Bessie McCoy

Bessie McCoy (1888 – August 16, 1931) was an Irish-American Vaudeville star best known for her 1908 hit song and dance routine "The Yama Yama Man", for which she became known as "The Yama Yama Girl". She married war correspondent Richard Harding Davis.[1]

Bessie McCoy as Yama Yama Man, a comical bogeyman who is "ready to spring out at you unaware"

Bessie McCoy
Bessie McCoy in her Yama Yama Man outfit, 1908.
Born	Elizabeth Genevieve McEvoy 1888 Ireland
Died	August 16, 1931 (aged 43) Bayonne, France
Occupation(s)	Singer, actress
Spouse	Richard Harding Davis ​ ​ (m. 1912; died 1916)​
Children	1

Bessie McCoy and daughter, Hope Davis, ca. 1917

McCoy was born in Ireland as Elizabeth Genevieve McEvoy.[2][1] Her mother and father were a vaudeville act known as McCoy and McEvoy, they were Irish clog dancers. Bessie, along with her sister, entered stage in their teens as chorus girls.[1] She appeared in a number of Broadway musicals and made a breakthrough in the play "The Echo". She was given the "Yama Yama Man" song in the 1908 revue Three Twins.

She became famous for her lazy, husky singing while performing unusual acrobatic dance routines while dressed in a clowns pajama suit with a fools cap topped by a puff ball.[1]

She met Harding Davis at this time, and they were married in 1912 when she was 24 years old. After Harding's early death in 1916 from a heart-attack, McCoy retired from stage work and lived in the Davis' Connecticut estate.

In 1931, while in France with her 16-year-old daughter Hope, she died suddenly after an emergency intestinal operation.[1]