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A Tiller Girl Story
Olive Fances Hollingshead This is Olive 1923
•Olive would have been roughly 17 years old when this was taken early in 1923.• She would probably have been training with the Tiller School from 12 or 14 years of age I think with the London School as her and her sister are listed as from St Margarets on Thames Twickenham. The girls from this time worked incredibly hard most from working class families from Manchester and a few from the new London Tiller School. Olive being a very attractive and talented dancer was picked by John Tiller to dance in one of his best troupes, She danced with her younger sister Winnie Hollinghead for her first years with the Tiller Girls. Winnie had followed her sister into the Tiller Girls and first went to the USA with her in 1926 aged 18. •This is some of Olive's story as sent to her sister Winnie in the UK over the years. By 1924 Olive was dancing in Lollipop on Broadway in one of the very best Tiller Troupes. She was one of only two dancers from London the other being the 18 year old Constance Aldis. all the other girls were from the North of England mainly the Blackpool area. 
 
By 1925 Olive is back in the UK her and the other girls are
dancing a summer Season at the Winter Gardens Blackpool
then later in the year in Bristol.
After the summer shows, December 1925 sees the girls is in a
Christmas show with the Tiller Girls in Glasgow for the new year.
December 7th
1926 Olive sailed aboard the Cunard liner Berengaria back to the USA
to dance in the show Yours Truly, first in Chicago, then the show
moved on to Broadway to be one of three shows on at that
time
featuring the Tiller girls.
Head Girl Irene (rene) Todd, Marjorie Griffiths, Louisa Gillette, Cora Neary, Isabella (Bella) Pilling, Francis Lunn, Olive Hollingshead, Winnie Hollingshead, Amilia (Millie) Cox, Edna McCullum, Renee Roberts, Sadie Hudson, Constance (Connie) Clements, Marie Webster, Edie Bennett, Alice Pittman, Jane miller, Edith Bennett, Winifred Adams.
•On
Broadway with the show Yours Truly
•Yours
Truly Olive Hollingshead & Winnie Hollingshead
Jan 25, 1927 - May 14, 1927
Then return to the UK for a very short break.
July 30th 1927 the troupe set sail on the Scythia from Liverpool to New York•.
December 1927 Olive is back in New York
in the show Yours Truly
This time Olive did not return to England with the
other girls she stayed in New York to appear on Broadway in the Shubert Show
1928
The other girls in the troupe returned to the UK Winnie included. many of the other girls returned to America in August 1928 to appear in other shows but as far as I am aware Winnie did not return to the USA to dance.
Olive was next in another broadway show,
A Night in Venice Original,
Musical,
•Female
Performer
•Olive Hollingshead
•Dates of Performer: May 21, 1929 - Oct 19, 1929 By this time Mary read who ran the New York Tiller School of dance had signed a contract with a film studio in Hollywood many of the girls went on to dance in a number of large productions. Olive moved to California in 1929 to dance in films.
Next Olive is in Hollywood in
her first film
Palmy Days (1931)
Dance routines are
choreographed by the
legendary Busby Berkeley
In 1933 Olive was
cast in Roman
Scandals,
 This Eddie
Cantor film
is full of
the Busby
Berkeley
signatures
dance
numbers and
was the last
film he
directed for
Samual
Goldwyn.
His talents
were put to
good use in
a variety of
numbers. For
one slave
market
sequence,
Busby
persuaded a
number of
dancers to
appear in
the nude;
they
consented,
only if the
set was
closed, and
they had
long blond
wigs
covering
them in
strategic
places; even
so, the
girls look
practically
naked, “one
of Busby's
specialities”
He
auditioned
hundreds of
girls for
this film
only using
his best
dancers. One
of these was
Lucille
Ball, whom
Samuel
Goldwyn
didn't like
but Busby
cast her
anyway. Many
people
forget that
Ms. Ball was
a dancer!
Olive then married Alfred Langridge and had a son Robert, I believe she worked as a nurse during the war, and appeared in amateur productions over the years, I have photos of her in 1952 leading a hectic social life.
I would love to be in contact with her family, should anyone who knows them read this please ask them to contact me. Bernard Tiller
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an Eddie Cantor film
