Annabelle Moore

Annabelle Moore was born Annabelle Theresa Whitford on July 6, 1878 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father passed away shortly after she was born and her mother remarried. At the age of fifteen Annabelle made her dancing debut at the World's Columbian Expedition in Chicago. Then she moved to New York City and started making movies at Edison Studios. Between 1894 and 1897 Annabelle made ten short films including Serpentine Dance, Flag Dance, and Butterfly Dance. She was paid just $15 a day. Her sexy dancing made her very popular and it was said she introduced eroticism in film. During this time she also modeled for artists like Charles Dana Gibson. She made headlines in 1897 when she refused an offer to dance nude at a bachelor party. Annabelle was engaged to a Baron from Austria and to Henry Bissing, head of the Bissing Electric Company. In 1900 she made her Broadway debut in The Sprightly Romance Of Marsac. She also appeared in the shows A Venetian Romance and The Belle Of Mayfair (she was now billed as Annabelle Whitford). While performing at Chicago's Iroquois Theater in 1903 a fire broke out that killed six hundred people. Florenz Ziegfeld cast her as the Gibson Girl in the 1907 Ziegfeld Follies. She remained with the Follies for two more years earning more than $750 a week. Annabelle married Dr. Edward Buchan, a surgeon, in 1910. Soon after she decided to retire from show business. She and her husband moved back to her hometown of Chicago. The couple remained out of the spotlight until 1957 when newspapers reported that they were broke and living in an unheated apartment. Edward died in 1958 at the age of seventy-seven. Annabelle, who was now an invalid, spent the next few years living on assistance. On November 29, 1961 she died at the age of eighty-three. She was cremated and her ashes were given to a family friend.