A Short Bio/Gallery of Trailblazing Strongwoman and Trapeze Performer Laverie "Charmion" Cooper
Laverie was born in 1875 in Sacramento and became known locally during the mid-1890s as a skilled performer on the trapeze.
Charmion became famous when she started performing at the Koster & Bial's theater in New York City in 1896. She attained nationwide fame not only because of her acrobatic skills, but also because of an apparently new part of her shows where she'd disrobe on the trapeze, tossing each article of clothing into the audience until down to flesh-colored tights.
Charmion was also eager to show off her muscles and included flexing routines in her act. She routinely curled 70 pound dumbbells for exercise, could tear chains apart with her bare hands, and once fought a professional male boxer in an informal match and kicked his ass. Once when a man tried to kiss her, she physically threw him down like a sack of potatoes and broke his jaw. Another time famed strongman Sigismund Breitbart publicly claimed that women couldn't be as strong as men. Charmion responded by challenging him to a weightlifting contest; he didn't respond to the challenge.
Her act was incredibly popular with women and marketed for women, which angered right-wing men who whined about how "indecent" it was and how inappropriate it was for women to watch (and for Charmion to throw underwear to women in the audience, which she was also known to do). Charmion responded to these complaints by mocking the losers for their prudishness and emphasizing the stripping part of her act even further.
A brilliant woman who was fluent in five languages, Charmion frequently wrote newspaper articles and gave public lectures in an effort to encourage other women to exercise and become fit like her. Charmion seemingly retired late in 1912, around the same time she married fellow vaudeville performer William Vallee. she died in 1949.