914) John Jarrott Rio Braselienne Maxixe
Maxixe Lew Quinn Bregeiro (Rio Brazilian Maxixe) (PGO 1914)
Maxixe Argentine (1914) Maurice Mouvet Joan Waltz - Hesitation (PGO)
One Step Quentin Todd Valse Boston (From "Les Millions D'Arlequin")
Pantomime Rudolph Valentino When You're A Long Way From Home - 1 Step (PGO)
Parisienne Tango Wallace Mc Cutcheon  
Rhumba        
Rio Brazilian Maxixe        
Tango            
Three In One (Creator)            
Valse Boston            
Waltzes            
 

Night Clubs

Theaters

Stage
El Fey (Raft & Valentino) Palace Theater 1907 - The Vanderbilt Cup
Louis Martin's (Cafe de L'Opera)       1908 - The Merry Go Round
N.Y. Persian Ballroom       1911 - The Pink Lady
        'Les Millions D'Arlequin'
         
 

Films

Joan's Musician's, Bands

Publications
n/a Dan Kildare 7/22/1908 - Newark Advocate (Sawyers Three In One)
  Persian Garden Orchestra
            1914 - Woman's Home Companion
                 
NOTE:
January 31, 2010
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