tivolitheatre

Nice!!! -- Seen on your photo stream. (?)

Come what may, this is likely (L-R) Ray and Max. Max and Ray were described as "fancy skaters" with crowd pleasing exhibitions. They performed extensively at The Glaciarium, as well as other venues such as the Tivoli Theatre. On occasion they used the stage names of "Professor Max" and "Madame Ray" (perhaps for no other reason than to help distinguish the gender of the name? ;) While I didn't find a proper biography there is a Trove ;) of newspaper articles about them, and oddly enough, there was a captioned photograph of Max and Ray in the May 28, 1922, Sunday Times -- without any accompanying article. Piecing together various tidbits from those articles reveals that: Max was billed as a Swiss champion of the ice, now from New York. Ray hid the personality of Miss Ray Collins. Born in Sydney, Ray left the country in 1914 for America and "speedily established herself as one of the world's most graceful and charming exponents of fancy skating." She reportedly made several tours of the United States earning £15 a week as a trick and fancy skater, partnering with Max. Before leaving Australia Miss Collins was earning £2 a week making trousseaux. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] No doubt others will find additional information and photos of *Max and Ray* !  

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[http://www.flickr.com/photos/51979177@N02] Fascinating! A flapper in our collection! Fantastic quasymody :) There's another blog there for sure. Interesting, that newspaper report saying she was Chinese, must have been them just assuming that was the case and getting it wrong. Wish we had a film like the Anna Chang one. I wonder where the Anna Chang one came from anyway. So exciting that I have been distracted for the past hour doing my own searches :)

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/51979177@N02] and check this out !! nla.gov.au/nla.news-article48023353

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/51979177@N02] Hmmm, I get the sense that was their promo tactic. Unless of course she really was well known, and the records about her just haven't been digitised...Although I can't help but feel if she really was such a raging success, wouldn't the Australian newspapers have given her more of a mention?

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/51979177@N02] I think it must be her, after all, how many Japanese flappers did they have on that one ship at that particular time? I love the risque element to it all, what a fascinating discovery :)

Cool. Added to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_in_Australia#Arts_and_literature Thanks for posting these!