BA1493/7: Winners and runners-up in a Royal Australian Navy boxing tournament in Sydney, June 1922. Sam Chapman (Effie's second husband), second row from the front, third from the right

Summary

Effie Marion Fellows was born at Subiaco in 1893. She went on to the professional stage at the outbreak of World War I and was to perform throughout the world as a male impersonator. In 1922 she played the London Palladium and in America she appeared with Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson. When vaudeville died out in the 1930s, Fellows returned to Perth and continued to entertain at nursing homes and community centres - still in her male costume- until her death in 1977 at the age of 84. She married twice, once to a London vaudeville gymnast whose stage name was Piquo and then to boxing promoter Sammy Chapman.