16 Facts About Lotta Crabtree

Charlotte Mignon Lotta Crabtree was born in New York City on November 7,1847.

Lotta Crabtree soon attracted the attention of a neighbor, the dancer and actress Lola Montez, who encouraged Lotta Crabtree's enthusiasm for performing.

Lotta Crabtree began touring throughout the California mining camps making a name for herself as a dancer, singer, and banjo player.

The embodiment of fun and frolic, Lotta Crabtree mugged for the audience, twisted her finger in her dimple, stuffed coins thrown on stage to her into the tops of her stockings, and overall personified the happy scamp.

Lotta Crabtree had two brothers that were born a few years apart.

Lotta Crabtree achieved the height of her success in the 1870s and 1880s.

Lotta Crabtree starred in several successful plays written for by Fred Marsden, including Zip and Musette.

In 1885, Lotta Crabtree's mother had an 18-room summer cottage built in the Breslin Park section of Mount Arlington, New Jersey, on the shores of Lake Hopatcong.

Lotta Crabtree was forced to retire as a result of a fall onstage in Wilmington, Delaware, in May 1889.

Lotta Crabtree made one final appearance in 1915 for Lotta Crabtree Day in San Francisco at the Panama-Pacific Exposition.

Late in her life, Lotta Crabtree moved to Massachusetts and was owner of acreage in the southern part of the Squantum section of Quincy, immediately south of Boston, Massachusetts.

Lotta Crabtree spent the last 15 years of her life at the Brewster Hotel in Boston, which she had purchased in 1909.

Lotta Crabtree died there on September 25,1924, at age 76 from undisclosed causes.

Lotta Crabtree was described by critics as mischievous, unpredictable, impulsive, rattlebrained, teasing, piquant, rollicking, cheerful, and devilish.

Lotta Crabtree was interred at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.

Lotta Crabtree left an estate of some $4 million in a charitable trust for such causes as veterans, aging actors and animals.