Mary Adelaide Dickey

Mary Adelaide Dickey (1882-1960) was an American vaudeville performer, who performed as Adelaide or La Petite Adelaide. She was best known in the 1910s and 1920s as half of 'Adelaide and Hughes', a husband-and-wife dance partnership with Johnny J. Hughes.

Life Mary Adelaide Dickey was born in Cohoes, New York, in 1882, the oldest of three girls born to W. James and Josephine Dickey. She studied dance under C. H. Van Arnum in Troy, and by 1894 was toe dancing as La Petite Adelaide in New York City. In 1897 she made a movie, La Petite Adelaide, for American Mutoscope Company. Her speciality dance was a Doll Dance. ) and Town Topics (1915). Together, the pair choreographed dances for vaudeville shows including Pierrot and Pierette (1914), The Dancing Divinities (1917), Classics of an Age (1917) and The Garden of the World (!917). They continued dancing together until Hughes's death in 1927. She retired from dancing and lived on until 1960.