Early Life
Catherine “Kitty” Gertrude Hayes was born in San Francisco on the 7th of May, 1885, the daughter of John and Catherine (née Brogan) Hayes. Little is known about her father who was born in Maine and came to California sometime before 1873 where he apparently died by the time of the taking of the 1900 Federal Census. Catherine Brogan was born in Ireland around 1847 and came to America in the early 1860s. Gertrude received her early education at a San Francisco area Catholic convent.
She had been performing on stage for some time as Kitty Hayes before catching the eye of actress Florence Roberts playing a French dancer in Jules Massenet’s five act opera Sapho at San Francisco’s Alcazar Theatre. Not long after Robert's encouragement to pursue a career in dance, Gertrude signed on at the age of sixteen as a dancer with the vaudeville comedy team of Matthews and Bulger and began a tour that would eventually take her to New York City and the Paradise Roof Garden atop Oscar Hammerstein's Victoria Theatre.
Read more about this topic: Gertrude H. Hoffman
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