Florence J. Elmer was fromNewark, New Jersey, but was raised partly in England. She started on stage at age 3, as "Baby Bindley",[1] dancing and playing novelty instruments made by her father. At age 6, she performed forQueen Victoria.[2]
Poster for Florence Bindley in the Broadway production ofThe Street Singer byHal Reid (1904)
Bindley appeared on Broadway and in variety shows, includingHeroine in Rags (1887),[3]The Pay Train (1892),[4][5]Captain's Mate (1894),[6]A Midnight Marriage (1904),[7]The Street Singer (1904),[8]The Belle of the West (1905),[9]The Girl and the Gambler (1906),[10]In the Nick of Time (1908), andMajor Meg (1916),[11] which included a display of "her famous zylophone specialty."[12] "She is at all times charming, magnetic, and possesses a beautiful singing voice," commented thePittsburgh Press in 1904, "together with marked emotional and comedy ability."[13]She was billed as "The Girl with the Diamond Dress,"[2] for an unusual costume she wore, first on the vaudeville stage and later inThe Street Singer.[14] A later vaudeville act of Bindley's, "An Afternoon at Home" (1909), featured musical monologues, singing and dancing.[15]
Florence Elmer married twice. Her first marriage, to her cousin Edward Everett Bindley, ended in divorce in 1890.[16] She remarried to silent film actorDarwin Karr by 1910.[2] She was widowed when he died in 1945. Florence Bindley died in 1951, aged 82 years, inLos Angeles, California.
An advertisement from 1904, "Forrester & Mittenthal present Florence Bindley inThe Street Singer a musical drama by Hal Reid", in the Prints and Photographs collection of the Library of Congress.
