MILLS, FLORENCE

MILLS, FLORENCE Singer, dancer and actress, Florence Mills was acclaimed as a leading Broadway star during the 1920's. Born in Washington, B.C. in 1895, she acquired local fame as "Baby Florence" at the age of five by singing and dancing in the exclusive salons of Washington society. In 1903, the Mills family moved to New York, where Florence joined with her two sisters to form an act known as The Mills Trio. Her stage credits include appearances in Shuffle Along (1921), Plantation Revue (1922), From Dixie to Broadway (1924-25) and Black­birds (1926). Well received on Broadway and in Paris and London, Flo Mills died at the age of thirty-two as the result of complications arising from an appendectomy in 1927.