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Lulu Leslie (aka Mrs. Eva Smith; née Evelina Brower Wagstaff; 1851 Anderson, South Carolina – 16 September 1929 Manhattan, New York was the stage name for an American vaudeville and burlesque entertainer who flourished on stage from the mid-1880s through about 1917.

Career highlights

Smith was the widow of Henry S. Smith, a newspaper man, who she married in 1873 in Pittsburgh.

Acting affiliations and selected productions

• 1891: A.A. Lowrey's Opera Company, Casino, 10th & Arch Streets, Philadelphia
• 1894: Starred in The Black Crook
• 1894: Playmates, performed by the company, Bonnie Bessie Bonehill
• Starred in King Cole the Second

• Billy Watson's Beef Trust
• 1908: Watsons Big Show
• 1914, New York: Billy Watson and His Big Show

Lulu Leslie (chorus, minor role)

• 1919, Poughkeepsie: Parisian Whirl, Billy Watson

Lulu Leslie

Musical instrument proficiency

Smith was as proficient trombonist, cornetist, organist, and pianist. She studied under (Henri Bertini?) Bertini, Kohler, Schmitt, Herx, Duvernoy. After retiring from the state, Smith taught organ and piano in Philadelphia.

Selected compositions

• "Dream Song" (©1891)

Eva B. Smith

Boston: Oliver Ditson Co.

Death

Smith died in an apparent suicide in Manhattan. Her death received wide publicity. She was interred at Claremont Cemetery,?????? Philadelphia.

First published in New York Life Weekly Bulletin (before 1915)

New York Evening Journal, before 1913

1st known publishing, November 10, 1911, illustration by Mary Ellen Sigsbee (1877–1960), 2nd wife of Anton Otto Fischer

1923

                   "The Riddle"

(1st verse)
Where's an old women to go when the years
Leave her alone with her sighs and her tears?
Grey-haired and penniless, feeble and slow,
Where's an old woman to go?

(3rd verse)
What's an old woman's reward for a life
Given to others as mother and wife,
Leaving her faltering, furrowed and scored —
What's an old woman's reward?

          — H. E. H. (pseudonym), Baltimore
W.B.A. (Women's Benefit Association) poem?

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                   "The Riddle"

Where's an old woman to go when the years
Leave her alone with her sighs and her tears,
Gray-haired and penniless, feeble and slow—
Where's an old woman to go?

What's an old woman to do when her kin
Fail to remember that hands, worn and thin,
Cared for them, slaved for them, all the years through—
What's an old woman to do?

What's an old woman's reward for a life
Given to others as Mother and Wife,
Leaving her faltering, furrowed and scored—
What's an old woman's reward?

Where's an old woman to go when the years
Leave her alone with her sighs and her tears,
Gray-haired and penniless, feeble and slow—
Where's an old woman to go?

What's an old woman to do when her kin
Fail to remember that hands, worn and thin,
Cared for them, slaved for them, all the years through—
What's an old woman to do?

What's an old woman's reward for a life
Given to others as Mother and Wife,
Leaving her faltering, furrowed and scored—
What's an old woman's reward?

Family

Smith was born in Anderson, South Carolina, William Wagstaff and Mary Wagstaff. Her father was a Professor of Music, notably of Cambridge, England. When Smith was born, her father had been teaching music in a start-up women's college in Anderson.

In 1922, her daughter, Lulu Leslie, a stage name (née Louisa B. Smith; 1875–1926) was living in Great Kills, Staten Island, with her husband, Albert Humes, who, for at least 15 seasons, had been a carpenter with Billy Watson.

Children

Evelina and Harry Smith had three children, two of whom were daughters, the third is not known.

• Mary Emma Smith (born 1872, Pennsylvania)
• Eva Blanche Smith (1 July 1874 Pittsburgh – 10 June 1926 Great Kills, Staten Island) performed in theater as Lulu Leslie She was twice married. She first married Wallace Beaumont on July 3, 1905, in Buffalo. Her final marriage, lasting the rest of her life, was to Albert Humes, Billy Watson's carpenter from about 1907 to 1922.

Eva debuted as a actor in 1893, when she was 17, under the stage name Lulu Leslie.

Selected productions

• Players

Produced by Bessie Bonehill's

Written by William Smith, Bessie's 2nd husband

Costumes designed by Worth Judie, Le Bon Marché, Paris

Choreography by E.L. Darem

Music team

Selected artists: Gallagher and West; Seeley and West, the great musical team; Sig. Borelli, a real Italian count, playing the comic role of Paderewski; John Pendy, character actor; Miss Alida Perrault; Annette Zelna; Rose Beaumont; Lulu Leslie; Clio Vernon; Olive Tremaine; Cora Hart; Maud Pearson; and others

360 nights in New York

Tour of the South:

September 1894: Greenwald's Opera House, Fort Worth

September 1894: Shreveport

On December 12, 1894, in Indianapolis, it was feared that Eva Smith had taken a fatal overdose of belladonna (5 grains), when she had thought that she was taking antipyrine for a severe headache. The mistake occured, according to the pharmisist who dispensed the drug, as a result of a hotel bellboy delivering the wrong drug name. Eva had been performing as a dancer under the name Lulu Leslie in Bessie Bonehill's production of Playmates, written by Louis Abrahams, Bessie's husband. Lulu Smith resided at 101 West 99th Street, Manhattan, New York.

References

Notes

Inline citations

Category:Burlesque performers