Thompson, Lydia

Thompson, Lydia (1836–1908), actress. A yellow‐haired beauty whose ample proportions pleased an overstuffed era, she caused a sensation in New York in 1868 when she arrived from her native London with her troupe of British blondes to perform a series of burlesque musicals such as Ixion; or, The Man at the Wheel and The Forty Thieves. The most shapely of the girls, including Thompson, regularly assumed the trouser roles in these offerings, so as to show off their legs. Although the more prudish and finicky critics found some of her entertainments salacious, most observers admired her comic flair and graceful, dainty movements. Her success initiated the rage for extended burlesques that flourished in America until the retirement fifty years later of Weber and Fields. Thompson continued to make regular trips between the West End and Broadway, her last American appearance coming in 1894 in The Crust of Society. Biography: Lydia Thompson: Queen of Burlesque, Kurt Ganzl, 2002.