The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-01-10
.CHARMION, The TRAPEzIs7
SHE rs A SACRAMENTO PRO-
DUCTION.
Now Thrilling and Shocking the
People Of the Eastern
Cities.

SacramentanS will remember Char
| mion, the young woman gymnast who
| made her start at Oak Park about
three years ago, and afterward per-
formed at the Clunie Theater in this
| city. Well, Charmion has been delight
ing audiences on two continents since
then by her marvellous feats on the
trapeze. and is now shocking some of
the more prudish of those who attend
her performances in New York.
Credit for the discovery" of Char
miOn has been claimed by several per-
sons. At one time it was claimed
that she was found in Australia, and
the papers in San Francisco and New
York published cuts showing Char
MONS remarkable development of
muscle, and referred to her as the
strongest woman in the country.
The little woman was simply doing
an act on the swinging rings when
discovered at Oak Park by Rec
ord-Union" reporter, but she was learn
ing rapidly, and it was not long before
she became an expert on the trapeze
Then she went to San Francisco, ana
was again "discovered'' at a suburban
place of amusement and taken to New
York and Europe. Her folks still re-
side at Oak Park, the Sacramento
suburban village.
Leander Richardson thus describes
the evolution of the now celebrated
trapeze performer who, under the name
of Charmion, kept New York lovers OF
prurient exhibitions in state OF ex-
element for months:
Melville Stolz, the discoverer of
Charmion, the young lady who peels
herself on a trapeZe bar prior to going
through a very fair athletic perform
ance, returned from England two or
three weeks ago, after having en-
countered the quite usual experience
of managers who bring utterly un-
known people to the front. Charmion
doesn't come from Australia, as people
have generally supposed. Mr.. Stolz
found her in San Francisco, where she
was doing a trapeze act, at So per act,
at the Sutro Baths.
when she and her husband called
on him at his hotel in response to his
invitation to come and talk terms, she
wore, among other articles of raiment,
the same pair of blue satin slippers in
which she had been performing her
aerial evolutions, and her husbands
most noticeable sartorial adornment
was coarse red sweater. Mr.. Stolz
brought the pair to New York, and
out of his own inner consciousness
evolved the undressing episode, mean
while securing an engagement for
Charmion at Roster & Balls.
Up to the first performance the
trapezist and her lord and master lived
In little ROOM where they did their
own cooking and had a generally I'M
affluent time. AS they progressed I'M
der Stolz's direction, Charmion ac-
quired good clothes and her husband
acquired a tendency to adorn his new
sweater with a diamond of something
less than the dimensions-and the gen
eral appearance-of a glass brick.
Then Mr. Stolz took his discovery
to England, where a big success was
recorded in one of the leading London
music halls, and he suddenly found
out that he hadn't helped Charmion at
ALL but that she really would have been
much better off without him. Little
occurrences of this kind come up con-
tinually in the dramatic profession and
its varying outlying branches. There
fore. Mr.. Stolz wasn't surprised in the
least. and he merely observed that for
a certain financial consideration he
would call all bets off. so to speak.
1.-THE money was duly paid over, and
now the Charmion family, red sweater,
glass brick and all, are going it alone,
while Mr.. Stolz's foxy eye is intently
securing the horizon for another good
thing in the discovery line"