Biographies: Fatima - Actor

Biographies

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Syrian dancer, born in 1870 in Syria. She began working as a vaudeville dancer in the late 1880s and later joined the original Little Egypt troupe. She was considered the first famous belly dancer in America after she appeared at the St. Louis World's Exhibition Fair in 1893. Thomas Edison asked her to perform her dance in front of a film camera in 1896 and 1897 at the Black Maria studio (Edison's Black Maria) in West Orange. In 1903, she was seen performing the Coochee Dance, inspired by the Turks. She is known for Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance (1896).