Faith Bacon

Short Biography

Showman Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. once billed her as "the most beautiful girl in the world". Burlesque dancer Faith Bacon, and not the much better known Sally Rand who worked for Bacon in the early 1930s, is genuinely considered the lady who originated the "fan dance" during "The Jazz Age".The Los Angeles-born dancer was born Frances Yvonne Bacon on July 19, 1910. Her career began on the Paris stage (she had no formal dance training) in one of Maurice Chevalier's popular revue shows. She returned to the States, specifically the East Coast, where the fetching 18-year-old wavy blonde won a chorine spot for "Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1928" and returned for his 1930 show. It was she who suggested to Carroll to allow her to undress all the way during the show (save some teasing ostrich features and a smoky spotlight) and, thus, introducing the art of the fan dance. Other shows also included "Fioretta" 1929, "Earl Carroll's Sketch Book of 1929, " "Earl Carrol''s Sketch Book of 1930" and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931".Elsewhere, Faith took her scantily-clad act to the Chicago World's Fair in the mid 1930s where Sally Rand, now infamous for her own fan dance act, also performed, and the two rivals "competed" with their respective shows. At a 1936 performance at the Chicago State-Lake Theatre, Faith crashed through the glass box she was performing in during the show. Covered in blood, she collapsed then and there and spent a month in the hospital. The accident left her with deep, ugly scars on her legs. It was this terrible misfortune that triggered Bacon's slow but firm decline.Although film work included Prison Train (1938), The Dance of Shame and A Lady with the Fans (both 1942), she was dismissed as a controversial specialty act and it didn't lead to film acting. Her later engagements digressed in quality -- carnivals, dives and strip joints. In 1940 she had to have major surgery for a glandular problem, and for the rest of the decade illnesses continued to plague her, leaving her drained physically and financially. Depression so engulfed her that she attempted suicide with an overdose of pills in 1954. Although the struggling entertainer survived that attempt, she succeeded two years later when on September 27, 1956, she threw herself out of a third-story Chicago hotel window. She died later that night of a fractured skull and perforated lung.