Ollie Burgoyne (1875-1974)

Ollie Burgoyne was born, Olive Martin on June 13th, 1875, in Chicago, Illinois to Melvina Alexander and Henry C. Martin. Her maternal grandparents, William (1826-1891) and Mary Alexander (April 1824-May 23, 1916) originated from a plantation in Lafayette County, Missouri near the city of Lexington. After marrying around 1840, the couple produced the children: Charlie, Melvina (August 1849-c. 1908) and Jennie L. Alexander (April 1857-December 1923). After William Alexander was sold down to New Orleans, Mary hired her son off to various landowners to raise money to relocate to Peoria. Eventually the family reunited after the Civil War and moved further north to Chicago.

Chicago (1875)

In 1869, after graduating from Wilberforce University, Melvina “Mattie” Alexander met and married Henry C. Martin (1834-Jul.21, 1903), a barber from New York and settled into an apartment next door to the Academy Music Theatre. The marriage produced two children, William C. Martin (October 1869-1959) and Olive “Ollie” Martin. The entire Alexander family relocated to Kansas City, Kansas in September 1871. Since Mr and Mrs Martin frequently relocated between Chicago, Topeka and Kansas City, William and Ollie were left in the care of their Aunt Jennie Edinboro (she had married William Edinboro in 1887) at 539 State Street. 

Kansas City (1880)

Ollie's career began around 1887, at age 12, possibly in local churches. By 1894, she had left home and relocated to Chicago to work as a singer in the local clubs. By April 1896, she was a member of Allen's Celebrated Jubilee Singers. That August, she adopted the stage name, Ollie Burgoyne and moved to New York City as a chorus girl with John Isham's Oriental America Company. The show toured the Eastern United States for eight months before sailing for England in April 1897, where it remained for a year. However, Ollie isn't mentioned as being a part of the British tour, deciding to remain with a second company that continued appearing in New York for another year. In 1898, she joined the cast of John Isham's Octoroon company, touring the East Coast for a year before then joining the Williams & Walker company by December 1898, appearing in the productions “The Talk of the Town” and “A Lucky Coon”. Late-1900, she was traveling with Dunbar & Cook's production, “Uncle Eph’s Christmas”.

Returning to New York by April 1901, Ollie noticed an advertisement posted in the New York Herald by German theatrical impresario Paula Kohn-Wöllner, seeking seven African-American women with the ability to sing and dance for a concert tour of Germany. The Seven Louisiana Amazon Guard company was composed of Fannie Wise, Florence Collins, Emma Harris, S. T. Jubrey, Alverta Burley and Burgoyne. The seventh member, Coretté Hardy, remained in New York as a reserve. 

Vienna (September 1901)

On April 10, the six women were brought to the Passport Office to apply for their first passports. After two weeks with Ms. Kohn-Wöllner paying for all six of the women's travel expenses, they boarded on the S.S. Deutschland, heading for Germany. By April 21, the troupe had arrived in Leipzig, Germany. Throughout June and July, the troupe made a series of successful performances at Kaiserkrone and Carlsbad's Hotel Weber in Kiel. In late August, the women intrigued Hungarian audiences at the Os-Budavara fortress. In September, the women fulfilled a month-long engagement at Vienna's Colosseum Theater. The following month was spent at Copenhagen's Cirkus Variete for the beginning of their brief Scandinavian tour.

Budapest (August 1901)

In November, the troupe spent two successful weeks at Goteborg's Circus Madigan and two more weeks at Stockholm's Svensalen Variety Restaurant. Between their performances, on November 11, Ms. Kohn-Wöllner conducted several interviews with the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, frequently pushing forward Wise (dressed in a black and white dress). Ms. Kohn-Wöllner mentioned her plans to organize a band for the troupe, the contract she signed with the Folies-Bergere (for January 1902) and to bring over Hardy, who was still waiting in America. The troupe returned to Germany in December to entertain at Berlin's Circus Schumann where they ended the year, preparing for another year of extensive touring.

Germany (c. 1902)

The new year of 1902, the group opened in Magdeburg for a two-week engagement before moving on to France, where the women intended to perform at Paris' famous Folie-Bergere cabaret. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as if that ever came into fruition and the troupe returned to Germany to appear in Braunswich's Bruning Theater and Halle's Walhalla Theater. The month of March was spent in Breslau's Liebich Etablissement, followed by performances at Danzig's Wilhelm Theater and Poznan's Kaisergarten in April. In May, the group disappears briefly from the limelight as Fannie Wise and S.T. Jubrey suddenly quit the group and returned home to the United States. During this time their replacements, standby performers, Coretté Hardy and Fannie Smith (20-year-old from Philadelphia) were promptly brought over to Europe. Throughout June, the troupe toured across Switzerland, performing in Zurich and St. Gallen before returning north to Germany. The month of July was spent at Munich's Deutsches Theater, followed by a month at Leipzig's Central Theater (September) and Dresden (October). 

On November 9th, 1902, after twenty-one months of touring across Europe, during their Dresden engagement, the entire troupe walked out on their German impresario. Kohn-Wöllner was taken to court and accused of exploiting them financially. Lead performer Ollie Burgoyne was elected as their new manager and, now as the "Five Louisianas", the women left for Berlin, where they entertained at the Orpheum Theater and Harmonie Circus. After a brief engagement in Trier and Aachen, the group suddenly disappeared. In March 1903, Ollie Burgoyne and Florence Collins renewed their American passports and departed for London to join the cast of Hurtig & Seamon's In Dahomey, which opened on May 16th at the Shaftesbury Theatre.

Ollie performed as a chorus girl with “In Dahomey” for the next ten months before sailing for Russia in March 1904, where she filed a passport in Saint Petersburg on March 14th. During the summer of 1904, the Harris Trio (remnants from the Louisiana Amazon Guard), together with Ollie Bourgoyne and Jennie Scheper (from the Florida Creole Girls) formed a new company known as the "Creole Troupe" and continued touring the principal Russian cities. On January 22, 1905, while attending a party, hosted by popular American jockey, William Caton, in central Saint-Petersburg, the women witnessed the Bloody Sunday riots outside the Tsar's palace and across the city. The trio immediately packed up and returned to Moscow, where they resumed working at the Aumont Theater. In February, while performing in the city of Vyatka, the troupe decided to dissolve. 

Helsinki (March 1905)

Now known as Olga Burgoyne, Ollie formed a duet known as the Sisters Burgoyne (Jennie Scheper possibly being the other member) and appeared at Helsinki's Societetshuset (March 1905) and Saint Petersburg's Krestovskiy Garden Theater (May-August 1905), although Ollie later claimed that her engagement at the Krestovskiy lasted two years. According to LeRoi Antoine's later biography on Laura Bowman, by September 1906, while Pete Hampton & Laura Bowman were appearing in Moscow, they were entertained by Ollie Burgoyne, her cousin Ida Forsyne and another African-American entertainer known as Irene Ford.

The following month, Hampton & Bowman took a vacation to Odessa, where they ran into Ollie Burgoyne again, who had joined her boyfriend, a Russian nobleman known as Sasha. Sasha was buying a set of horses for his wife and his Black mistress. A couple of weeks later, as the 1905 revolution intensified across the Russian Empire, Ollie and Ida Forsyne, with the help of friends at the American Embassy, escaped to London before returning to Saint Petersburg in the summer of 1907, moving into N°3 Moshkov Lane, according to the local address books. In September, she debuted at the Apollo Theater for a month before moving on to Finland, performing at Helsinki's Princess Restaurant (November) and Turku's Hotel Phoenix (December).

By early 1908, she had returned home to the Russian capital, settling into a new residence at N°4 Aleksandrovskaya. Ollie had become a popular exotic dancer in the Russian Empire known as, Граната (The Grenade) due to her firecracker personality. She began singing in German, French and Russian and performed the Maxixe, Ballet and Algerian Belly Dances onstage. Five months later, after a brief trip to England, on May 21, 1908, Ollie boarded the S.S. Celtic at Liverpool returning to America to visit relatives in Kansas City (possibly for her mother's funeral). The family still resided at 539 State Avenue and her brother William had become an editor with local African-American publication, The American Citizen. On July 2nd, Ollie performed onstage at the Sparks Theater, the proceeds going to a local orphanage. On September 24th, she gave a brief appearance at New York's Woods Palace before returning home to Russia, to appear that winter at Moscow's Scala Theater. 

12-b Bolshaya Ruzheynaya (c. 1915)

The year 1909, proved to be a very successful year for Ollie Burgoyne. She settled into a luxurious apartment at N°10 Bolshaya Ruzheynaya in the Petrogradsky District of Saint Petersburg. Two doors down, at N°12-b Bolshaya Ruzheynaya, she opened the Maison Créole: Lingerie Parisienne, an upscale lingerie boutique with 27 employees and showcased black mannequins in the windows. Together with her business partner, Mattie Vera Wilkes (a fellow chorus girl from Oriental America), the boutique ran for the next five years. When she wasn't running the boutique, she was appearing across the Russian Empire. In April, she appeared at Saint Petersburg's illustrious Kontan Restaurant, situated within the Hotel Rossia, located at 58 Moika River Embankment and famous for its exquisite cuisine and Romanian orchestras. The following month, she was dancing at Moscow's Aquarium Garden Theater. By July 2nd, she was back in Saint Petersburg, filing passport with the American Embassy. For next year, there's no records of her whereabouts.

 

Bucharest (March 1912)

On September 20th, 1910, she was in London visiting the home of Jennie Scheper and her new husband, Alphonso Haston. Four days later, she sailed on the SS Campania from Liverpool to New York, listing her destination as 20 West 136th Street. Although it's unknown how she spent her time during this trip to America, she reunited with her cousin, Ida Forsyne and Ida's husband Usher Henry Watts. Ollie and Usher decided to form a duet, known as the Duo Eclatants and returned together to Europe to embark on a 16-month tour. After a brief Russian tour, the couple appeared across Germany, Austria-Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Greece and Egypt. On May 7th, 1912, the couple sailed from Bremen aboard the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm back to New York, where they went their separate ways. Ollie returned home to Russia on June 15th.

In February 1913, Ollie was performing in Moscow, renewing her passport while there on the 26th. Two months later, for a few weeks in April, she appeared at Kiev's Villa Josef Cabaret. Returning to Moscow that summer, she appeared at the famous Hermitage Gardens, a popular recreation garden known for its attractions and live performances located in central Moscow on Karetny Ryad Street. That October, she headed west for Poland, performing at Warsaw's Oaza Kabarett for a few weeks.  By early 1914, her touring had taken Ollie across the border into Austria-Hungary, appearing in Budapest by March. She filed a passport from the American Consulate General on March 12th. By July, she was vacationing in the Austrian spa town of Marienbad when WWI broke out on July 28th. Ollie however did not receive the news until three days later. Traveling immediately to Vienna, she attempted to return home to Russia but was unable to. After several more attempts from Berlin, The Hague and London, she gave up and on October 20th, sailed from Liverpool aboard the SS Franconia back to America accompanied by Mattie Wilkes. Her luxurious Saint Petersburg apartment, filled with all her possessions, had been lost and her successful Maison Créole boutique at N°12-b Bolshaya Ruzheynaya had been sold and turned into an automobile dealership.

1915 Passport Photo

Unable to find work in America, and refusing to become a maid as her cousin, Ida Forsyne had become, Ollie sailed back across the Atlantic, settling in London, moving into an apartment on Southampton Row in early 1915. There she began entertaining the British elite with her exotic dances. Perhaps she hoped to wait out the war in England and return to Russia when the borders reopened. However by 1916, she had given up hope and sailed back permanently to the United States on March 18th aboard the SS Finland. After a brief stint at the Lincoln Theatre, she joined the cast of “Way Down on the Suwanee River”, appearing with them throughout the summer, leaving briefly to return to Kansas City for the funeral of her grandmother Jennie Edinboro. After moving back into her childhood home of 539 State Avenue, with her brother and aunt, Ollie began spending long months on the road with various vaudeville productions such as: Over The Top (1918), They're Off (1919), Town Top Piks (1920), Lost In Hawaii (1921), Ollie Burgoyne Company (1922) and Follow Me (1923-24). She was frequently billed as Olga Burgoyne: the Algerian Girl, and told stories to reporters that she was of Russian and Algerian heritage.

In September 1924, while appearing in Pittsburgh, Ollie eloped with 41-year old Ward Lionel Calloway, proprietor of the Ward Calloway Hotel. Ollie moved into his home at 2341 Wylie Avenue and abandoned the Follow Me company. However after a brief romance, she was back on the road the following year with the Darktown Strutters company alongside Ida Forsyne. In 1927, after appearing for a year on Broadway in the production of “Lulu Belle”, she once again traveled the United States with the Miss Bandanna company before settling back in New York in 1928, appearing on Broadway in several productions such as “The Lady Lies” opening November 26th at the Little Theatre, “Solitaire” on March 12th, 1929 at the Waldorf Theatre, “Tired Man Business”, opening June 3rd at the Waldorf Theatre and “Make Me Know It” opening November 4th at Wallack's Theatre. During this time she married Louisiana musician, Davidson Claudfield Nelson (Jul.25, 1903-Apr.7, 1946). The couple settled at 166 West 128th Street with her brother William and the mother of her ex-husband, Ward Calloway. This second marriage was also brief. 

Scene from "Laughter" (1930)

In 1930, she appeared in the comedy film produced by director Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, Laughter. Filmed in Astoria, Queens at Paramount Studios, Ollie appeared as Pearl, The maid to actress Nancy Carroll's character, Peggy Gibson. In 1937, she also briefly appeared in the 1937 film, “The Timid Ghost”, directed by William Watson.

In March 1931, she appeared in Yonkers as a member of the Bronze Ballet Plastique. The group rebranded and returned to New York City as the Negro Art Theater Dance Group, appearing throughout the summer, although it didn't receive much recognition. By the fall of 1931, Ollie had retired as a dancer at age 56, focusing on her career as an actress. From 1931-1942, she appeared in numerous stage productions, such as “Run Lil Chillun, Run!” which opened at New York's Lyric Theatre on March 1st, 1933 and ran for three and a half months. She was also hired as a choreographer, teaching Russian dances to American entertainers. 

Colonial House Restaurant

By May 1943, at age 67, she retired from the stage altogether, working at the 34th Street Subway Station exchange booth. A few months later, she traveled to California, visiting a friend in Oxnard. During her visit, she accepted what was supposed to be a short term gig as a hat-check girl at the Colonial House Restaurant, the most popular spot in Ventura County frequented by Hollywood stars. Instead, this visit turned into a permanent residency. For the next 22 years, she checked coats, waited tables and occasionally performed onstage at the Colonial House. In-between songs, she frequently recounted stories of her time in Europe to diners. Suffering from a heart condition, she retired in 1965.

On April 2nd, 1974, Ollie Burgoyne passed away in Oxnard. Four days later, after a service at Payton’s Mortuary Chapel, she was buried at Ivy Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.