The impresario's wife - Florence Gladman, Mrs. André Charlot, by Bassano, 1912 and 1913

9 October 1912. (Eight images.)

1913. (Four images.)

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Florence Emily Gladman, known as "Flip" in her family circle, was one of the twelve children of a printer and his wife. It seems the whole family was stagestruck, and Florence and her older sister "Kit", the two eldest of the children, attended a theatrical academy in London and, upon completion of their studies, dubbed themselves the Gladman Sisters. They formed an act with an emphasis on dance and toured Britain with some success, enough to gain the attention of Parisian scouts. The sisters were in Paris for the 1908-09 season where they met André Charlot, French theater manager, impresario and, later, actor. Florence and André soon married and together had a son, Philip (1910-1966), who would become a film editor in England, and they later adopted Joan, the daughter of one of Forence's sisters who had died. Beginning in 1912 and continuing through the Twenties, Charlot would become famous in London and on Broadway for his smart and elegant musical revues, productions which starred the likes of such now legendary performers as Noël Coward, Gertrude Lawrence, Beatrice Lillie, and Jack Buchanan. Theater attendance dropped dramatically with the Depression; he was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1931. And after a series of less than entirely successful smaller shows the couple decamped to Hollywood at the end of the Thirties, where between 1942 and 1955, Charlot reinvented himself as an actor, appearing in small roles in more than fifty films - usually uncredited - before his death in May of 1956. I've been unable to find any more biographical data on his wife, Florence, but it's said that she died only three months after her husband's passing.