Fatima(II)
'La Belle' Fatima born Fatima Djemille in Syria in 1870. Began working
as a dancer in American vaudeville from the late 1880's, the original
'Little Egypt' became America's first renown belly-dancer she was seen
as something of a curiosity after appearing at the St. Louis World's
Exhibition Fair in 1893, Thomas Edison asked her to perform her
belly-dancing act for the movie camera in 1896 and 1897 at the Black
Maria studio in West Orange and in 1903 she is seen performing her
Turkic-inspired Couchee Dance, also referred to as a 'Muscle dance' for
the American Mutoscope Film Co, this film was to be censored in Chicago
in 1907 - part of Fatima's body were covered by blind-out tags. Her
last stage appearance as a Harem dancer was at William and Oscar
Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre in 1913. She sadly died from a heart
attack in 1921 age 51 in Venice, California.