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They had started on the second verse when
Eddie Foy appeared on the stage and tried to
calm the audience. When one of the octet
fainted, the performers left the stage and fled.
Daisy also played the role of one of Bluebeard's eight pretty wives, Zara. (In the original
production at the Knickerbocker Theater in New York
Zara was played by Helga Howard.)
There were also eight ugly wives.
Daisy was quoted as saying, "I was standing in the
third wing ready to go on, and I saw a flame on the
left-hand side, facing the audience, from the
draperies above the first entrance on my right-hand
side. It was in the draperies clear at the top of
the arch in the stage opening. We kept on dancing,
but Miss Williams fainted. I ran for my life without
waiting to see anything more."
Daisy was one of many cast members questioned by
police as to what she saw on the stage at the
Iroquois.
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Daisy's stage name first appeared in print in 1895.
Six months after the Iroquois Theater fire she performed in another comic musical, Isle of Spice, as Anchovia, one of the Court Ladies
of Nicobar. Another Mr. Bluebeard performer,
Herbert Cawthorne, was also in Isle of Spice.
Daisy then went on the road with the production for
a year. In 1907 came The Yankee Consul, in
1908 At the French Ball. I found no
other references to Daisy.
She was hired in 1902 to help promote sheet music
for "On A Saturday Night" by Howard & Emerson.
In Manhattan, Daisy lived in a brownstone apartment
at 178 W. 94th Street. There were ten units in
the building but in 1900, according to the U.S.
Census, fewer than half the apartments were
occupied, none by an actress. Florence Gebhard
and Sara Geer were the only female residents at the
address, then.
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