Florence LeMar

Who is Florence LeMar?

Florence "Flossie" LeMar was the stage name of Florence Gardiner, an athlete and entertainer who toured throughout New Zealand and Australia during the early years of the 1910s.

Little is known of Florence's early life, except that she had been born either in New Zealand's South Island or in Australia circa 1885. She spent her formative years in New Zealand and showed special prowess in athletics, becoming both a champion swimmer and skater during her teen years.

By 1913 she had married Joe Gardiner, an expatriate Englishman who worked as a professional wrestler. Joe is believed to have coached Florence in the skills of jujutsu, which he may have learned while in England. The two then developed a theatrical performance in which Florence delivered a lecture on the benefits of jujitsu as a means of self defence and physical culture, especially for women and children, followed by a series of skits in which she demonstrated a variety of jujitsu techniques against Joe, who played the role of the attacker. Described as being "a refined Vaudeville novelty for all the family", the act toured music halls and variety stages throughout Australasia.

In 1913 the couple either wrote, or had ghost-written, a book entitled The Life and Adventures of Miss Florence LeMar, the World's Famous Ju-Jitsu Girl. Essentially similar to their stage act, the book consisted of a polemic essay on the benefits of jujitsu for women, an exposition of self defence techniques and a series of tall tales about Florence's jujitsu victories against a selection of desperate characters in exotic locations including London and New York.