Talk:Frederick Hallen

Latest comment: 4 years ago by Animalparty in topic Mollie Fuller and Loie Fuller

Mollie Fuller and Loie Fuller

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I think the claim that Mollie Fuller is the sister of Loie Fuller is erroneous, and have removed it. While it is mentioned in passing in Mollie's (but not Loie's) entry in Who's Who on the Stage (1906), this appears to be the sole 'reliable' source of the claim. Other contemporary sources explicitly refute kinship: The San Francisco Call in 1897 printed a correction to a previous piece, stating: "'Mollie Fuller is not a sister of La Loie Fuller' is the way it should have appeared." Similarly, The Helena Independent in 1892 notes: "Mollie Fuller (no relative to Loie Fuller, the inventor of the dance, by the way)...". In Loie's Fuller's own memoir, Fifteen Years of a Dancer's Life she writes of being mistaken for Mollie: Then I understood that he had taken me for one of his old friends. "I know whom you mean" I answered, but I am not Mollie Fuller. Mollie Fuller is very well known in the United States, where she is imitating my dances. We are often mistaken for each other, but you must realise that this isn't the same person. Nowhere in the book does Loie refer to Mollie, or anyone else, as a sister. Loie's 1997 biography, Loie Fuller, Goddess of Light, speaks only of brothers, no sisters, and mentions Mollie only in a note invoking possible mistaken identity: "Mollie Fuller, a fairly well known actress at the time...". A 2014 doctoral dissertation mentions a purported dancing sister of Loie ("Ida Fuller") was a hoax for advertising, and states "in fact, Fuller had no sisters" (page 154). Had these two actually been sisters, it is probable more biographers would have mentioned it. There are a lot of unreliable blogs and websites that recycle the sisterhood claim, but unless more conclusive, authoritative sources can be found, I think the weight of evidence (or more so, the absence of evidence) is against sisterhood. --Animalparty! (talk) 06:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)Reply