PERFORMANCE

Frank Lackteen (Mohammed Hassan Yachteen, Qab Elias, Lebanon, August 29, 1897 – July 8, 1968) was a talented actor who appeared in at least 200 Hollywood films. After emigrating to the United States in the early 1900s, Lackteen made enough money through factory work to move to Los Angeles and pursue acting. His film career, which spanned over 50 years, survived Hollywood’s rampant racism from early silent films into the Classical Era of the 1960s.

George Hamid, Sr. (February 4, 1896 – June 8, 1971, Brummana, Lebanon) became a performing acrobat, learning from his uncle, at a young age. In 1907, Hamid joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show and performed in vaudeville shows across the United States. In 1919, he created his own business, Hamid’s Oriental Circus, and spent the entirety of his career operating various circuses, fairs, and entertainment attractions.

Joseph Arbeely (Yusef Awad Qaloush from Arbil c.1828 – August 12, 1894), his wife, six sons, and niece are considered the first Syrian family to immigrate in the United States. In 1880, while a professor at Maryville College in Tennessee, he began a lecture circuit joined in various combinations with sons, Negeeb, Khaleel, Habeeb, and Nasseem. Playing to America’s fascination with the exoticized East, the Arbeelys presented “costumes, manners, and habits” perceived as the “authentic Orient.” These theatrical demonstrations included pipe smoking, coffee preparation, and performing Islamic marriage rights. The success of the Arbeely’s tour inspired other Syrian immigrants to embrace stereotyped cultural performance as a vocation.

Marrie Bayrooty “the Greatest Whirling Dancer on Earth” performed with the Bayrooty Bros’ Oriental Troupe at Barnum & Bailey’s Freak Hall in New York, the Stones Museum in Boston, and 9th and Arch Dime Museum in Philadelphia during the early twentieth century. On April 7, 1905 she whirled 2,240 times in 37 minutes while eating an orange and a banana at Madison Square Garden, setting the new world record.

Rahme Haidar (1886 – 1939) toured her character "Princess" Rahme throughout the U.S. and Canada with her romantic partner and musical accompanist Lucille Burgess. As a cultural mediator, Haidar used “traditional” Syrian dress and Orientalized drama and music-based adaptations of Biblical stories to correct the negative stereotypes and myths Americans held of the East. Haidar used her performances to raise funds for relief efforts in areas of the Middle East that lacked essentials due to War World I.

Julia Taweel (December 3, 1903 – November 9, 1976, Sahel Alma, Lebanon) Around 1906 Julia’s mother, Melany Hakim, traveled from Lebanon ahead of her husband, Joseph, and Julia. Melany worked in New York, originally as a peddler, but after being drugged and robbed, opted to work as a seamstress in a garment factory. At some point  between 1906 and 1908, Melany moved to Chicago. In 1909 she sent for (a second time after the first failed attempt in 1908) for Joseph and Julia to join her in Chicago.

Julia attended an Irish Catholic parochial school through eighth grade. At graduation she expressed a desire to become a telegraph operator. For a variety of reasons her path lead to marriage to Michael Taweel from Damascus, Syria. (Half brother of Archbishop Joseph Tawil of the Melkite rite).

Julia bore three children, Esma who died after only two weeks, Marie Antoinette (Taweel) Walker in 1923, and Michael Francis Taweel Jr. in 1927.

Hanna Korany (1871 – 1898, Mt. Lebanon, Lebanon) was a lecturer and writer who gained prestige at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair as the Syrian delegate at the Congress of Representative Women. Korany’s influence as a cultural mediator between the Middle East and United States won her notoriety across the world. She wrote for the Egyptian women’s magazine al-Fatat and lectured at women’s associations and conventions across the United States to speak about Syrian culture and gender issues.