Mabel Hite

Vaudeville, comedienne, Owl Drug Store, Fairmont Stock Company, Broadway

 

 

 

Before the big screen, Mabel Hite made a name for herself on the stage as a vaudeville comedienne. Hite originally hailed from the blue grass state of Kentucky. She moved from Kentucky to good ole Kansas City when her father found employment at Owl Drug Store, and later, as Kansas City’s first vice president of the National Association of Drug Clerks in the mid 1890s. Here, Hite began her acting career at the young age of 11. By the late 1890s, she became a performer with the Fairmont Stock Company of Kansas City. In 1898, she landed her first role as Adele Ray in The Late Mr. Early, and toured across the United States. However, she made it big after she made her Broadway debut at the Knickerbocker Theatre in 1904 when she played Nerissa in A Venetian Romance. She soon became known for her work in vaudeville, a show with a mix of dancing, singing, and comedy. In 1906, Hite married baseball pro Mike Donlin, who was also an actor. Hite had been married before at the age of 18 to a wealthy businessman named Edward Hamlin, but the marriage lasted only two years. Together, she and Donlin performed in vaudeville acts until her untimely death in 1912 at the age of 29 after a strenuous battle with intestinal cancer.